1.
Money
Everybody loves money, but
nobody loves the germs that comes along with it! Yuck. From the Ralphs cashier
to the business executive’s office to the homeless man on the street, there’s
an enormous amount of bacteria on every buckaroo in your pocket. Dr. Darlington,
the Health Commissioner of New York, found 135,000 bacteria from washing one
bill and 126,000 from another. The way to tackle this problem is easy: wash
your hands.
2. Light Switch
Somebody’s got to do it, and
usually it’s the last person in the room. So pack up your things quick and get
out of there because turning off the light switch in a public area is just
about the nastiest task anyone can be assigned to do, besides counting rolls of
money (refer to #1). All the itty bitty germs love swirling around on the
plastic switch that’s touched by millions of dirty fingers over the years add
up to about 217 bacteria/square inch. According to a local restroom sanitation
glossary, that’s what you’d call a common contact point where germs are
transmitted. Clorox wipe, anyone?
3. Computer Keyboard
The computer’s your friend
(except when it freezes on you in the most pivotal moments of life) but its
accompanying keyboard is a nemesis thriving with germs. In a study from a
British consumer group in 2009, 33 computer keyboards were randomly sampled and
out of these tested four were considered a health hazard. One was even
discovered to have more bacteria than your average toilet. The only way to
clean (or delete) this pile of cooties is to spray the keyboard with a can of
compressed air and wipe with a cloth dipped in mild detergent.
4. Cell Phones
Forget the dog. Cell phones are
a modern (wo)man’s best friend. Heck, the average person probably touches,
taps, or strokes their or her cell phone more times than they pet their
neglected pooch at home. New research from the United Kingdom show that mobile
phones are a technological petri dish for tens and thousands of germs, mainly
due to the heat that they generate as well as the bacteria it shares with your
hands and face. Next time, consider an anti-microbial coating for your phone or
frequent anti-bacterial wipe-downs. Or sterile rubber gloves every time you
touch or use your phone, always disposing of them in a furnace immediately
afterward.
5. Toilet
Though the toilet seat has been
good to you on many a bad days, its porcelain white surface is party-host to
all sorts of diseases and viruses. Statistics show that there are 295 bacteria
for every square inch of the cold, smooth surface. Though that’s not as bad as
the 3.2 million on the toilet bowl, it’s still not a place to rest your head on
at night – or in the morning.
6. Shopping Cart
Sorry to be a killjoy, but
surfing down the grocery aisle just got a lot less fun. Think of every possible
bacteria-filled thing a person can touch – well, once they hit their local
supermarket, those things can also be found on the handle of any shopping cart.
In fact, there may even be things on there that you haven’t touched. A study
from the University of Arizona found that shopping carts were loaded with more
bacteria, saliva, and fecal matter than escalators, public telephones, and even
public bathrooms. So next time you’re at a supermarket, you might as well pick
yourself up some Purell. Shop and squirt, shop and squirt…
7. Remote Control
How many times has ice cream
splattered onto your remote control and you’ve just ignored it? Or even worse,
smeared it across the surface into an expansive-but-barely-there layer? Add to
that the MRSA, VRE and SARS bacteria that is easily transferable by touching TV
remotes, and you’ve got yourself one soiled artifact. Next channel, please.
8. Bathtub
Sure, you’re all clean and
spiffy, but what about your bathtub? The bathtub is home to many toxic
bacterias that is often left unnoticed. That is, until someone in the family
catches a staph infection, urinary tract infection, pneumonia, septicemia, or
some form of a skin condition. Believe it or not, bacteria left lingering near
the drain of a bathtub is worse than bacteria found in the toilet. By cleaning
the bathtub with bathroom cleaner just once a week, you can minimize these
unwanted germs (and illnesses) from you and your loved ones. Go on, give it a
good rub-a-dub-dub.
9. Kitchen Sink
Contrary to popular opinion,
the kitchen may actually be the dirtiest place in the house. Of course, that’s
not including your dirty little brother Jimmy’s bedroom but that’s another
story. Anyway, there’s typically 500,000 bacteria per square inch in the
kitchen sink drain alone, so you can only imagine the total gunk with faucet
handles and all. To solve the problem from the inside out, try pouring 1/2 cup
baking soda and 1/2 cup of vinegar down the drain. Finally, rinse with hot
water, and you just might hear your sink burp a clean gurgle of delight.
10. Kitchen Sponge
“NO! I TRUSTED YOU!!!”
Now it just seems like I’m
messing with your head. But I’m not. It’s true. The very sponge that takes the
grit off of your dishes and bathroom sink, is really the dirtiest of them all.
The yellow and green icon of the kitchen is really a cozy home for germs. Its
moist, micro-crevices make it harder to disinfect, so instead of wiping
surfaces clean with a sponge, users are really just transferring bacteria from
one place to another. An easy remedy is to microwave the sponge for 60
seconds–it improves the odor too!
by JoanneRead thisd article in Ranker
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