Regular cleaning is one of the most basic ways to keep your Lawrenceville rental home a safe place to be during flu season. But you may be neglecting a lot more areas if you are only cleaning the visible dirt. Doorknobs, light switches, computer keyboards, smartphones, tablets, television remotes, and game controllers are all easy to miss when cleaning the house. If not sanitized regularly, these things could accumulate more harmful bacteria than even your toilet seat.
Common Dirty Devices
It is recommended that you clean the following items regularly: your smartphone, tablet, keyboard, mouse, television remote, and gaming controller. As these electronic devices are heavily touched each day, phones, controllers, and remotes can often have ten times the amount of bacteria found on other surfaces in your home! Think about it: each time you touch something and then touch your phone or computer keyboard, you have transferred bacteria from one surface to the other.
Surfaces that are often touched are more likely to collect bacteria and quickly become serious health hazards. During flu season, it is easier to pick up germs and unknowingly pass them onto others by sharing devices, controllers — including the TV remote. This is why you have to clean your devices. Chances of your family getting sick increases if you don’t clean your devices every day or after every use.
High-Touch Surfaces
Are you keeping track of everything you touch around the house each day? You would be surprised! High-touch surfaces are the areas that are often used but generally do not make it onto your cleaning lists. A few of these are doorknobs, cabinet handles, window blind controls, and light switches, which are all touched daily and even repeatedly throughout the day.
If these surfaces have not been wiped down with a germ-killing solution recently, chances are, they are harboring high levels of harmful bacteria. One study found that light switches often have 200 bacteria per square inch, while most toilets have 20 on average.
During flu season, it is extra important to sanitize the high-touch surfaces in your home. However, many of these surfaces are not ideal for direct spraying with liquid cleaners or disinfectants. Spraying anything on your tech devices will probably damage them. However, there are wipes that are designed to clean electronic devices. Since these wipes usually have some alcohol content, they are able to kill harmful bacteria.
You can spray the 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 many suitable commercial cleaning solutions that state that they are anti-bacterial and are suited for your home’s plastic or other durable surfaces. Keep in mind that harsh chemicals can damage painted surfaces, wood, or natural stone.
In addition to high-touch surfaces, the CDC also recommends that everyone wash hands frequently and clean all home surfaces with a disinfectant ideal for the type of surface to be cleaned. Proper ventilation is very important when cleaning as well as following the indicated label directions of the cleaning agent you choose. Taking these extra precautions can help keep your home germ-free during the flu season and all year round.
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