Keep the sand out of the holiday home: the tricks that work by the beach

If you live by the beach, the sand comes in with you. It settles in the grooves of the floor, in the bed, in the bathroom and everywhere you would not expect. You never get rid of it entirely, but a few simple habits keep most of it out and make the cleaning far easier.

First, why the sand here is worse

The sand on the west coast is fine and dry, and that is why it behaves the way it does. Coarse sand stays where it falls. Fine sand travels with the air, and on a windy day the air goes straight in through the door along with whoever opened it.

That means two things in practice. The first is that the sand is not only on the floor: it ends up on window sills, on top of cupboards, in the bedding and in the outer layer of the sofa. The second is that sweeping does not help. A broom throws fine sand into the air, where it hangs and lands again somewhere else, often just after you have moved on to the next room.

This is why most advice about sand does not work very well: it is about removing sand rather than about stopping it getting in. The order needs reversing.

Stop the sand at the door

The important part happens at the entrance, and that is where the effort pays best. A coarse coir mat outside and a softer mat inside catch most of it, because the two mats do two different jobs: the coarse one scrapes, the soft one absorbs.

Put a small brush or a bucket of water by the door so feet and shoes can be cleaned before going in. A shoe rack outside, where sandy shoes stay, makes a real difference, and the same goes for beach bags and swimwear, which carry a surprising amount of sand indoors if they get carried through the house.

If the house has several doors, watch the terrace door. That is the one used all day in summer, and it is often the one with no mat at all.

Pay particular attention to the bathroom

Sand and showers are a bad combination. The sand ends up in the drain, settles in the trap and over time can block it. That is one of the repairs that always arrives at the worst possible moment.

Rinse feet outside, or in an outdoor shower if the house has one, before showering. A strainer over the drain catches the rest and is easy to empty. If sand does get rinsed off indoors, let the water run another minute afterwards so it is carried on rather than settling.

The right equipment makes the difference

A vacuum with real suction is worth its weight by the beach, ideally one that handles fine sand without clogging. Sand is heavy compared with dust, and a weak vacuum mostly pushes it around.

• Empty the bag or container often. Sand fills it quickly, and a half-full vacuum pulls less.
• Use the crevice tool along the skirting and in door thresholds. That is where sand collects in a thin line you do not see.
• A slightly damp mop beats a dry one, because it picks sand up rather than spreading it. Rinse it often or you drag the sand around with you.
• Shake rugs and mats outside regularly, rather than waiting until they are heavy.
• Leave the broom alone. For fine sand indoors it does more harm than good.

The places people forget

When we do changeover cleaning on the coast, it is almost always the same places that have been skipped, because they do not look like places with sand:

• In the bed and under the sheet. Sand from feet and swimwear ends up here, and it is the first thing a guest feels.
• The sofa, in the gap behind the cushions.
• Thresholds and the runners of the terrace door, where the sand lies in a line.
• Window sills inside, especially after a windy day.
• Under and behind the fridge, where sand blows in and stays.
• The car and the hallway, which feed the house fresh sand every day.

Sand in textiles, and how to get it out

Sand in bedding, towels and beach blankets is its own chapter, because it does not come out on its own in the washing machine. Put a sandy towel straight in and some of the sand ends up in the pump and the rest on the next load.

Shake everything outside first, and do it with a proper snap rather than a little flick. If you have a terrace, shake out over the grass instead, so the sand does not simply land somewhere you walk past. Turn bedding inside out as you strip it, so the sand stays on the inside rather than trailing through the whole house on the way to the laundry basket.

If a mattress or sofa holds a lot of sand, the vacuum works better if you tap the fabric lightly with your free hand as you go. That loosens the sand from the fibres instead of dragging across it.

Outside counts too

A terrace full of sand feeds the house all day. Sweep it, or better, hose it, and do that before you clean indoors rather than after. Otherwise the first trip out for a garden chair carries the lot straight back in.

Good habits for guests

If you let the house, it helps to write a couple of friendly lines in the house folder: rinse your feet before coming in, shoes stay by the door, shake beach towels outside. Most guests are happy to do it when reminded, and the house stays nicer all week.

Tone matters. A note that reads like a set of rules gets ignored. One that explains why, namely that sand wrecks the drain and makes the floor unpleasant to walk on, gets followed. Leave an extra mat and a soft brush out, so doing the right thing is easy.

When it is time to get help

Sand is not hard to clean up after. It is just slow, and it has to be done often. If the house is let, this is usually where the arithmetic turns: a changeover on the coast takes longer than the same changeover inland, precisely because of the sand, and it is rarely the way anybody wants to spend a Saturday.

We are a local cleaning company based in Bork, and on changeover days sand is one of the things we spend most time on by the coast. We know where it hides. We cover Hvide Sande, Søndervig, Henne Strand, Nymindegab, Blåvand, Bork Havn, Hemmet, Skjern, Tarm and Ringkøbing, and we clean the house thoroughly between guests, so the next group walks into a house with no sand underfoot at all.

See also: our holiday home cleaning in Henne Strand and Lønne.