to ask how often you wash your curtains?

[ThankGodItsAlmostSpringTime]

Mine are put in with the towels and bedsheets on their annual wash.

AIBU to be minging?

I just buy new ones and make clothes out of the old ones

Seriously though, life is too short to bother myself washing curtains

Curtains get wiped and hoovered as and when required. They aren't fabric though, they are hotel grade black out plastic stuff made to look like fabric and anti bacterial so they don't mould. The joy of life in the tropics.

Mrsmorton

Phew

Curtains? What curtains. I have blinds. Didnt realise you needed to wash either. None smoking and pet free house so dont see the need!

Are you supposed to wash curtains?

Usually every couple of years but our new ones have been up around 4months but stink (cats) but have that special black out backing so are dry-clean only

Nets more or less annually - learned the hard way that you need to do them cool.

White linen jobs annually but that's because I change them for heavy velvet ones when the clocks go back, so I might as well wash them while they're down.

Some of the co-residents of our house used to smoke.... Now then you really do need to wash the curtains regularly, and not look too closely at the water in the machine.

Wash curtains?! What? I only have two sets in my house though and DD's are fairly new. Ours were there when we bought the house and I never thought of washing them. If I make the effort to take them down I will just replace them anyway as they are a nasty peach colour.

Every 5 years or so. Def wash them on a cool cycle tho as they may well shrink. My living room curtains must have gone longer than that tho, I just washed them now and they came out about 3 shades lighter, they must have v gradually became really minging.

Not sure if/how you'd wash ones with blackout linings.

Never washed curtains. I don't think an other wise clean home needs them doing.

Although landlord had had them all laundered and apologised that they no longer had curtains for half of the windows - those were the ones too filthy to even launder! The last tenants were disgusting though the whole house was thick with grime - and I mean thick. It took two people (inc a professional cleaner) four whole days just to make the place fit for human habitation (still not fully clean), so I could move in. Even the internal doors had to be scrubbed with a scrubbing brush to get the thick black residue off! The walls had to be sugar soaped and scrubbed to get the slimy greasy residues off them. The carpets shampooed 3 times. That's surely the only kind of house curtains end up mucky in?

I do the porch door one every few weeks because the dog gets it muddy when she comes in from a walk. It's too long and I am too lazy to take it up.

I don't bother with the rest of mine, but my mother gets annoyed and turns up with a steam cleaner every once in a while and steams them for me.

This is the woman who had at least 3 sets of curtains per window - winter, summer and she was bored/they were a bargain. She washes them roughly every 2 months.

In the interest of full disclosure, she changes her bedding weekly, washes towels every 3 days, clothes after each wearing and does wear underwear in bed. I'm starting to think I was adopted

I can remember the routine of winter and summer curtains from my childhood twas quite reassuring and orderly! I just have blinds so apart from the odd dead fly sandwich in the roller type not much cleaning here. Second MrsMorton

Nets once a year, used to do living room ones every year but there's two sets both with separate linings and they are a bastard to iron and put back up so not been done for 3 years. Never done bedrooms.

Never. And don't dry clean thermal or blackout curtains, there is a good chance that the backing will split and melt, it'll ruin the curtains and the dry cleaners machines.

Once a year in the summer so I can hang them out. They're all cotton, mostly Ikea, and wash well. The house feels and smells wonderful once they're all done.

Never. Apart from one minor deviaition- please see my other thread entitled 'does anyone know if I can 'unshrink' curtains' from last week.

I washed some once. They shrank. Lesson learned.

Haha this is a source of disagreement between DH and I. I come from a Summer curtains and Winter curtains family, so they get washed when they get changed. When we moved in together We got nice thick grey (to me, Winter, curtains) and I mentioned getting Summer ones. This was a completely new concept to him and he found it hilarious.

His parents run a fabric shop that makes/sells curtains and they swear most people only have one set per room. I asked "but what do they do when they're washing them?" And they fell about laughing!

Oh and I haven't washed ours in two years of being in the house. DH hoovers them though!

So in theory I believe that they should be washed annually when changed to your Summer curtains but in practice, um, never.

But yes, if you have ones with blackout linings then you can't wash or dry clean them - learned that the hard way.

Mine have been up ten years and never washed it cleaned. I sporadically Hoover them.
My floor to ceiling lounge ones have been dry cleaned once in 19 years. They shrank 2 inches so I thought fuck that.
And yet I wash sheets every week, towels every 3 days and wear most things just once .

I washed some recently after someone had been vaping intensively in a bedroom for many weeks. Had to be done.

I've washed the dc's ikea curtains a couple of times in 10 yrs.

The rest of the house, never. They'd need dry cleaning anyway.

I washed the spare room ones after the cat had a gory altercation with a bird. Other than that, only when we moved house. The curtains in the new house didn't look ever so clean either so
I didn't feel skanky until I read this thread.