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I moved into a place with one very hazy window screen that is difficult to see through.
I have tried scrubbing it with a brush with soapy water and blasting it with the hose. But I cannot get rid of the hard material buildup. I even tried dipping a brush in CLR and scrubbing the screen.
When I Google how to clean a window screen, I just run across people telling me to do what I already tried. But I think the people touting these methods simply have screens with dirt in them.
This doesn't seem like simple dirt buildup. I enclosed a close up photo of what it looks like.
I bet if I poked all of the holes individually with a toothpick I could clean it, but that would take eons. Any advice? Thanks.
So I was playing around with some tweezers and it actually seems like I can peel it off with some difficulty, although it comes up in pieces. Considering none of my other screens look like this, I'm wondering if it is actually some sort of purposeful hazy coating that got destroyed over the years??? Is that a thing??? It only seems to be present on the inner surface of the screen, not the outer side. Scrubbing does nothing to it put it can be peeled off it seems. Just gonna take me forever to do.
This is a weird question, but I don't suppose this is near Baltimore, or a previous owner was from near Baltimore? They have (or had, not sure how popular it is anymore) a thing there, where they paint their screens with various scenes. It reduces visibility, so people can't see in as well, but still lets air in. So I'm wondering if this is a very dirty old painted screen, with maybe the pores clogged up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_painting
Painted screen society of Baltimore, with images:
http://paintedscreens.org/
This is very interesting. No, I do not live near Baltimore and the coating is just diffusely white and semitranslucent, without different colors.
But I do think a coating must have been put over the screen at some point, be it paint or not for whatever reason.
These look pretty interesting and if it was a picture I would just keep it lol
Damn, I only lived in Baltimore for a year but I loved it there. I’d forgotten about these!
This is so niche I love it. Thank you for sharing this little fact.
Edit: and there seems to be different colors on the screen, making me think your theory is quite possible.
The different colors seem to just be image compression artifact. The screen is diffusely coated by a white and semitranslucent material that seems to have a similar consistency and appearance to dried glue (I was able to pick some small hunks off after viciously rending it with tweezers lol)
My first guess is a smoker who didn't want to go outside.
Maybe, but there are many screens to my porch. This is the lower most screen. You'd think because smoke rises that the upper screens would be affected. This is the only one that looks like this...and it is diffusely and evenly coated on the inner side of the window.
In peeling some of it off, it has the consistency and appearance of dried glue actually. Not sure if that's actually what it is or not though.
That's an interesting thought, is it a screen that faces a sun side? Might have been a coating that helped reduce sun intensity. Could be the outside peeled off and the inside hasn't yet.
Like others have said, replacement is probably your easiest solution. As long as you can see the screen cord it shouldn't be too difficult to do in place, but would definitely be easier if you can remove. Start at the top corner, work your way across then work your way down. Let gravity help.
Yes, it does seem to be a side facing the sun.
Interesting to note, but the previous tenants seemed to have a thing for blocking out all sunlight for some reason (which quite frankly was pretty minimal to begin with due to the adjacent forest). Perhaps they were vampires.
The upper panes had black plastic films glued to them to reduce sunlight, but the panes were not glued to the screens themselves so they were easily removed. There is no such plastic film present on the lower pane, but perhaps there was at some point and this is the leftover glue.
test a few cells on the inner surface with q tip of rubbing alcohol? might outright melt both the screen and the crud but could maybe help wipe it away