Studies conducted by the University of Arizona bares startling facts about microbial presence within the office premises. Average toilet seats were observed to be cleaner containing 49 microbes per square inch compared to the office desks and phones having almost 25,127 microbes per square inch.
Office managers will insist on their toilet facilities being cleaned at least daily whereas office desks are (wrongly) assumed to be clean environments and can be neglected. The fashion for eating and drinking at your desk doesn’t help matters.
You might be sitting in the dirtiest part of your office right now: Your desk is the DIRTIEST spot in the entire office. You might want to avoid eating at your desk!
Most of these microbes are concentrated around your phone and keyboard. The surface of your desk itself is a breeding ground for harmful bugs.
It’s imperative to clean surfaces that you touch regularly.
1. Lift Buttons & Door Handles
People come and go in any office. It could be the courier guy with the parcel or people arriving for meetings, while others are readying their spaces to start the day’s work. You cannot expect each one of them to have washed their hands (including the ones using the toilet).
Some could have a cold, or worse, and not even know it.
The moment your fingertips come in touch with the surface of the doorknob or lift button the germs settle down on that very spot and you will be shocked to know that such spots are aplenty.
“Hotspots” like door handles and lift buttons are like terminals where germs from one commuter get passed on to the other almost automatically.
2. The Kitchen
One of the messiest areas in any office is the place with all the food and drinks.
And the kitchen sink which you thought to be the cleanest spot turns out to be one of the dirtiest.
Taps in offices get a lot of use before hands are washed. It’s home to all that gooey remains of your favorite jam, tea stains, and droplets of ketchup that invariably settle on your fingertips while relishing your food.
The sink can pose big health issues if not cleaned regularly. Stinking sinks are the surest signs of accumulated bacteria and unwashed food particles. Before it becomes a safety issue it can be easily addressed with thorough kitchen cleaning.
And the less said about that tatty old washing up sponge, the better – just replace it REGULARLY
3. The Toilet
Toilets are home to all sorts of germs and bacteria and can turn out to be highly infectious if not cleaned thoroughly regularly. E-coli is an extremely harmful toilet germ that spreads easily.
However, the toilet in office cleaning process has strict protocols and stringent accountable schedules. So more often than not the toilet invariably ends up being one of the cleanest spaces within an office.
There will be exceptions, though, and you can’t always monitor and enforce hygiene in everyone.
