There are everyday items we all use – and perhaps have never considered cleaning up – yet they are a repository of germs; even dirtier than a toilet seat, suggests Reader's Digest.
Here are seven of them below. Prepare to be surprised by a few:
1. Smartphone or tablet
In a 2013 study, British researchers swabbed 30 tablets, 30 phones, and an office toilet seat. The tablets had up to 600 units per swab of Staphylococcus — also known as staph, which can cause severe stomach illness — and the phones had up to 140 units. The typical toilet seat had less than 20 units.
2. Computer keyboard
When British researchers swabbed 33 keyboards in a London office, they found that they harboured up to five times the germs of a toilet seat. In 2007, a stomach-flu outbreak at a Washington, D.C. elementary school struck more than 100 people, and may have spread through unclean computer equipment like keyboards, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
3. Handbag or wallet
When British researchers studied 25 handbags, they found that the average handbag is three times dirtier than an office toilet seat. Handbags used regularly were 10 times dirtier. Handles carried the most bacteria, but even items inside the bag were grimy, with hand and face creams being the dirtiest, along with lipstick and gloss.
4. Carpet
About 31,000 bacteria live in each square centimetre of carpet (nearly 700 times more than on your toilet seat), including E. coli, Staphylococcus and Salmonella. Food particles and other dirty bits make this worse.
5. TV remote
Anything that's been on your hands before you touched the channel changer collects on your remote. Not to mention the fact that your remote collects dust sitting on your couch, gets sat on, and may even have crumbs on it — if you like to eat in front of the TV. Grime can also get stuck in the nooks and crannies between the buttons.
6. Lift buttons
A University of Toronto study found that lift buttons in public spaces like office buildings and hospitals could be harbouring more germs than toilet seats. You don't know where those hands were before they touched those buttons.
7. Tap handles
Your bathroom tap handle can have 21 times the bacteria of your toilet seat. Even worse — your kitchen tap handles can harbour 44 times the bacteria of your toilet seat.