Is your toilet cleaner than your keyboard?
Which? magazine in the UK swabbed their Head Office computer keyboards and the results, with horror, revealed some computer keyboards had dangerously high levels of bacteria normally associated with a toilet.
In summary, 4 of the keyboards were so infested with germs they posed a health hazard that could give someone a bad stomach upset; two of them had “warning” levels of staphylococcus aureus, and one had 150 times the safe limit of bacteria, and was 5 times dirtier than the toilet seat.
The main cause of a germ-ridden keyboard is eating lunch at your desk, because bits of food that get into the keys are ideal breeding ground for millions of bacteria. The second cause is using the keyboard without washing your hands after going to the toilet or rest room, and a third cause is dust, because this traps moisture and makes the food-ridden keyboard even more appealing to bacteria.
Elaine Warburton www.geneticsandhealth.com
Tags: bugs, hygiene, infectious diseases, micro-organismsRelated Stories
POSTED IN: General Genetics and Health, infectious diseases
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3 opinions for Is your toilet cleaner than your keyboard?
Scott
May 8, 2008 at 11:28 pm
To answer the title question…my toilet is probably cleaner than my keyboard…scary still but I would eat a piece of food that fell on my keyboard before I even ever think about eating a piece of food that might fall in my toilet. No, I don’t eat in my bathroom , it was just a comparison.
Angelique
May 9, 2008 at 11:04 am
My toilet and my keyboard are probably about the same — pretty gross.
Sorry. TMI, right?
Monica Livingstone
May 9, 2008 at 8:15 pm
In my case is worse: I don’t remember the last time I cleaned my keyboard. :(
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