“Your baseboards are disgusting,” my sister said, sitting on my couch and pointing at the wall. She was right. They were coated in a gray film of dust and dog hair. I had been ignoring them for months because cleaning baseboards means crawling around on your hands and knees like you are searching for a lost contact lens.

Then I saw a video of someone cleaning baseboards standing up and I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. Here are the three methods I have tried, ranked from best to “only in an emergency.”

Method 1: The Magic Eraser on a Stick (Best)

This is the one that changed my life. Get a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser mop — the kind with a flat rectangular head that swivels. It is meant for walls and floors, but it is perfect for baseboards because the head is thin enough to run along the trim.

Wet the pad, squeeze out the excess so it is damp but not dripping, and walk along your baseboards wiping. The melamine foam grabs dust and scuffs in one pass. For the top edge where dust collects most, tilt the mop head at an angle. Takes about ten minutes to do an entire room.

If you do not want to buy a specialty mop, wrap a microfiber cloth around a broom head and secure it with rubber bands. Not as good, but serviceable.

Method 2: The Dryer Sheet Trick

After cleaning, rub a used dryer sheet along the baseboards. I know this sounds like one of those Pinterest fantasies that never actually works, but it genuinely does. Dryer sheets leave behind a thin anti-static coating that repels dust for about two weeks.

I tried this after cleaning my living room baseboards. Two weeks later, the untreated hallway baseboards were gray again. The living room ones looked like I had just cleaned them. Now I keep a bag of used dryer sheets under the sink just for this.

Method 3: The Sock on a Stick (Works in a Pinch)

Take an old tube sock. Put it on the end of a yardstick or a broom handle. Spray the sock lightly with an all-purpose cleaner or just water. Run it along the baseboards. This costs zero dollars and works fine for light dust, but it will not remove scuffs or dried-on grime.

How to Keep Them Clean Longer

Baseboards collect dust because of static electricity and air currents in the room. Vacuuming with a HEPA filter helps. So does running an air purifier — I put a small one in my living room and the baseboard dust accumulation dropped by at least half.

But the single biggest help is the dryer sheet trick. I was genuinely surprised it worked. If you only do one thing after cleaning, do that.