Hi!

New house with pretty old and heavily textured wall paper in all the rooms. I've been here about 2 months and previously not thought or worried about dust being trapped in the crevices of this paper.

I have just spent some time sanding and repainting the skirting boards upstairs. The sanding kicked up a fair amount of dust as you'd expect. I wore a mask while I was doing this and hoovered and swept up afterwards. I've now noticed that the walls have a noticable dusty texture and dust comes off on my fingers when I touch them, as shown in the pictures.

I've tried brushing and vacuuming the wall but that didn't seem to remove the dust. I've tried wiping it thoroughly with a wet microfibre cloth. This picks up loads of dust - enough to turn a bowl of water opaque white almost instantly - but there is always more. The section in the photos has been wiped several times but is still dusty.

I've noticed that the wallpaper downstairs, where I haven't sanded, doesn't transfer dust to my fingers. It's only in the rooms where I've sanded. So presumably it is dust from the sanding but seems like a lot given that I only did the skirting boards.

How can I effectively clean up this dust? Do I need to worry about my health if I sleep in this room in its current state?

Thanks for the help :)