Cleaning records. How often really?

One way to get rid of the residual dust that gets past filters, seals and every other mechanical strategy available, is ionization. There are room ionizers and whole house units (even some that can be installed in an existing HVAC system.)

They act by charging airborne particulates so that they are strongly attracted to ground, and settle to the floor. If the floor is carpeted, that's helpful as they tend to remain collected there until vacuumed up.

Speaking of 'grounding', like many folks, I usually gave my records a swipe with a carbon brush just before lowering the stylus. But I was never satisfied with the result, because dust remained on the record, or got re-attracted to the vinyl surface during play. I thought of some tips I'd seen or read about attaching a ground(ed) wire to the brush. In theory, that should have solved the problem; but after implementing this suggestion, the results were nil. I was puzzled -- until I realized that the carbon bristles were not electrically in contact with the metal of the brush handle! So wire or no wire, there was simply no way for the charge to drain to ground! I could only find one carbon-fiber brush which construction satisfied this requirement, and that is the Hunt EDA No. 6 brush. The carbon bristles are clamped firmly into the aluminum handle; so if you run a wire from the handle to a suitable ground, a single brush swipe will remove all the remaining dust from your record AND it will also remove any remaining charge from the vinyl itself, so it won't attract more dust while it's playing.
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Dust a lot, Chris! A turntable with a dust cover that can be in place during play is a must, and I use an old-fashioned shaving cream brush to dust my table's platter. I will face a different challenge when relocated up in Portland, that of moisture in the air, not dust. I'll gladly take that!

11-27-15: Nsgarch
It's the EXACT SAME STUFF as Premier and as you can see, much less expensive! I understood it is more a replacement for carbon tetrachloride than for freon. It's a better solvent than either of them IMO; it dries fast (too fast!) and leaves NO residue.

Hi Nsgarch

taken from Premier's website is this wording.

Premier

But Premiér features a special additive which breaks those 'static' bonds, freeing the dust to float off the LP. This unleashes the 'like new' sound thats trapped in your LPs -- getting rid of the static means you get rid of the dust, along with the snaps and pops and cracks which drive you nuts.

So what is the special additive ...By chance is it a well known wetting agent ?

This is the battery operated record brush I was referring to in my earlier post that I got from an audio friend.

battery record brush
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A turntable with a dust cover that can be in place during play is a must,

Eric - anyone with a kit setup that is capable of pressurizing their room, even at 75-80 db or above with full scale classical or rock can feel the cover resonating. Those vibes go into the plinth. Well Vinyl is a resonance hobby so maybe this added effect works well for that room, gear, and listener.
I have this Technics SL-1200 with cover, that I have been loaning out the last 15 years - mostly to work colleagues for their kids. They keep it a few months, some more than a year. They either get their fix and forget about it, or they like it and buy their own table. It was in fact just returned to me last October. Amazing how much its value has gone up.

Not sure if there's any science to support this idea but one of the only reasons I can think of to use a RCM every time is that, in theory, when you spin an lp, micro particles of plastic break off some micro peak and could then, if not removed, wind up getting lodged in some other sideways valley that make up the groves of the album. If you wash regularly, even every time if you're so inclined, you would probably remove those little pieces of debris.

I suppose if you're listening to the same lp over and over again (who's crazy?) washing it again and again may get ridiculous, but maybe you might want to get a couple of other records and musically change things up a bit.

Don't know if there's any damage done to an lp by washing too often but it seems at worse you waste a couple of minutes and some washing fluid but have a super clean lp.

Call me crazy, but you may not even have to worry about being called insane :)