Many people are quite aware that regular cleaning is one of the best ways to keep your rental home safe during flu season. But having said that, cleaning just the noticeable dirt may not be, in fact, enough. Doorknobs, light switches, computer keyboards, smartphones, tablets, television remotes, and game controllers are easy to miss when cleaning the house. If you are not sanitizing them regularly, they may gather up more harmful bacteria than your toilet.
How dirty are standard handheld devices?
It is highly suggested that you regularly clean your smartphone, tablet, keyboard, mouse, television remote, and gaming controller. Seeing as these electronic devices are touched so often each day, chiefly phones, controllers, and remotes, they can have ten times the amount of bacteria found on other surfaces in your home!
Carefully consider it: When you touch something and then touch your phone or computer keyboard, you’ve transferred bacteria from one surface to the other.
The more often you touch a particular surface, the more bacteria will collect there, rapidly becoming a serious health hazard. In the time of flu season, it’s easy to pick up germs and unknowingly passing them along to others by sharing devices, controllers – even the TV remote. This is what makes cleaning your dirty devices beneficially important. If you aren’t cleaning your devices every day or after every use, the chances are that they might get you or your family sick.
Surfaces you touch every day
Have you ever tried to pay close attention to everything you touch around the house daily? You may be totally suprised! High-touch surfaces, chiefly, get a lot of use but, in reality, may not make it onto your general cleaning lists. Like for example, doorknobs, cabinet handles, window blind controls, and light switches are all touched daily, and in a few cases, countless times a day.
If you haven’t wiped these surfaces down with a germ-killing solution, they are prospectively harboring high levels of harmful bacteria. Studies have found these surfaces normally contain far more bacteria per square inch than your toilet.
Sanitizing high-touch surfaces in your home is especially necessary during the time of flu season. Though, take note, these surfaces cannot directly be sprayed with liquid cleaners or disinfectants. Spraying anything on your tech devices will impair them. Instead, you can invest in wipes designed to clean electronic devices. These wipes customarily contain alcohol, which kills harmful bacteria.
For other high-touch surfaces around the house, carefully use a microfiber cloth and spray a disinfectant solution on the cloth, not exactly on the light switch or doorknob. A commercial cleaning solution that specifically points out it will kill bacteria will work for your home’s plastic or other durable surfaces. Just don’t use harsh chemicals on painted surfaces, wood, or natural stone, as the chemicals will damage these areas.
Inclusive of high-touch surfaces, the CDC recommends washing your hands frequently and cleaning all surfaces in your home with a disinfectant suitable for the type of surface you’re cleaning. Just be conscious to have proper ventilation and obey the label directions, no matter what cleaning agent you fancy. By taking these extra preventive steps, you can keep your home as germ-free as possible during flu season and for a whole year.
Are you in the market for new rental home? Contact Real Property Management TradeWinds to converse with one of our property managers servicing Clearwater and nearby or look at our available listings.
Originally Published on November 26, 2021
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