Your car's dashboard.
It has
ten times more germs than your door handles! Apparently, the
sunlight heats the dashboard and provides germs with the perfect
breeding ground, so they grow whole cities right under your
unsuspecting little nose, every day.
Your work desk.
Major, major yucko: it has 400
times more germs than the average toilet seat. Your phone and
computer keyboard figure into this, too; they're coated with
germs from your own fingers.
Related:
5 Frightening Truths About the Germs Under Your Fingernails (and
His!)
The office microwave handle.
A
cold virus can survive for 72 hours on one of these things, so
wash your hands before and after you nuke that morning coffee.
Your kitchen sink. Blame germ-filled sponges and drains filled with remnants of old food for the fact the kitchen is the germiest place in your house.
ATM buttons.
It makes sense: tons of people beep-beep-beep these
buttons every day and they are rarely (if ever!) cleaned.
Your bathtub.
You wash the germs and bacteria off your body and guess where they
land? In the tub: a moist, warm place that germs find as inviting
as the tropics. There are nearly
120,000 bacteria per square inch near your tub drain.
But in good germ news, there is at least one thing that's totally, completely, surprisingly clear of germs:
Wood floors.
They're not very porous, so they can't harbor as much
moisture as germs would like to live in. Even the heavily
trafficked ones are too dry for many germs to thrive. (That
doesn't mean the Five-Second Rule applies, though!)
I'm sure you're already doing all the things you should to keep germs at bay--washing your hands (but it bears repeating--after all, a recent study found that a lot of people don't wash their hands at all unless there's an actual sign posted in the bathroom to remind them!), keeping the Purell handy, boosting your immunity with vitamins and plenty of good sleep, avoiding other people's sneezes and sniffles. Just let this serve as a gentle germ reminder: we're all in charge of our own good health.
Are you hyperaware of germs these days? How are you keeping healthy right now, when so many people seem to be getting sick?
Plus: The things in your home that may be killing you!
MORE FROM GLAMOUR:
