Spring time dirt defense

Welcome to Works for Me Wednesday, sponsored by Rocks In My Dryer.

Its finally spring and I'm battling the biggest no-snow problem of all. DIRT. Since we have oceanless beach front property, sand seems to get everywhere. Each morning I sweep up buckets of the stuff. And that's with thorough sweeping before bed. My kids must go out in the middle of the night to play basketball. Either that, we have a visually impaired sandman who bumps into stuff in the dark and spills his precious sleep potion everywhere.

I went to the store yesterday to set up my line of defense. A step before the bottom of the walkway IN THE WAY I placed a bristle shoe brush. From there, we step onto a pallet. Dirt falls between the slats as we walk the distance to the stairs. (We need to add another pallet back. We used to have two which doubled the sand drop rate.)

At the end of the pallet just before the stairs begin, I placed a bristle mat for more wiping. Then up the stairs. At the top, is a flatter mat with recessed areas to catch more dirt, but it wipes the finer sand away. Then it's in the door where I placed a new tan mat with recessed areas as well to catch the dirt.

So far, my defense line is working well. There was about 65% less dirt actually on the stairs than average days prior to the new mats, and indoors was less, too--even with the dog's feet.

Now all will be fine as long as everyone avoids dog poop.

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