Tips: Doing Windows

The problem with my habit of (over) alliteration is that when I change the day I post something, it doesn't make sense anymore. This, for instance, is a tip. But it's not Tuesday. How annoying.

So I guess we now have non-alliterative tips on whatever day I feel like posting them. 

The chaos is coming for us.

Anyway! It's a good tip! So let's carry on, regardless of the day.

I always seem to have extra-dirty windows. Especially in the kitchen. There are many children putting their grubby little mitts on them, of course, along with, occasionally, their mouths (why do children do this?). So there are many smears on the lower part. 

And then there's the soot from cleaning out the woodstove in the winter, the abundance of swatted flies that smear filth all over in the summer, dust and whatever from open windows in warmer weather . . . 

It's a lot. They just get really gross. And that makes cleaning them something of an operation. But I have a good method for doing it.

Because they are SO dirty--especially the dried smears of fly guts that adhere to the windows--I can't just spritz on some cleaner and quickly wipe it off. I need to scrub them with quite a lot of cleaner first. And then I wipe them clean and get rid of the streaks.

This requires two separate cleaning tools: one for scrubbing, and one for the finish work of de-streaking.

What I have discovered is the best way to do it is to use a small rag for the scrubbing part, and then a paper towel for the second pass.

I often use a piece of cut-up t-shirt to scrub the window, taken from my stash of toilet-cleaning rags. Old socks work well, too, especially if they're turned inside out so the nubbly inside part can be used for scrubbing. In any case, the idea is to have something pretty sturdy to scrub with to start.

I spray the window liberally with a spray bottle filled with vinegar and water, and then scrubscrubscrub until all the solids are off the window. Whatever cloth I'm using will absorb most of the liquid, and the little that is left can be buffed off with a paper towel.

As I move on to more windows, the cloth for the initial scrubbing with get more and more damp, but I can keep using it, because I have the paper towel to do the final shine.

In this way, I can clean five or six windows using the one cloth and only one paper towel. If I were to do this with just paper towels, I would need new paper towels for each window, and as soon as they got damp, they would start to fall apart. A damp cloth doesn't do that.

Now, of course, I could use only another dry cloth to do the second part and not use a paper towel at all, but I find the paper towels really do get all the remaining streaks the best. Since I'm only using one, I don't feel too guilty about it.

And then, when I'm done, I have clean windows free of fly guts through which I can view my drying laundry.

So satisfying.