It’s Time To Clean Your Doors

You vacuum. You dust. Every so often, you get a bee in your bonnet and decide to clean your windows. And right now, you’re probably spending some extra attention on cleaning your doorknobs and light switches.

But wait—go back to the doors for a minute. When’s the last time you wiped down your interior doors? Have you ever done it?

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You might perform a cursory wipe-down of the handle on both sides of your interior doors—bedrooms, bathrooms, closets. But next time you’re making the rounds, take a damp cloth and actually wipe down the doors. You know, the flat part. The door part.

You’d be amazed what accumulates here: Dust. Hair spray residue. General grime from who-knows-where.

I’ll admit, I never cleaned my doors. But that changed recently when I noticed something on the exterior side of my bathroom door. My best guess was that I had splattered hair dye the last time I touched up my roots, which took place more than two months ago.

But I didn’t linger on the cause for too long: I sprayed the door lightly with a gentle all-surface cleaner and gave it a good once-over with a rag.

The next thing I knew, I was hitting every door in the house for a quick once-over. I did the part around the doorknob that can get grimy. I did the bottom of the front door, which I tend to close behind me with my foot if my hands are full. I did the tops of the doors that rarely get shut.

The amount of stealth-gunk I got off my doors was satisfying.

A cleaning enthusiast would tell you not to stop there. For the same level of satisfaction (and possibly even greater satisfaction), you can wipe down your entire walls. You can take a dust rag to your baseboards, getting in all those nooks and crannies your vacuum doesn’t even come close to reaching.

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But wiping walls takes time, and if you have a lot of them … well. It could take a minute. And reaching your baseboards requires moving furniture and contorting yourself in order to do a good job.

But doors? Your doors are right there. You can do them all in five minutes. It’s the gateway drug of stuff you didn’t think you needed to clean, but really should.