5 Places Germs Hide in Your Office
Pay Close Attention to these 5 Places Where Germs Hide in Your Office and Clean Them on a Regular Basis
When evaluating the cleanliness of your office you may look at the freshly vacuumed carpet, polished doorknobs, and sparkling windows and assume that it’s spotless. However, there are hidden germs lurking in your office in places where you might least expect. Here are the five places where germs hide in your office.
- The Office Phone
Whether you are communicating with clients, scheduling appointments, or even ordering lunch for the office, you and your employees use the office phone continuously throughout the workday. Due to its continual use, the office phone tends to be a breeding ground for germs. Employees hold it close to their mouth and nose, breathe on it when talking, and pass it back and forth through many different hands.
- Desktop
While your desk may appear to be clean, there are germs lurking everywhere on the surface. University of Arizona microbiologist Charles Gerba, Ph.D., discovered that desktops, on average, hold 400 times more bacteria than an average toilet seat. The constant transferring of germs from touching multiple items throughout the office leads to your desk being a hotbed of bacteria.
In addition, many use their desks as a dining table leading to foodborne illness because of the bacteria present.
Your desk may look clean and organized, but germs are transferred easily and spread quickly from surface to surface.
- Keyboard
Similar to the top of your desk, keyboards gather germs and food debris over time. Many do not bother to sanitize their keyboards on a regular basis and even when they do, the small crevices of the keyboard can often be overlooked. According to the CDC, germs can live on surfaces for days. The failure to eliminate any germs on your keyboard regularly means they can be transferred back to you each day, exposing you to possible illness.
- Coffee Mugs
Many offices invest in a community coffee mug collection, with mugs being shared between employees each day. These mugs are not always cleaned properly; rather, they are rinsed off with soap and water. While this process helps to eliminate some germs, the mugs may still not be sanitary. These mugs, when not properly washed, are passed between employees each day, spreading germs from one mouth to another.
- Chair Arms
Throughout the workday, you may find yourself resting on several comfortable chairs, all with armrests for your comfort. While these arms give you more support and comfort, they are also covered in germs. Employees touch chair arms with their hands, forearms, and elbows. If you rotate through different chairs throughout the day for meetings and daily work, you are exposing yourself to a significant amount of germs and bacteria.
Seating furniture is often overlooked in the cleaning process, meaning that germs gather over time and transfer to a number of different employees.
These five common places for germs are often forgotten when cleaning. It is important to sanitize these areas properly in order to prevent the spread of germs and illness. A professional cleaning service like D’s Cleaning Service can help properly eliminate the germs in these common germ-infested places as well as other areas in your office. Call D’s Cleaning Service today to sanitize your Baton Rouge and New Orleans office and keep your employees in good health.
