13 Household Items Where Bacteria live And How to Clean Them
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Health threatening bacteria and germs are hidden all over our houses. Since people spend more time at home due to COVID-19, disinfecting the items of your daily life has become more important than ever.
Today, let’s find out about unexpected and easy to neglect dirty places in our houses.
13 Household Items Where Bacteria Thrive
1. Smartphone
Smartphones are the perfect bacteria breeding grounds. They cannot be rinsed or washed, we use them all the time in all kinds of situations and so they will inevitably turn into the ultimate vessel for bacteria.
Recently, shocking reports have been showing that bacteria on smartphones are detected 90 times more than on toilet seats. In particular, if you use your phone a lot, the temperature of it is bound to rise and heat provides the perfect environment for thriving bacteria, an optimal recipe for disaster.
It is highly recommended to frequently wipe surface and case of your smartphone with wet wipes or ethanol in order to disinfect them. After all, everyone knows that regular and thorough cleaning is the key to hygiene in your house . You can use smartphone-specific antibacterial agents to effectively sterilize your phone, or you can simply use a bit of perfume cleaner sprayed on a soft fiber cloth. Remember to wipe gently and don’t overflood the phone with cleaner in order to preserve your phone.
2. Kitchen Sponge
The sponge you use in the kitchen for cleaning your dishes is one of the most bacteria infected items in the house. At first glance it looks clean, you literally use it do your dishes with detergent every day, and it might be counterintuitive to figure out how filthy it actually gets. On average there are 326 different strains of bacteria in a kitchen sponge, and 45 billion of them live in every single square centimeter (cm²).
You should replace your scrubber every two weeks or even sooner if it smells. If it is too clean to dispose of, you better to soak it in water and then microwave it for about 1 minute, or put it in your dishwasher to sterilize it. For those of us who are very diligent, when you are done with the dishes, soak your sponge in a bowl filled with bleach diluted in water until the next day.
3. kitchen Sink
The kitchen sink is also a significant source of bacteria. When you rinse raw meat, fruit and vegetables, the bacteria will inevitably settle in your sink.
To keep your sink bacteria free, disinfect the sides and floor of your sink twice a week, and bleach the drain once a month. There is no need to worry about meat, fish, shellfish, etc., because the bacteria will die if you wash them and cook them at an appropriate temperature.
4. Remote Control
The remote control is also an object we reach for every day, another bacteria breeding grounds. Sweat and dead skin cells from the hands easily build up on your remote control. When a contaminated remote control is moved around the house and changes hands often it becomes a carrier of germs and bacteria. If you have children, they might even try and take a bite out of it, so you should always wipe it clean.
To clean the remote control, moisten a cotton pad or tissue with hand sanitizer and wipe it, use a cotton swab to remove dust accumulated in crevices and other areas that are usually difficult to clean.
5. Toothbrush Holder
An unsterilized toothbrush holder can hold more bacteria than you would imagine. In fact, the toothbrush holder is a cozy environment for various bacteria. It is usually moist and more often than not kept in poorly ventilated bathrooms or cabinets, just what bacteria need to replicate and multiply. If you keep an unclean toothbrush in your holder and use it as it is, you are basically self administering a bacteria overload straight to your mouth, not really what most people want.
It is good to wash the toothbrush holder with warm water and detergent or disinfectant once a week, it is recommended to place it in a well ventilated dry location.
6. Coffee Maker
It is easy to neglect cleaning your coffee maker. The water storage tank in particular is a dark and humid environment where bacteria thrive. It is one of the places with the most bacteria in our houses.
To clean the coffee maker, pour vinegar diluted in water and let it sit for about 30 minutes, then turn on the machine to let the vinegar water flow through the system. After that, run the machine two or three more times with clean water to get rid of the left over vinegar and rinse it off.
7. Gas Stove Knob
There are many people who clean the stove top well after cooking. However, it is easy to neglect the gas stove knob and the handles for turning fire on. If we think about how often we touch the handle and how often we clean it, it is clear that it needs to be cleaned every day or at least as much as the stove top.
It is recommendable to remove the knob once a week and wipe it with hot soapy water.
8. Bathroom Faucets
A bathroom can provide a mold and allergen friendly environment. Faucets and sinks, as well as showers and tubs are home to many different bacteria and germs.
Clean your faucets and handles in bathrooms (and kitchens) with disinfectant. After cleaning, leave the bathroom door, or even better a window, to dry the moisture that mold likes so badly.
9. Countertop surfaces
Surfaces in the kitchen where you handle the food are more likely to harbor dangerous bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli than anywhere else in the house. Because of frequent contact with raw food such as meat or fish, bacteria and mold prosper in crevices and are not easily cleaned. So much so that up to 20% of the food poisoning cases are directly linked to unclean kitchen surfaces.
 It is good to wipe these surfaces with hot soapy water every day and disinfect them with an appropriate detergent depending on the material they are made of. Every time you make use of a cutting board it is recommendable to immediately clean it and dry it thoroughly after use, possibly in the sun.
10. Pillow
Pillows and blankets come into contact with your body while sleeping and contain a lot of bacteria and germs. They should be washed frequently. Pillows in particular come in contact with our face and provide such an effective environment for bacteria to proliferate. This is because cosmetics and saliva are absorbed and mixed day after day and together with perspiration create bacteria and moisture. Therefore, unclean bed sheets can cause various health and skin ailments.
To reduce bacteria on the pillow, dry it in the sun as frequently as possible, also don’t forget to sprinkle it with baking soda from time to time and then just shake it off.
11. Keyboard
According to a study conducted on a British consumer group, tens of thousands of bacteria that cause food poisoning, such as Staphylococcus aureus and E coli, are encroaching into the gaps of your keyboard. This is because the germs attached to your hands are transferred to the keyboard and those gaps are actually quite difficult to clean.
 It is recommended to keep your keyboard in a cover, or if you do not like covers, hold the keyboard upside down and shake off dust and other particles from its insides regularly.
12. Makeup Brush
Most women often forget to wash their makeup brushes. It is difficult to wash the brush when you have to rush to work or you are simply in a hurry. If you don’t wash the makeup brush, it will incubate the bacteria from your cosmetics, skin oils, and dead skin cells embedded into your brush.
Makeup brushes should be washed at least once every 2 to 4 weeks depending on frequency of use. Dissolve shampoo in room temperature water, dip the brush in it, stir vigorously for 30 seconds, rinse under running water, and place it on a clean towel to dry. A clean makeup brush can help your skin immensely.
13. Pet Bowl
Pet bowls are one of the top five places in the home where the most germs nest. However, pet bowls are often neglected because animals clean them themselves thoroughly most of the time.
However, you should always wash it with hot, soapy water or in the dishwasher. It is recommended to do this everyday and disinfect with bleach at least once a week.
* If you have allergies, you must wear a mask when cleaning the house. It is also important to open windows to ventilate when you do your cleaning. After cleaning, it is recommended to leave the window open for at least 15 minutes, as fine dust will blow out in the meantime. It is important to avoid mixing cleaning chemicals as the fumes produced this way may be harmful for humans or pets.
