12 Ways You’re Spreading Germs Around Your Home

12 Different Ways You’re Spreading Germs at Home

These days, it’s more important than ever to maintain a germ-free home. Nobody wants to get sick, but it’s super easy to spread bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. While you may do your best to keep things tidy, your current cleaning practices may not be sufficient to maintain a sanitary environment.

Therefore, it’s especially important to be aware of these 12 surprising ways that you’re spreading germs around your home.

1. Not Wiping Down Your Computer

Throughout your day, you touch doorknobs, public sinks, and plenty of other surfaces that many other people have handled. Naturally, these surfaces carry a lot of germs, and they’ll easily transfer to your mouse and keyboard when you get home. Since you likely use your computer every day, you should wash it every day. Just remember to use a gentle cleaning solution that won’t damage your device.

2. Handling Packaging

You’re right to be excited about your new package, but do you know how many hands have been on that thing? Even a local shipment has to be handled by a few people to make it to your destination, and many more people are likely to handle long-distance parcels. This also applies to food packaging and items that you buy at the store. Once you’ve opened the package, you should wash your hands and throw it away as soon as possible.

3. Wearing the Same Clothes

When you’re out and about, your clothes come in contact with many surfaces. Your clothes may touch chairs and doorways — all of which carry germs. To prevent these germs from spreading, it’s a good idea to change into something else and throw your old clothes into the hamper when you get home.

4. Touching Your Phone’s Dirty Screen

If you’re like most people, then you spend a lot of time on your phone. Whether you’re playing games, texting friends, or browsing the web, you have to use your fingers to do it. You touch a ton of surfaces with those fingers, so even if you regularly wash your hands, it’s important to wipe your screen with a sanitizing pad every day.

5. Overlooking the Little Things

Your mirror, sink, appliances, electric razor, and other small things are easy to forget about. However, when you don’t remember to clean these things, they start to accumulate many nasty germs. This is especially true for bathroom items and surfaces, so you must remember to wipe them down and wash your hands after contact.

6. Not Washing Your Child’s Toys

Fact: Kids can be very messy. They love to touch random surfaces, put their fingers in their mouth, play in the dirt, and more. They enjoy playing with their toys, so these objects can quickly become infested with germs. Therefore, you should frequently wipe down hard toys and throw their stuffed animals into the washing machine.

7. Keeping Your Shoes On

Would you eat off of the sidewalk? If you value your health, then you certainly wouldn’t. That’s because outdoor surfaces are often very dirty. When you wear your shoes indoors, you’re tracking all of that mud and grind into your home, so it’s better to change into a comfortable pair of indoor slippers.

8. Failing to Wipe Your Pet’s Paws

You’re not the only one who likes to walk outside. Dogs love to dig around in the dirt, and cats use their paws to bury their litter. Unless you want traces of kitty litter and fecal matter to spread throughout your home, you should remember to clean your pet’s paws with a safe and gentle cleanser.

9. Reusing the Same Towels

Bath towels, dish towels, and rags soak up a lot of water and dirt. Once they’re wet, they become a breeding ground for bacteria, and when you reuse them, you’re just redistributing germs around your body and home. If you throw your used towel into the hamper immediately after you’re done with it, then you won’t forget about it and unwittingly reuse it.

10. Keeping an Unsanitary Kitchen Sink

You use your sink to rid your dishes and cutlery of grime and old food particles, but these particles don’t just disappear. Although most of it will go down the drain, some scraps will stick to the interior of your sink, the drain, and the garbage disposal system. If you fail to disinfect your sink every day, then the germs in your sink will spread to your clean dishes, which can be bad for your health.

11. Not Regularly Cleaning Hard Surfaces

You come into contact with counters, food prep surfaces, switches, knobs, and other surfaces every day. If you regularly clean one surface but neglect another, then those germs will just spread to every other surface in your home. Therefore, it’s important to stay vigilant about every surface to avoid reintroducing germs to other surfaces. To ensure maximum cleanliness, you should use a reliable disinfectant.

12. Forgetting to Wash Your Hands

Your hands are like a packed airplane for various germs. You touch countless surfaces throughout the day, and many of those surfaces have been touched by other people. You don’t know how clean those other people are, so you should try to wash your hands after using the bathroom, opening doors, or touching any public surface. A sink with a quality disinfectant isn’t always available, so you should remember to bring some CDC-approved hand wipes wherever you go.

A Sanitary Home is Good For Your Health

Cleanliness is the cornerstone of a healthy home. On top of following the above points, you should also maintain clean and functional plumbing and HVAC systems. Call Pipe Wrench Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, Inc. at (865) 518-7008 to help you repair or install a system that will keep your home safe and sanitary.