There aren’t too many weird quirks to my apartment but there is something that has stood out since basically I moved in almost four years ago. I noticed that my apartment accumulated a lot of dust quite quickly any and every time I did some cleaning. I have a few pieces of furniture that are black, like wood or leather, and against the black the dust shows up easily. I’d wipe off a surface and then within days, there would be a decent layer of dust all over it. I understand that things can’t stay dust-free forever but it seemed like a lot of dust in a short amount of time.
I’ve come to the conclusion the dust is coming from the massive amount of air floor that passes underneath my entry door to my hallway. There is a large gap of about 3/4 of inch at the bottom of the door and this allow a forceful amount of air to flow into my apartment twenty-four hours a day. The air flow is fast enough to blow around an empty plastic bag if one were placed near the gap. While this gap does allow circulation of air into my apartment at all times, this air must also being carrying the massive amount of dust into my home. Once I made this connection, I noticed the some units on my floor had devices installed on their doors to block this gap.
I decided to do the same and bought a door sweep from a hardware store. It’s essentially a piece of metal that goes along the bottom of the door. A flexible bit of rubber is attached to the metal and it’s this that forms a seal against the gap. It was quite easy to get into place.
I’m curious to see how this affects the dust buildup in my apartment. Will this allow me to go longer without wiping off dust from my belongings? I hope so? To make up for the loss in free-flowing air, I’ve opened up my windows a tiny bit more.