15th September 2014 –
Did you know that on average an office worker will come into contact with 10 million bacteria in just one day?
Your keyboard may be your best friend when trying to get documents typed and complete your task list – however have you considered your keyboards other best friends? According to a recent UK study swabs taken from an ordinary London office contained more harmful bacteria than a toilet seat. Right now I’m struggling to hit the keys on my keyboard…where is that anti-bacterial wipe….
Studies show that office workers rarely clean their keypads and virtually never clean their mouse.
So who are these microscopic keyboard friends? What is growing on our keys? Well among them could be the harmful E. coli and Staph bacteria. Now I know that has your stomach churning but we have to consider the amount of use our keyboards and other tech gadgets get and remember there isn’t a surface under the sun that is sterile.
Door handles and light switches are another area of the office that harbors dirt, grime and germs. Yep, everyone touches the innocuous fixtures that we use daily, we don’t just have to touch light switches once we also have to touch them again to turn them off, and as for door handles well surely you need to touch both sides, one to open and one to close and then possibly all over again to come back out.
Do you use the office phone? Have you ever considered who else might be listening in? Phone calls are not private as an audience of approximately 25,127 microbes per square inch are joining in. The office phone is probably the most germ-contaminated place on your desk.
The desk surface is another area which is alive with activity that we don’t see. Carpets, carpet tiles and other furnishings are home to many bugs and germs including carpet beetles and moths. The Norwalk virus and others can survive for months in fibrous carpets. They will also survive on other surfaces like wood and tiles but not for quiet the same length of time.
You can see that regularly commercial cleaning not only makes for a pleasant working environment but can actually reduce illness for employees. Take a look at some options today and use our free quote compare tool – Virus free!