Web Design Schools Guide

By Sarah Scrafford

Although average, healthy people generally do not need to worry about picking up germs, dirt, and diseases from everyday objects, it doesn’t hurt to be careful about limiting your (or that of your loved ones) contact with potential bacterial breeding grounds. The objects you touch every day are potentially loaded with nasties like fecal matter, e. coli, and salmonella. To stay safe, be sure to make a regular habit of washing your hands, be careful about touching your mouth and eyes, and avoid touching these objects as much as you can.

The Office

Your office is a landmine of germs. Here are a few things you should be wary of.

1. Mouse: If you work on your computer throughout the day, germs from everything you’ve touched now live on your mouse, a device that is rarely cleaned.
2. Desktop: You may think the cleaning crew is taking care of it, but most offices have instructions not to clean desktops because people don’t want their papers messed with.
3. Keyboard: Take a hard look at your keyboard and think of the last time you cleaned it. Now think about everything you touch every day, and all of the people who sneeze, cough, or just sit at your computer.
4. Hands: With the office comes handshakes, which leave you susceptible to whatever germs others have to share.
5. Copier: Your sneezing coworker’s virus germs can live on the copier for up to 72 hours.
6. Telephone: Has anyone used your phone recently? Their saliva and germs from their hands are all over your telephone.
7. Candy bowl: The office candy bowl is full of germs, with everyone putting their hands in and sharing what they have. What’s worse, those germs will come into direct contact with your mouth when you eat the candy.
8. The coffee machine: Bacteria and viruses from others’ coffee cups and hands contaminate the office coffee pot.
9. Fax machine: Just like the copier, your office fax machine is a germy breeding ground.

Out and About

Once you leave the office, you’re far from safe from germs. Here we’ll take a look at the dirty objects you come into contact with while shopping, working out, eating, and just living your life.

10. ATM: Germs from the dirty fingertips of every customer before you will wait to greet you at your bank’s ATM.
11. Steering wheel: When you get in the car, one of the first things you’ll touch is your steering wheel-and you’ll leave plenty of germs behind to pick up later.
12. Public reading material: The magazines at your hairdresser’s and your doctor’s office are more than likely never cleaned, and they’re touched by multiple people every day.
13. Restaurant menus: Menus are very rarely washed, but they’re touched by everyone. So many people have touched restaurant menus before you have, you could be getting germs from hundreds of people.
14. Public pens: The pen at your bank, your doctor’s office, and the checkout have all been touched by many, many people before you.
15. Escalator: The escalator is home to hundreds, even thousands of different hands, diapered bottoms, and more.
16. Gas pump: It’s best to wash your hands after pumping gas, as the handle has been touched by numerous gas guzzlers before you.
17. Taxi: Taxis are often home to fecal organisms, and even oral bacterium spready by just talking.
18. Chair armrests: Researchers have found that chair armrests are among the germiest places in public due to their frequent use.
19. Dining tables: The people that dined before you in the mall’s food court may not leave a tip, but they’ll be happy to share plenty of bacteria.
20. Money: Money is handled by many different people, and can contain traces of drugs, fecal matter, viruses, and more.
21. Payphone: Payphones are like your office phone, but much worse. You’ll be subject to the hand, face, and mouth germs from anyone who used the phone before you.
22. Elevator buttons: With dirty elevator buttons, one can only hope that the people who have selected your floor before you have washed their hands recently.
23. Drinking fountain: Drink from a water fountain, and you’ll be subject to the germs of people who have come before you, some even putting their mouths directly on the fountain.
24. Credit card: When you hand over your credit card, it’s touched by a cashier, swiped through a reader where many other people’s cards have been swiped, and may even be placed on a dirty countertop.
25. Soap dispensers: Yes, an object you touch to get clean can be dirty. If the soap isn’t in its own sealed bad, chances are it’s a breeding ground for bacteria.
26. Vending machines: Think twice about popping the top on your soda, or opening up your chips without washing your hands first.
27. Shopping cart: A University of Arizona study has found that almost two-thirds of shopping carts were infected with fecal bacteria, more than the average public bathroom.
28. Pedestrian traffic light button: This heavy traffic area is more than likely not cleaned routinely.
29. Lemon wedges: In 2007, the Journal of Environmental Health found that nearly 70% of lemon wedges in restaurant glasses had disease-causing microbes.
30. The diving board ladder: Your neighborhood pool’s diving ladder is only as clean as the pool is, and is often contaminated with dirty feet from the area around the pool as well as the bathroom floor.
31. Monkey bar handles: All of the children who came before yours have left their mark on playground equipment with colds and other viruses.
32. The gym: Although your gym may clean its equipment, it’s never enough. You can pick up plenty of germs from skin, sweat, and saliva left over from other visitors.

At Home

You may think your home is sacred from germs, but it’s full of often under-cleaned surfaces and sources of bacteria.

33. Doorknob: Remember all those germs you picked up at the office and on your way home? They live on your doorknob now.
34. Vacuum: Your vacuum brush is full of bacteria, and can spread germs from contaminated surfaces to uncontaminated ones.
35. Light switch: This often-touched object is generally not cleaned often enough to eliminate germs.
36. Your contact lens case: Your eyes are the last place you want germs to be near, but a Chinese study has found that 34% of contact lens cases had germs that could cause an inflammatory eye disease.
37. Your pets: Your pets can bring in bacteria from your backyard and the dog park, which can end up on your hands, couch, bed, and flooring.
38. Your bed: More than 84% of US homes have dust mites, which feed off of your dead skin. Your bed is a breeding ground for these mites, as they thrive in the humidity of a bed that’s made up.
39. Shower curtain: Vinyl shower curtains thrive in soap scum, and they’re spread around by your shower spray.
40. Library books: You may be in possession of the book now, but the people who have checked it out before you may have been reading it in the bathroom.
41. TV remotes: Your remotes are frequently touched, and infrequently cleaned.
42. Refrigerator door handle: Your refrigerator door is likely home to bacteria picked up while preparing food like eggs and raw meat.
43. Kitchen sink: Germs love to thrive in this moist environment.
44. Toothbrush: Your toothbrush retails bacteria from your illnesses, and can even be home to fecal matter if you leave it near your toilet.
45. Laundry basket: You can pick up plenty of germs from handling underwear in your laundry basket.
46. Cutting board: Germs and bacterial love to live in the cracks and crevices of cutting boards.
47. Stuffed animals: Stuffed animals get dragged around all over your home, and pick up every bit of dirt along the way.

Everywhere

These dirty objects follow you around wherever you go.

48. Cell phone: Think of all the places where you set your cell phone down, and then think about how closely it rests on your face.
49. mp3 player: Your mp3 player picks up germs much in the same way as your cell phone-by being set down places like your car’s cup holders, or dirty tabletops.
50. Your purse: Women often set their purse on the floor or bathroom counter without thinking of the germs that lurk on those surfaces.