You. The dust is coming from you.
That is to say, a significant portion of dust is actually skin cells shed by humans.
And pets et. al.
Love our pets to death but four of them is going to generate some stuff
I have two and generate the equivalent of several new pets every week.
used to be. i think synthetic fibers have changed that alot
Microplastic in other words.
I’m going to wrap myself in saran wrap
Same, but that’s just my kink.
not necessarily. if you live on a delta or a river bank the soil is very fine. particularly in dry seasons, it travels far (more than sand) through air and comes through opening of a house. fine particles stay suspended in air for long. so even if you close the windows you will see dust depositing on surface, especially electrically charged ones.
I live near a volcano, and I’d say most of the “dust” in our home is actually very fine volcanic ash.
There’s definitely some skin cells and pet dander in there. There’s just no way that those things are a majority of what we sweep up every few days, because our collective mass cannot possibly be dwindling that quickly.
A quick search suggests that one square inch of skin has 19 million skin cells. At a rate of 1000 per hour, it would take 19,000 hours (791.6 days) for one person to shed enough cells to equal one square inch of skin. Two humans live in my household, so we’ll say for us together it would take roughly a year.
I’m sweeping up multiple cubic inches of dust multiple times a week. If dust were “mostly” skin cells, we should only need to dust a little bit once a year.
What you meant to say is “the dust is coming from inside the house!”
This has been debunked. Most of it does not come from a person.
I promise you most of the dust in my house is from me.
Because I work construction, and I often forget to dust off before entering.
Have you read your own linked article?
From the article you’ve linked:
And since an individual with the average amount of skin surface area sheds 1,000 skin cells per hour, that means a lot of the dust in your home, and many other places, truly contains a lot of dead skin.
“[T]he debunkers are debunked,” Muller says in the video, adding that “dead skin cells do make up a significant portion of household dust.”
[…]
Are you shocked to learn that this “myth” is, essentially, true?A significant portion, yes, but not the majority of it. The majority of it comes from fabrics, or depending where you live and the air system you have, outside.
If you watch the full video that point is made clear.
Alright. I have only read the article. Might watch the video sometime later.
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I fucking wish. Dust in the middle East is mostly sand particles
Sand is mostly shed human skin.
We here on Lemmy struggle with understanding sarcasm sometimes.
TBF, we’ve probably all met a lot of genuinely stupid people. Poe’s Law can strike anywhere, anytime.
That’s what the sarcasm flag is there for: “/s”
which you put at the end of the specific sarcastic expression.Some people just have trouble understanding sarcasm. Be it, because the intended tone is not understood by the reader due to the mere text medium, or because someone has trouble understanding irony and sarcasm due to being neurodivergent.
For irony and jokes I use “/i” and “/j” respectively in a similar manner.
In the context here, I would have just written:
“Sand is mostly shed human skin. /j”
More specifically foreskin
Or possibly the dry Arizona desert you live adjacent to. That may contribute.
I had a friend of mine recommend a book on the subject of dust … and how this stuff just permeates our environment, into space and throughout the universe.
She gave me a strong warning about the book … she said that once you read it, you’ll never breathe comfortably again knowing that every breath you make for the rest of your life is saturated with all kinds of things from all kinds of places and that 99.99999% of the time everything is just fine but every once in a while, a tiny particle of the right type with the right content just ends up in your lungs and completely screws up your biology.
I would not be okay after reading such book. I am most certainly never going to do that.
What’s the name of the book?
How to get OCD and obsessed with cleaning
from ashes to ashes and dust to dust
hope we get an answer, but maybe it’s ## Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles
Well now you got me breathing manually
I had a similar feeling of overwhelm when I heard how many kitchen sponges have been found with fecal matter contamination. I’ve since switched to Swedish dishcloths and hope to never touch a sponge again in my life.
Counter-point: AFAIK “fecal matter contamination” usually means “we found some ecoli”. A bacteria that is completely ubiquitous and almost always harmless unless you manage to ingest a significant amount or rub them into your eyes. It can be a useful general cleanliness indicator, for example if high concentrations of ecoli are measured in a body of water it probably means raw sewage made its way there, and you should be worried about the things that aren’t ecoli. However you’re not particularly likely to catch cholera or dysentery from your own sponge.
