Shocking Top Nine Dirtiest Places in an Office

Did you know that some places in your office are actually dirtier than a toilet seat?

Take your desk for example, which maybe you are sitting at right now? A desk can be up to three times dirtier than a toilet seat. Shocking right?!

If you work in an office you will spend the majority of your day at your desk. You might even eat your lunch at your desk. Would you do that if you knew it was dirtier than a toilet seat?

But your desk is not alone in your office for harbouring dirt, grime and all sorts of grisly secrets. Let’s look at the top dirtiest places in an office …

Door Handles

Unsurprisingly door handles rate pretty highly when it comes to dirtiest places in an office. In a particularly busy office with lots of people working in it a door handle can be touched by multiple people every hour. And often on the way back from the toilet as well.

In a 2009 study it was reported that 69% of men and 35% of women do not wash their hands after using the bathroom.

So those door handles can get pretty grim during the course of the day.

Kettle

For similar reasons the office kettle can also be a prime breeding ground for bacteria. The average office worker will have a cup of tea or coffee every 2 hours. On an 8 hour day that’s potentially 4 visits to the kettle.

Each visit the handle may be touched twice. Once to fill up and once to pour the hot water into a cup. That means the average office worker touches the handle of the kettle 8 times a day. If 10 people are sharing the same kettle that’s 80 touches.

Unsurprisingly therefore the kettle can pass around a lot of germs very quickly!

Mobile Phones

Unlike door handles and kettles, your mobile phone won’t be touched by a wide number of people, but will be touched multiple times by you. How often do you clean your mobile phone?

Apparently more than half of people don’t disinfect their phones daily and nearly a quarter don’t do it ever! So that’s a lot of grime you’re carrying around with you if you’re one of those who doesn’t disinfect frequently.

You might think maybe that’s not too bad if its only you using it. But have a think about all of those door handles and kettles you touch. You’re picking up bacteria from them and if you touch your phone you’re then transferring that onto your phone. So it won’t be just bacteria from you that will be on your phone.

Toilet Tap

OK so we know 69% of men and 35% of women don’t wash their hands after visiting the bathroom, but that means 31% of men and 65% of women do wash their hands. And before they wash their hands what is the first thing they touch?

Yes you guessed it, the toilet tap is one of the dirtiest places you’ll find in an office. If you have a good office cleaning routine these taps should get cleaned at least once per day or maybe for smaller offices once or twice a week. But that leaves plenty of time for bacteria to build up.

Keyboard

Much the same as your phone won’t get cleaned very often, so too your keyboard. The average office worker touches their keyboard far more than any other item in the office. That means there is a lot of opportunity for the transfer of bacteria.

Keyboards are often black which doesn’t show the dirt as much. So you won’t necessarily see the build up happening.

Desk Phone

These too get touched frequently during the day and unless you have a good cleaning routine in place they may rarely ever get properly cleaned.

It’s not just the fact the buttons are touched, but more importantly the receiver will be up against your ear/head and the other end just below your mouth. Plenty of chance there for germs to be transferred.

Many offices these days operate an open desk policy where different people will use a desk from one day to the next. Just think about the build-up of germs on the average office phone over the week.

Office Chair

For the same reason keyboards and desk phones get dirty, so too do office chairs. You’re in full contact with an office chair for many hours. Maybe you will have a commute on a train, bus or tube. So you bring in dirt and grime every day and transfer that to your chair.

Once again if your office operates an open desk or hot desk policy there could be numerous people sitting in the same chair during a working week.

What to do about a dirty office?

We shouldn’t be surprised that things get dirty in an office and that it’s a prime breeding ground for bacteria and germs. There isn’t much you can do about that when people all gather in a relatively small area every day.

What you can do however is make sure that you keep the levels of bacteria down and the transfer between people low with a well planned and executed office cleaning regime.

Office cleaning companies specialise in doing just that – cleaning offices. They know where the dirtiest places in an office are. They know the breeding grounds for bacteria, and the opportunities for transmission.

They know where these places are and they know how to effectively clean an office to make sure the environment remains healthy and safe to work in.