You. The dust is coming from you.
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
830 points (99.3% liked)
me_irl
6703 readers
216 users here now
All posts need to have the same title: me_irl it is allowed to use an emoji instead of the underscore _
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
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.
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.
I'm going to wrap myself in saran wrap
Same, but that's just my kink.
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.
load more comments
(4 replies)
I fucking wish. Dust in the middle East is mostly sand particles
load more comments
(1 replies)
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
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
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.
load more comments
(1 replies)
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
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
load more comments
(5 replies)
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.
load more comments
(3 replies)
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 underground
Everything 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'
load more comments
(13 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
view more: next ›