Furthermore sponges aren’t meant to be clean per se. They’re meant to be mechanically abrasive, so that all the impurities are detached from the surface you’re cleaning. Those impurities then bind to the soap molecules which prevent them from clinging to surfaces, and therefore allow them to be easily washed away when rinsing.
It does not matter much if the sponge was dirty because the bacteria from the sponge will rinse away alongside the bacteria from the item you’re cleaning. Just make sure to soap, rinse, and dry things properly and wash your hands after handling a sponge.That makes so much sense, and makes me feel better about using sponges.
But at some point it has to become the source of bacteria, no? Yellow sponges that look more like a greyish brown can not possibly sanitary food-safe items you want to rub all over your eating dishes. And they’re not exactly expensive.
Do not look into bathrooms and tooth brushes then.
I cut out the middle man and just end up rinsing my toothbrush in the toilet bowl after I brush my teeth.
I decluttered and simplified by simply brushing my ass instead of wiping.
I change my dish sponge every couple weeks, and toss any that are visibly dirty at all. If it sits in the sink longer than like 20 seconds, trash. I do not understand why people hold on to these $2 items until they’re entirely new colors, probably harboring germ colonies on the verge of space travel.
I always had a hunch that people that drive all crazy do it because they drive a lot, causing them to drive by road kill a lot which wofts of rabies into their lungs and over time they get crazier and crazier
This is such an interesting idea. I feel like, if this was true, I would be crazy though.
In Worm, some superheroes are tinkers. Super scientists and engineers. Like Iron Man or Mister Freeze. Most tinkers have a speciality.
There’s an Indian tinker whose name translates as Particulate. He’s a dust tinker. And he’s a total maverick with a super destructive dust cannon who decides to take on an Endbringer with it.
Anyone who can get windows really, actually clean, let me know your secret. It’s freakin’ impossible.
There’s a few scripts out there, but you’ll always be better off with linux
Windex and newspaper always did the trick for me.
They still make newspapers?
When you didn’t have newspaper, pages from the phonebook would work, too.
I don’t think they make those anymore either.
See? This is why my windows haven’t been clean in decades.
They do, but the white pages are nearly nonexistent now that almost everyone has a cell instead of a landline.
I haven’t lived in the US for 4 years now, but when I did, we had phone books dropped on our front porch every six months. I’d see one, pick it up, carry it through the house, and deposit it directly in the recycling bin.
Why newspaper? Is it just lint free, or does it do something that paper towels won’t do. I still get coupons in the mail with news print pages, so I’ll have to give it a try.
I’ll add to the conversation and say, denatured alcohol works great on anything that sticks or smears if you have a particularly tough spot.
It’s lint-free… and free! Paper towels are definitely not the answer as they leave little bits behind.
Newspaper works really well, but in this day and age, a clean microfiber cloth may be more accessible to you
I can’t handle the texture of microfiber in my hands. I get the shivers and goosebumps. I can’t find a decent cleaning cloth any time I look. I remember my mom having cloth diapers from the 80s, and they worked great for 20 years or so. I should look into that.
Newspaper doesn’t leave ink behind? I imagine the comics leaving a faint colorful streak.
Unless they’ve changed the formula it should work fine. I can’t recall using the comics, there was always a more boring section to crumple up first.
The right paper towels can do the job well.
Just glass cleaner, a lint-frre cloth (like micro-fiber) and most importantly a clean and smooth squeegee. Spray it on and scrub the window in small circular motion with the cloth. Squeegee it off in a slow and steady motion from top to bottom.
Might have to repeat it again if the windows were super dirty to begin with.
Water and microfiber cloth always worked best for us.
first you wipe of the worst grime with one of those squeegees that has a sponge on the back side. try to catch dribble with old cloth or so. (some will spill if you’re not a super pro. wipe it off the floor later.)
then you use a chamois leather (also available in synthetic, so it can be vegan) with glass cleaner solution that contains spirit (aka ethyl alcohol) from a spray bottle. you spray it on, then rub with the chamois. the glass cleaner kinda evaporates after the fine dirt gets into the chamois, so no residue will be left on the glass.
