Pull-Cord Cleanliness

Today’s post is both practical and a bit eccentric. It’s a way to clean the cord hanging down from your blinds. We’re calling it eccentric because cleaning that cord isn’t likely the most important thing on your to do list. But as they say, cleanliness is next to godliness. And, spring cleaning is upon us. so let’s look at this life hack.

We found this little gem on LifeHacker. If you’re not familiar with them they offer fun little ways to use things differently than typically used. We usually think of hackers as these computer gurus who are attacking the web. Not so, a hack is simply a way to use something in a way it wasn’t originally intended. LifeHacker specializes in these little hacks that can be used to enrich your life. Little hacks that help but don’t harm. They found this little hack on Reddit but it was originally posted on One Good Thing by Jillee. Along with the help of another Redditor, named Ariar, LifeHacker was able to come up with the best way to clean the grime off of that chord.
Jillee’s suggestion was to wrap up the chord and put it in a bag of bleach. The problem is without knowledge on how to take the chord down, most people opt to leave the cord hanging up when they clean it. This means wrapping it up, putting it in a bag, and hanging the bag from the top of the cord. To keep the bleach from poring out all over the floor Jillee used a clothespin. But she suggested you might also try a rubber band or twist tie.
This seems to be the most fragile part of the experiment, so we suggest making sure you choose something that will definitively hold the bag in place.

Ariar’s suggestions was to use a whitening detergent such as tide’s. That way you’re not working with something as caustic as bleach.  Leave the bag hanging from the cord over night and it should be clean in the morning.  So while this isn’t a very critical life hack, it’s an easy one.

So our take on all of this is just to be careful.  Oh it’s not like something terrible will happen if the bag slips off the cord.  But it would make a mess and could bleach the floor below.  If that floor were carpet you could be looking at a replacing carpet which would likely be expensive.

Simply make sure you have  a strong, leak proof bag and are able to securely attach the bag in a way that it cannot slip or pore out.

To learn more cleaning tips see our recent blog post: Cleaning Blinds and Shutters.  It covers wood, vinyl, and fabric blinds and shutters.