So, um, how often do most people clean their windows?

[conuly]

I have no idea what's normal here. Hourly? Biweekly? Yearly? Once a decade, whether you need to or not? Just whenever you can't stand the grime anymore?

Comments

[wpadmirer]

Clean windows? People still do that?

[conuly]

I just cleaned mine because they were gross and dirty.

[archersangel]

i think most people do them yearly, during spring cleaning usually.

[conuly]

Insides and outsides both?

[gatheringrivers]

It's whatever I can reach, and whenenever it's gross enough that it's actually bugging me.

[sarahthecoat]

Same here, which is still hardly ever.but there is a window in my studio, where i think the combination of occasional condensation, and winter wood stove use, has left a haze of grime which i am starting to notice. I just have to move an awful lt of stuff off the wide desk in front of it to be able to get at it.

[delphi]

I clean the edges of mine once a week because my place sprouts mould if you so much as look at it wrong. I clean the glass every couple of months or as needed (like if there's bird droppings). My apartment is floor-to-ceiling windows on one wall, so I spend a lot of time looking at them and notice when they're grimy.

[conuly]

Moldy windows? Blech.

[alexseanchai]

I get the impression that the only time this house's windows have been cleaned is the time I cleaned them; I've lived here a bit over a year and housemates rather longer

[conuly]

Hm.

[ayebydan]

I think I have cleaned the set in my room once since they got fitted a decade ago....but then I live in Scotland. A lot of rain helps. Mum maybe cleans living room and her bedroom ones....Idk, twice a year? But my gran pays a window cleaner every two weeks. Dying art that.

[rmc28]

I pay a window cleaner who comes around every 4 weeks or so. (He drops an invoice through the door and I pay him by bank transfer). He does several houses on my street and has some clever extending-pole equipment so he can do everything from the ground. My observation is it's a growing rather than shrinking business around here.

Inside: I clean them when they are noticeably dirty and I care enough to do that rather than anything else (so maybe once a year at most, ahem). I think my father cleaned them all when he spent a week child-sitting so spouse and I could go to Worldcon, and that was five months ago.

In winter they sometimes develop condensation, despite being double-glazed, and wiping that off with a microfibre cloth usually gets turned into a quick wipe down of the whole inside window.

[elayna]

Whenever the grime bugs me, so the front and the kitchen windows get washed more often than the rest. I’m not actually sure if I ever have washed the window in the guest bedroom.

[sabotabby]

You have to clean windows? Isnt' that what rain is for?

[conuly]

They get grimy on the inside too!

(And actually, the rain doesn't seem to wash the windows, it just makes the dirt slightly muddy.)

[isis]

We've had them cleaned twice since we moved here in April. (Had them cleaned, because they are too tall for us to reach with our ladders.)

I do clean the kitty-nose-prints off the inside low windows every month or so.

[conuly]

Kitties. Can't live without 'em.

[movingfinger]

Once a year after pollen season, unless smoke season is bad and if that happens, then again sometime in late autumn. They got dirtier faster when I lived in the city, though.

L

[cynthia1960]

We live in a condo building so they are responsible for the outsides. We are in a loft as well, so it complicates things. We probably ought to get kitty prints off the insides of the windows we can get to.

[dark_phoenix54]

Exteriors, pretty much never. Inside, at least twice a year- when I put in/take off the storm windows. Then whenever the grime gets built up too much- especially the kitty nose prints!

[low_delta]

When they get bad enough to annoy us, which is about once a year.

The insides hardly need cleaning, but we do them the same times as the outsides.

[conuly]

It doesn't take that much longer to do inside and outside, anyway.

[hamimi_fk]

It's a part of spring cleaning for me. Inside and out, if you can.

Now that I think about it, I think we forgot to do it this year... Whoops.

[conuly]

It'll be spring again soon. We already turned the corner, daylight wise.

[tielan]

Never? *coughs*

[archangelbeth]

*fistbumps*

[kaffy_r]

I know I'm supposed to do our windows every spring. I usually wind up doing them every second summer. Sigh.

[pauamma]

When I both remember to and can drag myself into doing it, which is... probably yearly or less often.

[flikkeren]

In the past, it's been when I moved, in order to get my deposit back. Now that I own a home, I suppose we will see, won't we?

[cellio]

Or you might replace them first. We'll see. :-)

[lilysea]

Um, I moved in to this house in 2011, and haven't cleaned the windows yet...

[sylvaine]

Whenever it starts annoying me. Which is less often now than in my old apartment, since I live on the ground floor now and thus have matte foil on my windows to prevent people looking in, which also hides how dirty they're getting.

[gwydion]

They clean the outside twice a year. I do the insides on the main room window and glass door 2-3 times a year, whenever they get dirty or fingerprinted enough to annoy me. I don't think I clean the bedroom one, as it's got the air conditioner in there full time and the upper half is black out curtained.

[conuly]

You definitely seem to win the frequency award here.

[the_siobhan]

We had these windows installed 12 years ago and we have never cleaned them.

Every spring I say," we really have to clean these fucking windows they are beyond disgusting" and every year I give up on trying to get anybody who isn't me to clean anything in the house long before we ever get to them.

[conuly]

On the plus side, by now they can't really get any worse.

[maju]

Whenever I can't stand the grime anymore, which is not as often as once a year. Maybe once every couple of years? I did clean some thick disgusting cobwebs off the outside of the living room windows a few weeks ago. There are some high windows (cathedral windows?) that we can't reach so those have never been cleaned as long as I've lived in this house. (More than then years.)

[conuly]

How else can you properly intimidate the squirrels with your chittering if your nose isn't RIGHT against the glass?

[lilly_c]

Where I live on the coast I've never had my windows cleaned because I can't reach them even standing on ladders. Joys of old style tenement flats. I did look into paying a local company to clean the outside but it was really expensive. I do wipe the window ledges on the inside a couple of times a month.

[conuly]

You must have really very high ceilings!