Keep the germs at bay, and your home safe, by routinely disinfecting these dirtiest places in your home.
Kitchen Sink
When you leave dirty dishes in the sink, you’re creating a perfect petri dish for bacteria, which breed in damp, warm places. Even when you’re careful about rinsing dishes and loading them immediately into the dishwasher, food particles are left behind in the sink, aiding and abetting the formation of illness-causing bacteria which could include E. coli, campylobacter, and salmonella. Clean and sanitize your sink every other day by scrubbing off deposits, then filling it up with water and adding a little bleach for a five-minute soak.
Door Handles
Door handles get touched by everyone coming and going in the home, making them the Grand Central Station of bacteria. Even though door handles seem dry and innocuous, they can still support live bacteria for up to 24 hours. You can disinfect door handles with antibacterial wipes, but an easier way to reduce contagion is to use handles made from copper or its alloys, bronze, and brass. They’re naturally antimicrobial and can kill pathogens quickly, often within two hours.
Your cutting board
The average cutting board has 200 times more fecal bacteria than a toilet seat
says Charles Gerba, PhD, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona and author of one of the first studies to measure bacterial contamination of common household objects. A big culprit: raw meat, since many fecal bacteria originate in animals’ internal organs. So, the last chicken cutlet you diced? The tiny grooves your knife left in the cutting board are prime real estate for germs to get cozy.
Clean it: Plastic cutting boards are easier to sterilize than wooden ones and you can clean cutting boards by putting them through the sanitize cycle on your dishwasher or washing them with liquid dish detergent and water, followed by a soak in a solution of two teaspoons of bleach and a gallon of water, Gagliardi says.
Your kitchen cloth or sponge
Not only are sponges dirtier than your toilet seat, but they’re dirtier than any other item in your house. When researchers investigated 14 used
kitchen sponges, they found an insane 45 billion microbes per square centimeter, according to the results in Nature. Dishcloths and sponges harbor the largest amount of E. coli and other fecal bacteria in the average home, mostly because they aren’t replaced as often as they should.
Clean it: Place wet sponges in the microwave for two minutes once per day and replace often, the NSF says. Or replace your sponges with dishcloths, towels, and rags as these items can be sanitized by washing in your washer’s sanitizing cycle or with bleach, they say.
Fridge drawers
A study from the NSF found that refrigerator vegetable and meat compartments were the
top two spots in the kitchen with the most disease-causing microorganisms. It makes sense—any unwrapped veggies or escaped meat juices could leave behind dangerous germs.
Clean it: Empty your fridge drawers, then pull them out of your fridge. Give them a good scrub with warm, soapy water before returning them (and your food) to their slots, Gagliardi says.
Toothbrush holders & toothbrush
Hopefully, you’re replacing your toothbrush every three to four months, but when was the last time you cleaned out its holder? Fair warning: It’s probably filled with toothpaste gunk that dripped down after you brushed. The NSF study found that toothbrush holders were the dirtiest item in the bathroom. About 27 percent of toothbrush holders showed signs of coliform, compared to 5 percent of toilet seats.
Clean it: The NSF advises placing the toothbrush holder in a sanitizing dishwasher and washing once or twice a week. If yours isn’t dishwasher safe, hand wash with hot soapy water, rinse and then wipe with disinfecting wipe once or twice a week.
Could your toothbrush be one of the dirtiest places in your home? Grab a measuring tape and see how far it is from your toothbrush to your toilet. If it’s less than six feet, your toothbrush could be covered with tiny particles of feces, which were sent airborne by the force of the toilet flushing. Even if your toothbrush is stowed safely out of range, its damp bristles likely teem with millions of bacteria. You can disinfect your toothbrush by soaking it in antibacterial mouthwash and rinsing thoroughly before using it again. And don’t forget to close the toilet lid before flushing.
TV Remote
It gets handled daily, but does your remote control ever get cleaned? Probably not, if you’re like most people. Like other objects frequently touched by human hands, TV remotes are crawling with germs and viruses. To clean your remote, remove the batteries, then wipe it down with a moist (but not drippy) antibacterial wipe. Use an alcohol-dipped cotton swab to clean the edges of the buttons.
Purse
When was the last time you disinfected your handbag? Never? That’s what makes a purse one of the dirtiest places in your home. A handbag gets set down everywhere, including on public restroom floors, and is rarely cleaned. Shockingly, the levels of bacteria found on a purse rival that in a toilet. In fact, one in five handbags harbors enough bacteria to be considered a health risk, with handles being the dirtiest part. So, empty your purse periodically and clean the inside and handle with an antibacterial wipe. Also clean lipstick, sunglasses, keys and everything else that’s typically kept inside.
Bathmat
No shocker here. Your bathroom floors are the dirtiest ones in your house, which puts your bathmats at ground zero for germs. When neglected, they can accumulate bacteria, mildew, viruses, and fungi, which are all bad news if you happen to have a small wound on your foot. Make sure the bathmats you choose for your home are washable (no rubber backing), then run them through a sanitizing cycle every couple of weeks. Your bathroom floor will feel a lot cozier when it’s warm.
Dish Towels
A recent study found that 89 percent of kitchen rags were contaminated with coliform bacteria, and 25 percent carried E. coli. Experts recommend washing kitchen towels after every use and using paper towels to dry your hands.
