When you spill some food on the carpet, it’s “dirty.” When your shower curtain has mold and mildew building up, it’s “dirty.” It’s really easy to tell the obvious items, spots, and spills, that are dirty in your home. But there are probably other places in your home that don’t “look dirty” but you should still give regular attention and cleanings.
Today we’re going to take a brief tour through the different rooms of a home and discuss the dirtiest areas in your home that could be housing germs and bacteria and other sorts of stuff!
You might be surprised about the areas of your home that you overlook in your regular cleaning!
Bathroom
Let’s start with obvious room first- the bathroom.
Bacteria and germs linger in your bathroom after every use. You can look and see that your toilet is dirty, or your shower curtain looking a bit unclean, but there are probably a lot of places you hadn’t considered a problem for gathering germs.
For instance, few people directly clean their bathroom door knobs, light switches, and faucet handles. The best way to clean these items isn’t with a lot of cleaning products or wash cloths.
The best way is to just use disposable antibacterial wipes regularly. Once a day, if possible, or just as often as convenient. Anything is better than never.
Other hidden culprits of harboring germs are your bath towels and bath mats. Your mats and towels take in a lot of water, and make a great place to hold mold, mildew, and grow other bacteria.
While most people wash their bath towels, a lot of people put off washing bath mats. Both mats and towels need to be washed frequently. Once a week if possible. And also need to be dried completely.
If you use hand towels in your bathroom they should be changed out several times per week.
Clean your bathroom sinks every day or every other day with disinfectant. Toothbrush holders should be cleaned weekly. If you can keep your toothbrushes in a medicine cabinet that would be ideal.
When you do a deep clean of your bathroom and hit the obviously dirty areas like your bathtub, shower curtains, and toilet, also apply disinfectant or use antibacterial wipes on the areas around them.
The Kitchen
The kitchen has some of the same vulnerabilities of a bathroom. Moisture, heat, and add food on top of that. Raw meats. Unwashed fruits and vegetables.
And then add the fact that it isn’t unusual for many people to gather and leave other stuff around the kitchen. My car keys, some mail, and other random things often litter my kitchen counter.
The main areas you want to cover in your kitchen include the obvious area like your sink, and countertops, but also cabinet handles, small appliances, and your refrigerator handle.
Treat the kitchen similar to your bathroom. Usual disposable antibacterial wipes to kill germs where many hands touch. Also, if you use hand towels in the kitchen, it is even more important to clean them regularly. Especially with the food element involved.
Living Room
Keeping in line with the rest of this article’s theme, think of all the places in your living room that are touched, almost constantly, but infrequently cleaned.
Remotes, door knobs, lamps, light switches. All of these should be cleaned with disinfectant regularly to prevent the spreading of germs.
Also, couches and other furniture fabric should be vacuumed once a week with a hand vacuum to prevent the build of allergens and dust. These fabrics are also exposed to sneezes and unwashed hands, so spray with a disinfectant spray too.
Wrap Up
As you can see, there are plenty of places that you might have overlooked in your regular household cleanings. It would take eternity to list every potential place in a home that is forgotten like light switches and doorknobs, but with the perspective from this article you should be more keen that it isn’t just the obviously dirty places one should clean in their home regularly.
