Said It Here

Why does the house still look dirty after cleaning?

Routine cleaning often misses neglected surfaces like baseboards, light switches, door edges, and walls that accumulate hidden dust and grime. Overlooking these spots prevents a room from looking truly clean, even after finishing floors and fixtures.

Overview
People affected2 accounts across 1 forum
Workarounds found1 item attempted
Community agreement42 total upvotes

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

Found another way around this?

Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.

  1. 1
    Wiping the bottom half of walls, baseboards, doors around handles, and light switches with a damp microfiber cloth and diluted cleaner.
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In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/CleaningTips2 people · September 2026

“For the longest time I thought the problem was the floor. I would vacuum, mop, clean the toilet, wipe the sink, and somehow the bathroom still looked kind of grimy.”source ↗

“There was this faint grayish dust along the baseboards and a bunch of tiny splashes near the sink that I apparently never noticed.”source ↗

“I genuinely never thought to clean walls unless there was an obvious mark on them lol.”source ↗

88Cinder · r/CleaningTips · 41 upvotes

“The light switches are a big one. I also started wiping the top edge of doors and somehow that was disgusting every single time.”source ↗

Vexilla_90 · r/CleaningTips · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised