This Is the Cheapest and Easiest Way to Clean Up Pet Hair

The love you have for your cat is always at odds with the love you have for your furniture, but somehow, the cat always wins. Pet hair has the remarkable ability to totally saturate furniture and living spaces and is surprisingly difficult to combat. Sure, you can spend money on fancy products that will help you scrape it up, but there are faster, cheaper ways to get the job done. For instance: Try using rubber gloves, preferably the thick ones you keep around for cleaning.

This hack is currently gaining major traction thanks to TikTokker Felicia Wilson, an animal rescuer and transporter with over 3 million followers. Last year, she urged them to stop buying designated hair- and fur-removing products, suggesting instead some simple latex gloves.

“Take it from somebody that honestly works with pets every day, all day,” she says as she drags a gloved hand across a kitty tower. Cat hair balls up under her hand, making it easy for her to grab it up and dispose of it. For extra hair-removing proficiency, try dampening the glove just a bit before donning it.

When you’re done, don’t rinse the glove in the sink, as you’ll just be creating a new problem. Instead, fill a bowl with water and submerge your gloved hand. Skim the fur off the surface as it rises to the top, and toss in the garbage before dumping the water down the drain.

What makes this even better than using a large, rigid tool is the benefit of your hand’s dexterity. You can push your fingers in between cushions or into crevices, run them along baseboards without fear of scratching them, and much more easily manipulate the collected hair into a ball that stays put while you clean the rest of the surface.

Best of all, this option is cheap. You can get three pairs of cleaning gloves on Amazon for around $8 (if you don’t have them already), compared to the most basic pet hair rake for around $10. Since the gloves can be used for more than just pet-hair removal, you’re saving even more by not throwing money away on a single-use product.