Most people ascertain that regular cleaning is the best solution to keep your rental home safe during flu season. Though, be aware, cleaning just the observable dirt may not be good 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 heap up more harmful bacteria than your toilet.
How dirty are standard handheld devices?
It is especially recommended that you regularly clean your smartphone, tablet, keyboard, mouse, television remote, and gaming controller. This is because these electronic devices are touched so often each day, mainly phones, controllers, and remotes, they can have ten times the amount of bacteria found on other surfaces in your home!
Ponder on this: as soon as you touch something and then touch your phone or computer keyboard, you’ve transferred bacteria from one surface to the other.
The more repeatedly you touch a particular surface, the more bacteria will collect there, hastily becoming a serious health hazard. For the years of flu season, it’s easy to pick up germs and unexpectedly pass them along to others by sharing devices, controllers – even the TV remote. This is what makes cleaning your dirty devices so crucial. If you aren’t cleaning your devices every day or after every use, the chances are quite high that they might get you or your family sick.
Surfaces you touch every day
Have you ever tried to closely take note of everything you touch around the house daily? You may be blown away! High-touch surfaces, mainly, get a lot of use but, as a matter of fact, may not make it onto your general cleaning lists. For illustration, doorknobs, cabinet handles, window blind controls, and light switches are all touched daily, and every now and again, multiple times daily.
If you haven’t wiped these surfaces down with a germ-killing solution, they are reasonably harboring high levels of harmful bacteria. Studies have found these surfaces persistently contain far more bacteria per square inch than your toilet.
Sanitizing high-touch surfaces in your home is especially useful during the length of flu season. But, however, these surfaces cannot exactly be sprayed with liquid cleaners or disinfectants. Spraying anything on your tech devices will certainly wreck them. But rather, you can buy and use wipes designed to clean electronic devices. These wipes commonly contain alcohol, which kills harmful bacteria.
For other high-touch surfaces around the house, apply a microfiber cloth and spray a disinfectant solution on the cloth, not actually on the light switch or doorknob. A commercial cleaning solution that specifically details 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.
In conjunction with high-touch surfaces, the CDC recommends washing your hands frequently and cleaning all surfaces in your home with a disinfectant just right for the type of surface you’re cleaning. Just be mindful to have proper ventilation and pay attention to the label directions, disregarding what cleaning agent you select. By taking these extra precautionary measures, you can keep your home as germ-free as possible during flu season and the entire year.
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