Surprisingly, your toilet pan is one of the cleanest surfaces in your home, whereas other, far less expected places turn out to be the perfect habitat for thriving colonies of bacteria. There's your bin, your dish cloth, and your chopping board – your kitchen surfaces can be a well-spring of germs.
What is the cleanest part of your house? Surprisingly, the cleanest part of your house is likely to be your toilet pan. While the bathroom is wrongly thought to be a hothouse of bacteria in your home, the toilet has been proven time and time again to carry fewer bacteria than certain areas of your kitchen.
A home's kitchen sink carries more bacteria than both the toilet and the garbage can, Gerba's research found. "There's more fecal bacteria in a sink than there is in a flushed toilet," Gerba told "Today." "That's why dogs drink out of the toilet. They know better than to drink out of the kitchen sink," he joked.
Public bathrooms may be teeming with bacteria, but the toilet seat is probably safe for sitting. But the toilet seat is actually the cleanest part of the bathroom, one expert says.
Conner explained that even though toilet seats come in contact with germs, they have fewer germs overall because they're cleaned much more often (and more thoroughly) than other common household items like cellphones, hand towels, computer keyboards, doorknobs and kitchen cutting boards.
Research shows that about 200,000 bacteria live in each square inch of carpet (nearly 700 times more than on your toilet seat), including E. coli, staphylococcus, and salmonella.
Scientists at the University of Arizona found that your phone is ten times dirtier than most toilet seats. Gross! Here are other items that are dirtier than a toilet seat. Another study also found that a typical high schooler's smartphone can have as many as 17,000 bacterial gene copies on it.
Bathroom Germs, by Surface
Toilets may seem particularly repugnant, but they don't even come close to the shower in terms of germ concentration. In fact, our swab results revealed astronomically high bacterial counts from two shower components: the curtain and floor.
The most obvious reason to leave the toilet lid down is because it's more hygienic. Toilet water contains microbes of… well, everything that goes down it, to put it politely. Many bugs and infections have also been found in toilets, including the common cold, flu, E. coli, salmonella, hepatitis A and shingella.
So, while the water in your toilet may not be fit for drinking, it's not as dirty as you think. The water in your toilet bowl is cleaner than in your sink. This is because the water in your toilet bowl is constantly being flushed, which means that any dirt or bacteria is quickly removed.
Cleaning your home
Cleaning with soap and water washes the bacteria away, whereas bleach (including baby-friendly bleach) actually kills the bacteria. Both options work to keep your home clean.
Studies have shown that the average smartphone is covered with more bacteria than toilet seats, kitchen counters, the bottom of shoes and pet's food dishes, among other things.
Bathroom Cleaning
It's not a secret that the dirtiest and most difficult place to clean is a toilet. There will always be many harmful microorganisms in the bathroom and toilet, even if you wash them systematically.
Basically, you can choose either the bathroom or the kitchen first to start cleaning your apartment. Knoll recommends starting from the room that's furthest away in the home, then moving forward room by room until you reach the door.
But there's one thing that not everyone may be on the same page about—whether you should close the lid before flushing the toilet. As it turns out, research suggests that we definitely should be closing the lid before every flush, no matter how clean your toilet is.
Standing water encourages mosquitoes to breed … something you don't want happening at your house. Tip #2 – Leave the toilet seat up and open when away for an extended time.
Thus there is no onus on the members of any one gender to leave the seat in any specific configuration. The current “seat-down” convention means that in order to relieve their bladders, males have to first raise then lower the seat no matter who uses the toilet next, while females have to do nothing.
The kitchen holds the title for “germiest place in the house”, where bacterial contamination is far more common than in the bathroom, for example: Kitchen rags, towels and sponges are notorious for bacterial contamination.
Bacteria generally do not survive well under conditions of desiccation; however, Newsom (1972) demonstrated the survival of Salmonella on surfaces for up to 9 days, Escherichia coli for up to 8 days, and Shigella for up to 5 days in faeces dried onto toilet seats.
Handles, Switches, and Buttons
The faucet handles, doorknobs, light switches, and elevator buttons in public spaces could also be harbouring more germs than your toilet seats.
Researchers at the University of Arizona found that cellphones carry ten times more bacteria than a toilet seat. While many bacteria are harmless, some studies have found serious pathogens on cellphones like E-Coli, MRSA, and Strep. To avoid picking up bacteria, don't take your phone in the bathroom with you.
Yes, it's true that your phone harbors more bacteria than a toilet seat, which is why you should be regularly disinfecting the device that touches your skin multiple times throughout the day. As a bonus, cleaning your phone can also help make it last longer.
You may want to peel your mobile phone away from your face, considering it may be dirtier than a toilet handle, the Daily Mail reported. A U.K. study tested 30 mobile phones for levels of potentially harmful bacteria, or the total viable bacterial count (TVC).