How to clean day and night blinds

Day and night blinds or zebra blinds are a type of roller blind, but one that graduated university and got airs about how it wants to be kept clean. Day and night blinds differ from regular roller blinds in a few key areas, so there are a few important things to factor in when cleaning day night blinds due to their materials and construction.

So, how do you clean day and night blinds without ruining them, and what can and can’t you do? This blog post will tell you how to clean day and night blinds (aka zebra blinds, vision blinds, mirage blinds and duo roller blinds) effectively, plus a few things to avoid in order to keep your zebra blind from looking like it lost a fight with a lion.

Should you take day and night blinds down to clean them?

Noooo. I mean, you can take the whole cassette down (the top thing that the blind fabric disappears up in to) but there’s no real benefit to this and you’re just making more work for yourself.

Also, do not be tempted to take the blind itself (the fabric part of it) out of the cassette to clean a day and night blind, unless you’re confident you can reassemble it all properly; and if you are, can we interest you in a job?

How to clean day and night blind fabrics

When it comes to the fabric areas of day and night blinds or zebra blinds, the sheer stripes come in various different materials but they are all finely constructed; by which I mean, not as robust as the solid stripes, which is probably self-evident.

A day night blind or zebra blind’s sheer stripes are made of fine polyester mesh or netting, and so they should be treated as a delicate fabric and not spoken to harshly nor otherwise given cause for alarm.

How to clean day night blinds with a duster

A gentle dusting with a feather duster or something similarly soft and pliable will please zebra blinds greatly. If you get into the habit of doing this as part of your normal cleaning routine then your blinds will become tame in short order, and also probably never require anything more rigorous either.

Keep the fabric taut (but don’t tug on it) in order to avoid creasing by holding the bottom bar of the blind while dusting.

How to spot clean day night blinds

If “something” has made its way onto your day and night blind or zebra blind and you need to spot-clean it to remove a small or localised mark, you will require two soft cloths. Each of these should be damp but not wet, and you can if you wish to, use a small amount of a very dilute detergent that’s suitable for delicate fabrics.

Hold one cloth on either side of the fabric in the area in question and pat or rub veryyyy gently to encourage the dirt/tomato sauce/vino to be on its way. Try to rub following the direction of the fabric’s weave in order to prevent it getting its hackles up, and do not scrub it or rub too hard.

How do you get rid of flies on day and night blinds?

How do you get rid of flies on day and night blinds, and how come this is even a problem?

Well. During the height of summer when all things buzzing, biting, and annoying try to move in, you might find that a few unwitting insects manage to work their way into the inner void of your day and night blind, being, the gap between the front piece of fabric and the back piece of fabric.

They’re apt to buzz about in here until they eventually run out of steam (i.e., die), and this being the case, you’re probably eventually going to want to remove the corpse of said fly and any friends he took on his excursion to the grave inside of the bottom of the blind, but without damaging your blind in the process.

I have covered all of the options for how to do this safely (and those to avoid) within this comprehensive guide on how to get dead insects out of a day and night blind, because we performed a reasonable amount of experimentation to get to where we are now and I don’t want you to miss it. (Also, because I need to justify my regular periods of time spent hassling R&D with some actual tangible work output now and again in order to maintain my ongoing employment here at Blinds Towers.)

In shortform though, how do you get rid of flies on day and night blinds?

If they’re caught with their little legsies in the mesh of the sheer stripes either inside of the blind or outside of it, I suggest gently flicking at the flies with your finger or giving them a gentle bash with a feather duster or similar to release them without running the risk of snagging the fabric of the blind. If they land on the floor outside of the blind, simply vacuum them up (or do whatever it is you do to get debris off the floor in your house in general).

If they land inside of the blind in the void between the front and back of the fabric, this can be a little more fiddly.

I suggest using a long-handled duster, once more a feather or equivalent one, to push them out of the far end of the blind. If your blind is a particularly wide one, you might want to get someone to hold the fabric out to make this easier to achieve. You can, if necessary or if this makes things easier, pull the bottom bar/weight out of the blind first.

There are various other ways to get flies out of day and night blinds that as mentioned, I have covered in another blog post; some of which you might find easier (or frankly, more entertaining), particularly for very wide blinds.

So I do recommend you check this out too, particularly if you’ve had an idea of your own about how to get flies out of a day and night blind, because some of the more maverick approaches we took when experimenting will also stop your day and night blind from being a functional blind, as well as (or instead of) freeing it of flies.

How to clean day night blinds a little more thoroughly

In-laws coming over? Kids been touching things again? Smell of the blind starting to reflect your love of smoked fish? If your zebra blind cleaning has been neglected for a while or your blinds won’t dust clean, here’s how to clean day night blinds a bit more thoroughly.

Use a soft cloth that is damp (but really, just damp, thoroughly wrung out and not wet) and gently wipe the two layers of blind fabric on both sides. Ideally use just water, but a very mild detergent solution will be ok too, if thoroughly diluted and suitable for delicates like silk and wool.

If you do decide to do this, try not to get the blind too wet; and blot-dry with another soft cloth if needed. Then, leave the blind fully extended and if possible, the window itself open to allow the blind to dry quickly and naturally; this will help to prevent mildew from forming. Zebra blinds do not need spots.

How not to clean day and night blinds

If you’re good at colouring inside of the lines and have read and heeded all of the above tips to clean day night blinds, you can go now.

For everyone else, here are all of your “but this seems like it might be the easier/quicker/most effective way to clean day night blinds, I’m going to try it” ideas repeated back to you with the corresponding “nope” you need, to talk you down from the ledge of a Very Bad Idea.

Do not use a vacuum cleaner to clean day night blinds

Some blinds love a good vacuum, but day night blinds are not one of them. We advise against vacuuming day night blinds because this is apt to suck up and warp or even tear the sheer areas of the fabric.

An aggressive (or even “well-meaning but doesn’t know its own strength”) vacuum will almost certainly spell the end of your new night and day blinds, UK repairers of fabric blinds are not a thing, and basically you will be sorry if you try this, and almost certainly in need of a new blind!

Do not soak day night blinds in water

You should not try to clean day night blinds by soaking them in water, such as the bath; or if you really like to push the envelope, the washing machine. Day night blinds or zebra blinds won’t survive a dunking and certainly not a machine wash or the use of detergents.

Also, don’t come crying to us because you can’t get the fabric back on the cassette after giving it a dunking, for we will only offer fake sympathy and point you towards our collection of day night blinds for sale so that you can start again.

Do not use a brush on day night blinds

Some other types of blinds can be cleaned with a soft brush to remove dust and dirt; but not day and night blinds. Even the softest of bristles are apt to pull and snag or even tear the sheer areas of a day night blind.

How to clean day and night blind fixings and fittings

If you should find you need to clean the inside of a day night blind cassette (the top housing that the mechanism lives in) you can do this with a soft paintbrush or something similar. In terms of the exterior aluminium casing, just wipe this down with a damp cloth; the same goes for the control chain too.

Is it clean now?

Hopefully this advice on how to clean day and night blinds and just as importantly, how not to, should tell you all you need to know. But day and nights blinds or zebra blinds (I am gonna keep calling them “zebra blinds” until this sticks) are fairly new to the UK, and so there may well be some day night blind cleaning questions that we haven’t heard/thought of yet.

Given that we’ve got a virtually unlimited supply of offcuts to experiment with and you probably haven’t, we’d be happy to take one for the team and have a go. Contact us if you want to know if there’s any reason not to do certain thing, or have ideas for cleaning day and night blinds you’d like us to try out.