I cleaned those windows for ten years. It was never the windows.
Six things a flyscreen brush gets right that a decade of cleaning the wrong side of the glass got wrong, written down by a customer, not a cleaner.
Nancy Brooks · Customer · Melbourne, VIC · 5 min read
In March I did the lounge windows properly. Both sides, vinegar and newspaper, the whole performance my mother taught me. Then I stood back and the room looked exactly as grey as it had before.
I actually said it out loud to nobody. And then I looked past the glass at the flyscreen sitting in front of it, and I ran a finger down the mesh, and it came away grey to the second knuckle.
Ten years in that house. I had cleaned the glass every few months and never once cleaned the thing sitting in front of it, because cleaning a flyscreen means taking the screen out, and taking the screen out is a job I was never going to do on a Tuesday.
What changed it is a brush from Cute Home, a small Melbourne outfit, that does the screens without taking them out. Six things it gets right.
The screen is what is dimming the room
This is the part nobody tells you. A flyscreen is a fine mesh, and every square of that mesh holds a film of dust, pollen and road grime that builds up so slowly you never see it happen. It does not look dirty from inside. It just quietly cuts the light. When I finally did ours, the difference in the lounge was the sort of thing you would pay a tradesman for — and it had been sitting there the whole time, three millimetres in front of glass I had been polishing for a decade.
"The lounge is visibly brighter. I thought the window needed replacing and it just needed the screen done."
You do not have to take the screen out
Which is the entire reason nobody cleans them. The proper method is to unclip the screen, carry it outside, hose it, dry it and put it back, and it takes about twenty minutes a window if nothing goes wrong. On a house with eleven screens that is a Saturday, and it is why the answer was always next month. This brush works on the screen where it sits. Ours took about four minutes a window and I did the whole house in an afternoon, standing inside, without touching a single clip.
"Eleven screens in one afternoon. I had been putting that job off for four years."
Flannel, not bristles, so the dust comes off instead of moving
I had tried a vacuum brush on the screens before and all it really did was rearrange things. The head on this is covered in soft flannel rather than bristles, and used slightly damp the pile sits into the weave of the mesh and lifts the film out of it rather than skating across the top. You can see it working, which is unpleasant and quite satisfying. Mine needed rinsing twice per window the first time and once a window since.
"The state of the cloth after the first window told me everything. I had been breathing that."
The handle comes off, and goes on longer
Two of our windows are above the kitchen bench and one is over the stairs, and those are exactly the ones that never got done. The handle detaches, so you can hold the head in your hand for a low window or run it long for the ones you would otherwise be getting the ladder out for. The whole thing weighs eighty grams, which matters more than it sounds when your arm is above your head.
"I did the high ones without the ladder, which at my age is the whole point."
It has not stayed on the screens
I bought it for the flyscreens and it has been all over the house since. It does the shower screen, the tiles, the mirrors, and the inside of the car windows, which are the ones that always get that greasy film and are impossible to reach across. I have also used it as a lint brush on the sofa more than once, which I suspect was not what it was designed for but works perfectly well.
"Best thing I have found for the inside of the car windscreen. Nothing else reaches properly."
It hangs on a hook and that is the end of it
There is a hole in the handle and it lives on a hook inside the laundry door. Eighty grams, no batteries, no charging, nothing to replace. I mention this because I have bought cleaning gadgets before that needed their own cupboard and a set of refills, and every one of them ended up at the back of it. This one is on a hook where I can see it, which is why the screens have now been done three times since March instead of once.
"No refills, no charging. It hangs behind the laundry door and I use it most weeks."
Two honest notes before the price
If your screens have never been done and you have been in the house a decade like we had, the first go is a job. Mine took two passes and a lot of rinsing, and one of the older screens honestly should have come out and been hosed properly once. After that first clean it is four minutes a window and nothing like the same effort. Think of it as maintenance, not rescue.
And it works on the inside of the screen. It does not magically clean the outside face of an upstairs window from where you are standing. Anything you could reach with a cloth, it does better and faster. Anything you could not reach before, you still cannot.
The screen brush, against how the screens get cleaned now
Which in most houses, including mine for ten years, is not at all. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
- Unclip the screen, carry it out, hose it, dry it, refit it
- Twenty minutes a window, so it never happens
- A vacuum brush that mostly moves dust around
- A cloth that cannot get into the weave of the mesh
- Clean glass, and a room that still looks grey
- Works on the screen where it sits, no clips, no hose
- About four minutes a window once they are up to date
- Soft flannel that lifts the film out of the mesh
- Detachable handle for the high ones, 80g in the hand
- Also does tiles, mirrors, shower screens and car glass
About the price
It is $39.99, down from $80, in green or white. I will be honest that forty dollars for a brush made me pause, and I would have said the same thing to you.
What I would put against it is this. A window cleaner quoted us for the screens two years ago and it was more than four times that for one visit, and it would have needed doing again by now. This has done the whole house three times since March and it is hanging behind the laundry door waiting to do it again.
If you have ever cleaned a window properly and been quietly disappointed by the result, it was not the window.
— Nancy
MULTIFUNCTIONAL SCREEN & GLASS BRUSH
- Cleans flyscreens in place — no unclipping, no hosing
- Soft flannel head that lifts dust out of the mesh
- Detachable handle, long for high windows or short in the hand
- Also does tiles, mirrors, shower screens and car glass
- Doubles as a lint brush for sofas and clothes
- 46 x 16cm · 80g · hanging hole · green or white
- Free Australia-wide delivery · 30-day money back guarantee
About the writer. Nancy Brooks lives in Melbourne, VIC. She writes occasionally about the small things she has actually kept using. She is not affiliated with Cute Home beyond being a customer.
This page is an advertisement for Cute Home. Nancy's letter is shared with her permission. Cute Home · An Australian start-up from Melbourne · Free Australia-wide delivery · 30-day money back guarantee.