The Secret To Keeping Dust Off Your Baseboards Is Already In Your Laundry Room

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Baseboard moldings come in a variety of beautiful types that provide a pretty transition from your plain walls to your flooring. But baseboards are also the bane of many a household cleaning experience. These ledges and ridges running along your walls, and, inconveniently, behind your furniture, seem to attract dust like a magnet. Cleaning baseboards can be back-breaking work and is something you don't want to do any more often than you have to. But you can reduce the number of times you have to scrub this molding down by using a product you probably have sitting in your laundry room: the humble dryer sheet.

A dryer sheet thrown in the laundry is used to soften clothing and reduce static cling. But these versatile little sheets are also great at dusting. Running a sheet along your baseboards will not only remove any dust, pet hair, and allergens collected there, but leave behind a sort of dust repellent, which will make keeping up with baseboard cleaning much easier.

Dryer sheets work to collect and repel dust because they are made of more than just lightweight polyester fibers. They are infused with a surfactant, which is a lubricating chemical used to trap and remove dirt from surfaces. Different brands of dryer sheets use various types of surfactants, but they all work essentially the same by transferring their chemicals onto the clothing fibers, making them more slippery so they do not rub against each other and create static. This same surfactant element will also transfer onto your baseboards, creating a slippery barrier to which dust can't easily cling. You can use a dryer sheet on baseboards by attaching one to the end of a broom or flat mop head and swiping it along the tops and sides of your baseboards. You can even buy a special baseboard cleaning tool and use a dryer sheet in place of the cleaning cloth it comes with to clean your molding.

Be aware that you are applying a chemical residue to your baseboards when you use this cleaning trick. Dryer sheets contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that may irritate sensitive lungs in humans and pets. Sheets that are scented may further irritate those with allergies. Also, know that while dryer sheets will be good at light dusting, you'll need some old-fashioned elbow grease and soap and water to attack heavier dirt and clean scuff marks from baseboards.