Dear Tim: I live in an apartment complex. I just dusted and vacuumed the apartment thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly! Because it was very "dusty" I thought I did not do a good job the last time. I spent a lot of time "cleaning" this weekend. I noticed the very next day that it was dusty again! (There had been no wind to stir up anything.) Could fine dust particles be failing from the plaster ceiling? If so, what can be done? This is ridiculous. Thanks, Ben G.

Dear Ben: The ceiling is probably not the source. The dust can come from all sorts of places. The first place I would look would be your vacuum cleaner. If it is a standard model that has a bag or cylinder and just recirculates the indoor air, the dust could be from the sweeper.

Think about it. A traditional vacuum cleaner sucks in dirt and dust and lots of air per minute. For the vacuum cleaner to work properly, it must exhaust that same amount of air each minute back into the room. If the filter bag is cheap or just not a good one, small particles of dust you are vacuuming up pass through the bag with the exhaust air. They float around in the air for hours and hours and finally settle onto surfaces.

Dust can also come from activities in the house. Here in my own offices, we move around so much paper each day that small particles of paper - paper dust - coat all of our office surfaces. So think about the things you do in a room or a house that can actually create dust.

The best vacuums for ridding a house of dust are central vacuum cleaning systems. These machines suck vast amounts of air, dirt and dust from your home and the exhaust air is blasted outdoors. So all dust leaves the house or is captured in the central vacuum units bag or canister. The only way the dust can get back in is if you have open windows or windows with poor seals.