Dust to Dust

October 24, 2008

Why is my house so dusty?

No kidding, I have the world's dustiest home. Despite all of my best efforts (and let us not forget, since I am the woman whose body exists mostly to keep her head off of the ground, the energy expended is kept to a minimum) there seems always to be a thin layer of grit all over every surface in my house.

Some of this, no doubt, is because we have been The House of Perpetual Renovation for many years now. We purchased this eccentric domicile from one Fred, volunteer firechief and masonry contractor extraordinaire, who built it for himself. Fred, in his inscrutable fire-fighting, bricklaying wisdom, created a home that was equal parts stunning and just plain weird.

Part of this was no doubt due to the fact that every single volunteer firefighter in the entire county worked to build our house. Seriously. Every time I encounter a new heating technician, electrician, or plumber, it turns out that he or his dad almost fell of of the roof, or lost a fingernail in the wall, or put in the supports for the concrete vault in the basement (don't ask). The original house design was modified, and the result was...interesting. The brick fireplaces were gorgeous. The plumbing was downright baroque.

After living in said conundrum for a few years, I became possessed (not to put it lightly) with the desire to solve this enigma of an edifice.

Norm knew to beware the days when I would stalk The House That Fred Built That We Happen To Occupy, tape measure in hand, muttering to myself like the inmate of an asylum for interior designers. I would look at the staircase, which is located approximately three feet from our designated front door (and not where it was supposed to be) and start thinking about how it could be moved, or made circular, or caused to float, or turned into an elevator. Norm would just sigh, roll his eyes, and wait for this episode of madness to pass.


Seventeen years and many renovations after our purchase of the house, we have indeed remade the first floor into something still quite eccentric, but pretty darn cool in my humble opinion. You can look from one end of our downstairs to the other from all four sides of the house, due to the Zen Koan-like principle that Norm intoned: "If it is open, we shall close it. If it is closed, we shall open it. And east shall become west, and north shall become south." I don't know about reversals in polarity, but we did rip out walls and build new ones where we wanted them; we walled over some doorways and opened others.

Consequently, there seems to be drywall dust floating in perpetual motion throughout our home. I can dust, and vacuum, and Swiffer the floors, but still the dust circles, invisible to the eye, waiting for me to leave the room before landing, no doubt snickering to itself, a particulate version of the Myth of Sisyphus.

Of course, it does not help that we have the Worlds's Itchiest Dog, who scratches himself incessantly, despite the allergy shots that I give him every month. Somewhere I heard that most dust is just shed skin particles and the tiny critters that feed on them.

Now, there's a creepy image for you to contemplate.

We also live in a heavily wooded area, so pollen is unquestionably part of the mix.

In keeping with the spirit of moderation that moves me, I am maintaining my once-a-week dusting ritual, no matter how much of the grayish stuff lands on my knicknacks. I am accepting the fact that dust happens, and we cannot banish it from our lives without installing a whole-house hepa filter.

And until it becomes medically necessary, that, Gentle Reader, is just a Renovation Too Far.