Common Dirty Devices
Regular cleaning is recommended for items like your smartphone, tablet, keyboard, mouse, television remote, and gaming controller. Because these electronic devices are often touched each day, especially phones, controllers, and remotes, they can have around ten times the amount of bacteria compared to other surfaces in your home! This means that every time you touch your phone or computer keyboard after touching something else, you are transferring bacteria from one surface to the other.
The more often a surface is touched, the more it will collect bacteria and quickly become a serious health hazard. Flu season is also the time when it is easier to pick up germs and unknowingly pass them on to others when using shared devices, controllers, and even the TV remote. This is why you should really be cleaning your devices. If you don’t have the habit of cleaning your devices every day, or after every use, you increase the chances of getting you and your family sick.
High-Touch Surfaces
Try keeping track of everything you touch around your house each day. It might surprise you! High-touch surfaces are areas that are used very often yet may not make it onto our general cleaning lists. Take your doorknobs, cabinet handles, window blind controls, and light switches, for example. These are all touched at least once daily, some even multiple times in a day.
These surfaces could be harboring high levels of harmful bacteria if they have not been wiped down with a germ-killing solution recently. One study found that light switches often have 200 bacteria per square inch, while most toilets have 20 on average.
Especially during flu season, it is important that you sanitize high-touch surfaces in your home. However, most of these surfaces are not fit for direct spraying with liquid cleaners or disinfectants. Spraying anything on your tech devices will probably damage them. You can, instead, buy wipes that are made for cleaning electronic devices. With their alcohol content, these wipes help in getting rid of harmful bacteria.
You can spray some disinfectant solution on a microfiber cloth –not directly on the light switch or doorknob– and use this cloth to clean other high-touch surfaces. There are commercial cleaning solutions that state it will kill bacterial while also being suitable for your home’s plastic or other durable surfaces. Just avoid using harsh chemicals on painted surfaces, wood, or natural stone, as these may damage these areas.
In addition to cleaning high-touch surfaces, the CDC also recommends washing your hands frequently and cleaning all surfaces in your home with a disinfectant appropriate for the different surfaces you are cleaning. Be sure to also have proper ventilation and to always follow the label directions regardless of what cleaning agent you use. These extra precautions will help ensure a germ-free flu season and all year round as well.
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