Common Areas to Find Germs In Your Home
What would you do if you dropped a snack on your kitchen floor? Would you pick it up and eat it? After all, the five-second rule works even if you haven’t cleaned your floors in a while, right? Would you think twice about eating that same snack if you dropped it in your kitchen sink? Or perhaps on your bathroom floor?
Regardless of your stance on eating fallen food items that may have picked up germs, you should know your home is a breeding ground for certain types of germs that build up on a daily basis. And even if you clean weekly, plenty of germs tend to collect in areas you might not expect.
Unfortunately, viruses and bacteria lurking on the surfaces around your home can put you and your loved ones’ health at risk. But when you know where those health-harming germs tend to linger, you can take the appropriate cleaning measures to protect yourself. If you need home or office cleaning, call Zeppelin Cleaning Services for more information.
Here are five of the germiest places in your home, and what you can do to keep these areas clean and disinfected.
Door Knobs, Light Switches, and Handles
Anything in your home that people touch regularly is a hotspot for germs, and door handles, drawer handles, and switches generally see the most hand contact of any surface in the house.
Entry door and sink handles tend to be covered in germs since people rarely wash their hands before entering the home or turning on a faucet. Refrigerator and microwave handles are also major germ hotspots. Bathroom door knobs also house plenty of germs, but surprisingly, they tend to host far fewer germs than handles and knobs located in the kitchen.
To protect yourself from picking up bacteria or viruses when you touch these surfaces in your home, be sure to sanitize them at least once a week with disinfecting wipes. Use a new wipe for each surface in your house to avoid transferring germs from surface to surface. If anyone in your home gets sick, be sure to sanitize these areas more frequently as they’re must-touch surfaces for everyone in your house.
Kitchen Sink
Would you imagine your kitchen sink houses more germs than your bathroom? It’s true, and when you really think about it, it’s not all that surprising. After all, sinks see plenty of food scraps from dishes headed for the dishwasher, and they also see plenty of dirt and microorganisms that get washed off fresh produce. According to studies conducted by the National Sanitization Foundation (NSF), 45% of kitchen sinks harbor coliform bacteria, and 27% house mold spores.
To protect yourself from these germs, be sure to thoroughly sanitize your kitchen sink(s) at least once per week. You can use a bleach solution or a disinfectant spray to clean the interior surface of the sink, and be sure to clean around the edges where the sink meets your counter, too.
Kitchen Countertops
Are you in the habit of regularly sanitizing your kitchen counters? Because if you aren’t, they’re likely harboring tons of germs. Bags of groceries, packages, backpacks, handbags, and a number of other items that come indoors from outside can easily carry health-harming germs into your home. And if you and your family members tend to set these types of items on your kitchen counters, those germs transfer directly to their surface.
NSF studies found that 32% of kitchen countertops contain coliform bacteria and around 18% contain mold spores. If you routinely prepare raw meats on your counters and don’t sanitize them afterward, your countertops may also contain salmonella, E.coli, campylobacter, norovirus, and other potentially harmful viruses and bacteria.
Bathroom
Do you always close the toilet lid when you flush? Does everyone in your house do the same? Because a toilet that gets flushed while it’s open can send a huge spray of microscopic, bacteria- and virus-contaminated water droplets into the air inside your bathroom. And those water droplets can float around for up to two hours before settling on just about every surface inside the room — including your toothbrush if you keep it out.
Aside from the toilet-flushing-germ-spray issue, bathrooms just tend to harbor a ton of bacteria because they’re the go-to place for grooming, and when humans groom, they shed germs. To protect yourself from germs in the bathroom, regular cleaning and sanitization are crucial. Use disinfectant wipes to wipe down handles, counter surfaces, toilet knobs, and all other frequently touched bathroom surfaces on a daily basis.
If you leave your toothbrush on the counter, consider keeping it in a drawer or cabinet to prevent germs from landing on the bristles. And this should really go without saying, but be sure to close your toilet lid when you flush and ask everyone in your home to do the same.
Carpets and Upholstered Surfaces
If you have carpeted floors in your home or if your furniture has cloth upholstery, these areas can be hotspots for all kinds of germs. Anything that makes contact with your carpet or furniture can easily transfer germs to their surfaces. Once those germs are there, they’ll quickly replicate and collect between the fabric fibers, which provide a safe haven for them to live. According to microbiology studies, dirty carpets can harbor up to 200,000 bacteria per square inch!
How do you cut down on germ buildup in your carpet and upholstery? By performing routine cleaning. But if you don’t own a specialized carpet or upholstery cleaner, getting the job done thoroughly enough to remove germs can be tough. Luckily, you can hire a carpet and upholstery cleaning service (Zeppelin Cleaning Service is an excellent choice!) to tackle the job for you!
Want to ensure your home stays as germ-free as possible? If you’re short on time or aren’t a fan of household cleaning, get in touch with our team at Zeppelin Cleaning Service! We specialize in comprehensive residential cleaning, as well as carpet and upholstery cleaning, and have proudly served our clients for nearly 15 years. To learn more about what we can do for you and your home, feel free to give us a call today at 313-731-0025 or contact us online with any questions or concerns, and we’ll be in touch.