Huh, never had a problem with that. You gotta dry off the water after you’ve wiped them, to avoid lime spots from forming. Alternatively, you can use alcohol to wipe them down, which will dissipate without leaving spots.
But yeah, that’s about the whole secret. Just a cloth with water and then wiping all the surfaces of the window has always worked well enough for me. But I guess, your mileage might vary depending on what kind of grime is in the air where you live…
People have mentioned these separately but I just want to say,
alcohol + microfiber cloth
I mean Windex is just colored alcohol with surfactants added to make it work better, so if alcohol works for you, glass cleaner should work even better.
Make sure you’re changing your HVAC/furnace filter every 2-3 months if dust is a major problem for you. Especially if you have to dust more than once every week or three.
Please stop adding to my list. :(
Sorry but this is not something you can just avoid doing. Your air conditioner/furnace will literally break if you’re not staying on top of filter replacements. New filter every 3 months is the longest you can get away with not replacing it before dust buildup starts damaging your system.
Please take care of this ASAP.
How did you learn about this, a bad experience?
Honestly, I’m surprised that this isn’t common sense. Think about it: filter gets clogged, fan struggles to move air due to clogged filter, fan eventually overheats and dies from too much stress. Doesn’t take a bad experience to figure out the blatantly obvious.
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*with a 1 inch filter
If you have a 4 or 5 inch filter the capacity is huge. 6 months easy. You can find 4 inch filters that have a lip to fit in a 1-inch slot.
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, into the silent water
Under the rocks and stones, there is water undergroundEverything should cost under 20 dollars unless it’s a car or a house, and those should cost 500 dollars.
But then you’d have to save for years to afford the house! /s
In order:
Because you’ll pay it. Because you’ll pay it. Because you’ll pay it. Because you are wasting so much shit, stop buying excessive shit and save leftovers. Because you’re clumsy af. And because you bring the dirt in with you.
Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
Rugs are very highly laborious. Curtains have a high material cost and are also very labour intensive to build. Pillows aren’t that hard to make but are usually made of fancy fabric and fancy stuffing materials. They also have a high cost in shipping and shelf space. They are not expensive ‘just cause’
I mean, what do rugs do for you? You don’t really need curtains, either. The pillow I’m currently using cost me $20 at costco for a 2 pack…
Just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it worthless. Rugs make my house a home. They really tie the rooms together. Your Dark Side of the Moon flag curtain makes your home look like a flop house.
That rug really tied the room together, Dude.
And this, everyone, is called “lashing out”. When one doesn’t have a valid response but doesn’t want to admit it, they turn to insults and combativeness. A pity.
If something has a valid use, great. Vanity is not one of them, in my view. You continue to keep up with the Joneses, though.
k
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your interior decoration, but you can get decent wooden furniture for cheap to free on Craig’s list, sand it, and stain or paint in 1 afternoon. A little furniture might also help you hide all those cables.
Soft, protect your floors, reduce noise echo, soften talking, make it comfortable to sit on, reduce noise transfer to other floors of your home, trap dust instead of letting it float around, cushion your bare feet so you don’t have to wear shoes in the house, help tie your room together and make it feel like a home instead of a college dorm or hospital room. Come on, use your imagination.
Don’t be such a decoration-pilled simp. He’s an alphausteritist. ^/s
Rugs save wood floors from scratching, an expensive thing to fix.
This would be a valid reason
It’s not my job to defend furnishings. If you think a room with a cinder block in it is ‘furnished’ I don’t think it’s my job to convince you otherwise. But that doesn’t mean you get to talk shit about the upholstery trade.
You don’t really need curtains, either.
I’m personally light-sensitive, so covering the windows is imperative if I want to avoid pain. Curtains also mean having privacy inside one’s own home, which isn’t a strange thing to want.
Why do my cats shit so much
Sorry, you are going to have to subscribe to Cat Facts for this classified information
Because you are wasting so much shit, stop buying excessive shit and save leftovers?
I was blown away when I heard what my mother-in-law was charged for curtains 5 years ago. It was thousands of dollars. When I bought some myself I was shocked to see a long straight sheet was expensive.
Most dust is dry skin and hair. Your welcome.
Stop buying stuff isabel with a lowercase i.
