It is clear that most people know that regular cleaning is an appropriate way to keep your rental home safe during flu season. But, really, cleaning just the discernable dirt may not be suitable 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 be keeping more harmful bacteria than your toilet.
How dirty are standard handheld devices?
It is seriously suggested that you regularly clean your smartphone, tablet, keyboard, mouse, television remote, and gaming controller. Considering that these electronic devices are touched so often each day, specifically phones, controllers, and remotes, they can have ten times the amount of bacteria found on other surfaces in your home!
Take this into account: in the case that you touch something and then touch your phone or computer keyboard, you’ve transferred bacteria from one surface to the other.
The more regularly you touch a particular surface, the more bacteria will collect there, swiftly becoming a serious health hazard. Through flu season, it’s easy to pick up germs and unintentionally pass them along to others by sharing devices, controllers – even the TV remote. This is what makes cleaning your dirty devices so critical. If you aren’t cleaning your devices every day or after every use, the chances are definitely high that they might get you or your family sick.
Surfaces you touch every day
Have you ever tried to keep a close watch on everything you touch around the house daily? You may be rather surprised! High-touch surfaces, specifically, get a lot of use though may not make it onto your general cleaning lists. For instance, doorknobs, cabinet handles, window blind controls, and light switches are all touched daily, occasionally so many times daily.
If you haven’t wiped these surfaces down with a germ-killing solution, they are surely harboring high levels of harmful bacteria. Studies have found these surfaces actually contain far more bacteria per square inch than your toilet.
Sanitizing high-touch surfaces in your home is especially essential along the whole length of flu season. That being said, these surfaces cannot exactly be sprayed with liquid cleaners or disinfectants. Spraying anything on your tech devices will certainly ruin them. But instead, you can get and use wipes designed to clean electronic devices. These wipes regularly contain alcohol, which kills harmful bacteria.
For other high-touch surfaces around the house, take a microfiber cloth and spray a disinfectant solution on the cloth, not outrightly 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.
Added to high-touch surfaces, the CDC recommends washing your hands frequently and cleaning all surfaces in your home with a disinfectant best for the type of surface you’re cleaning. Just be cautious to have proper ventilation and observe carefully the label directions heedless of what cleaning agent you pick. By taking these extra safeguarding measures, you can keep your home as germ-free as possible during flu season and all through the year.
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