Kitchen Sponge Wrong. According to germ expert Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, the kitchen sponge is actually the dirtiest item in your home. Here's why: While you clean various surfaces and dishes with your sponge, the porous surface collects food particles.
In fact, that sponge is likely the dirtiest item in your home, Gerba says. “It's probably home to hundreds of millions of bacteria,” he says. NSF agrees. Its researchers found that 75% of home dish sponges and rags contained Coliform.
Scrub-a-dub-dub! The very items you use to clean your hands and dishes are among the filthiest objects you encounter, according to numerous ick-inducing studies [PDF]. Kitchen sponges are the worst, with as many as 10 million bacteria per square inch—about 200,000 times more than your friendly neighborhood toilet seat.
Sponges. That sponge you're cleaning your dishes and wiping your counters with is the dirtiest thing in your entire house, according to a study by a group of German researchers. They found a crazy high amount of 45 billion microbes per square centimeter, mostly E. coli and other fecal bacteria.
Surprisingly, the worst offender isn't the toilet, in the bathroom in your own home, at least. With 27 percent harboring coliform, the toothbrush holder is the place teeming with the most germs, according to the NSF study. Meanwhile, only five percent of toilet seats and no toilet handles carried that bacteria.
"There's more fecal bacteria in your kitchen sink than there is in a toilet after you flush it," said microbiologist Charles Gerba, known as "Dr. Germ."
So many will be horrified to hear that our desks are three times dirtier than toilet seats. A study found the average keyboard harbours as many germs as a kitchen bin while a computer mouse is filthier than a typical door mat.
Studies have shown that of all the surface areas in the bathroom, the floor is by far the dirtiest. That's because when we flush the toilet germs spread everywhere, and land on—you guessed it—the floor.
The shower curtain and shower floor may be the dirtiest places in the bathroom, but the toothbrush is the dirtiest thing, more specifically its handle. The swab test showed that toothbrush has 12.6 million CFUs beating the faucet handle that only has 56,000 CFUS and the 13,000 CFUs of the interior door handle.
Cleaning countertops
"Kitchen countertops tend to be the dirtiest near the sink area because people wipe them down with sponges and cleaning cloths that have E. coli and other bacteria.
Keep your hands off your belly button
Did you know that your belly button is the dirtiest part of the body, according to the Public Library of Science? “The belly button harbors a high population of bacteria,” Dr. Richardson says.
LendEDU pointed to research from Mastercard and the University of Oxford, which found the average bank note is home to 26,000 types of bacteria including E. Coli. “And the average coin has more germs than on a toilet seat!”
How many germs are actually on your phone? Let's face it: Your phone is a breeding ground for germs. And what is especially unsanitary about it is how close you put it to your face and mouth on a regular basis. Scientists at the University of Arizona found that your phone is ten times dirtier than most toilet seats.
The average desk contains 400 times more germs than a toilet seat, new research has revealed. Visualisations have been released showing how a host of nasties are harbouring on desk spaces across the country.
The money was tested for eight types of disease-causing organisms and all were confirmed present on the notes and coins. A cellphone. Phones were tested and confirmed to be tainted with 12 pathogens, with Staphylococcus species being the most prevalent.
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.
It's not just the bathroom doorknob that's dirtier than a toilet, it's all the doorknobs, handles, light switches, and electronic keypads around your home that are probably teeming with bacteria or virus-laden. A quick wipe down with a disinfectant wipe will take care of the problem.
An experiment done by SafeHome showed that the top two places with the most germs are your shower curtain and floor. The results showed that toilets, which most people perceive to be the dirtiest part of a bathroom, are actually 60 times less dirty than your shower.
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.
But the filthiest culprit in our homes is the kitchen sponge or cloth. According to Gerba, there are about 10 million bacteria per square inch on a sponge, and a million on a dishcloth. In other words, a kitchen sponge is 200,000 times dirtier than a toilet seat, and a dishcloth is 20,000 times dirtier.
E. Coli, Salmonella and Staphylococcus Aureus are three of the biggest bathroom culprits. These germs and bacteria are found across bathroom surfaces like toilets, bathroom floors and shower curtains.
Many people believe that the bathroom is the dirtiest thing they regularly come into contact with; however, a cell phone can house up to 10 times more bacteria than toilet seat.
Pathogens are not transmitted via skin contact
Even if many public restrooms do not look inviting - sitting on toilet seats cannot transfer germs if the skin is intact. Admittedly, sanitary conditions are not inviting in many public restrooms.
Black particles in the toilet bowl water
The black particles are likely the result of the disintegration of the float in the toilet tank. The float is especially likely to break down over time if you use an automatic toilet bowl cleaner in the tank. Replace the float or call a plumber about replacing the float.