venetian blinds - how to clean them without a bath?

[humptynumpty]

Saw Kim and Aggie cleaning venetian blinds by dipping into a bath with biological soap powder and water then leaving to drip dry. Have tried this and was excellent, used to do it every couple of months as blinds seemed to get dirty with traffic pollution etc.
Have now moved house and only have a shower. Any suggestions for cleaning without a bath? Am reluctant to use duster etc... as it takes hours to wipe each bit iyswim, but want to keep on top of it.
Any suggestions?

buy a baby bath and do it in that

What are they made of? Can't you shower them?

I have a large wicker clothes basket which had got very dusty. I sprayed it with Cillit Bang and then showered it off and left it to dry. The water was truly disgusting and the basket is now like new.

lol @ Bonsoir!! That's what happened to me the first time I did the blinds in the bath, the water was black and disgusting!!!
I have a baby bath, will see if they fit in there, otherwise will try your way bonsoir.
The good thing about the bath was you left them to soak for a little while then rinsed off - easy!!

I've never thought of / heard of the Kim and Aggie method before - what a great idea. We've had our blinds for 10 years now and they are a nightmare to keep clean!!

uummm can i ask v stupid question about wooden blinds?? does this still work for them?

no!

How do you clean the bloody things without taking them down? There's no way I can get up to the top of our windows and unscrew them, especially because they are on the window behind the kitchen sink, and go up to the ceiling (9ft high). Every so often (ok not that often I get the big stepladders out and try to wash each blind individually with damp cloth. Last time it took 2 hours and I couldn't move my arms the following day!

I hoover ours occasionally and ignore the dust the rest of the time

ok ta mrsbadger i didn't think so was just checking

i have wooden blinds and i just close them and dust them with one of those huge fluffy dusters on a stick. Once in a Blue moon i will use the thing i bought from Lakeland which is especially for blinds it cleans 3 slats at a time and is actually really good

dunno how to do it without taking them down. You can get a duster thing on a stick, I had one and it was rubbish tbh!
The bath thing is great for the plastic ones. You literally put hot water in bath and a cup of soap powder, sit the whole blind in it and leave it for 10 mins. Then you lift it up and down a bit in and out of the water and drip dry. Easy peasy!!!
Now we have a wooden one which you can't really dust because it's sort of scratchy not smooth, not sure what to do with that one!!!
Otherwise, I think the only way is to close the blind and use a very soft feather duster thing to get the dust off!!

i have squirted mine with flash with bleach, marvellous result - over the buttom half,, the rest i can't reach,
so in fact they look worse than before, if pssible

Paddling pool?

If you have a dyson you can get an attachment that works really well www.dyson.co.uk/store/parts.asp?accessory=ACC-SOFTDUSTINGBRUSH&product=GEN-ACCESS you don't have to hoover each slat, just turn it flat to you and hoover.

I hung mine up in the garden and hosed them down! Used a brush and scrubbed them with a mix of bio washing powder. Shiny shiny and they drip dried outside.

Stupid question, but how do you get the blinds down? I have blinds in most rooms, i didn't put them up so haven't a clue how to get them down?

Mine are disgusting i have used one of those lakeland things that does 3 strips at a time but still takes ages!

Please let me know how to take them down!

on ours, at either end at the top there is a little bit of plastic on the front that just slides out. When you slide them out, you can just lift the blind off the brackets, i mean you pull it off the wall towards you. The brackets stay on the wall.
Not sure if it's the same for everyones? Should be pretty obvious and you should be able to take the blind down without unscrewing all the bits off the wall..
HTH

I have the lakeland thing aswell for our wooden ones, it is good but it takes forever!

I try and do them every few days now with a microfibre duster which seems to stop build up to some extent. Also go at them with the brush head on my handheld dyson when I remember.

mooma - I turn mine flat, but there is always a little strip that is covered by the next slat that stays dusty and looks awful.

humptynumpty, thats brilliant thank you very much[smiel]
Just got to get round to doing it now!

When washing plastic blinds in the tub, can one immerse the whole thing - top box with working parts encased?

Ooooh, I put ours in the bath and the water was disgusting. I had to change the water about 6 times. Mind you, I don't think they had been cleaned for about ten years - they were there when we moved in and were so grim I was going to bin them, but thought I would try washing them first - they came up like new with a bit of biological washing powder. Twas most satisfying.

I second the paddling pool idea if you don't have a bath - I think they would need a bit of soaking so not sure how well the shower would work.

VasudhaMama - I can't remember if the top box with the working parts came off when I took the blinds down or not. If it did, then yes, I washed that too. I found it really hard getting them down, I have to warn you - in the end our neighbour saw me struggling through the window, popped round and got them down in about a second, so there is obviously a knack to it!

Would the bio powder work on metal blinds do you think?

Mine are metal, KCF, and it worked perfectly.

KCS, sorry, stupid iPhone.

Mine in the kitchen are wooden and can't be cleaned properly as they're over the sink.
On Monday dh will take them down for me, and I plan to give them a good scrub on the kitchen table.
I wish there was a blind cleaning company like the oven man I have coming on Tuesday.