Bacteria love offices. All those people packed in, breathing the same air? The perfect breeding ground for germs. Even though most surfaces at work are cleaned often, germs can still hide in unexpected places.
Why Office Germs Win So Often
Here’s the thing about bacteria and viruses: they’re patient. They will hang out on a surface for hours, sometimes days, just waiting for someone to come along and give them a lift. One contaminated doorknob can kick-start a chain reaction that knocks out half your accounting department by Wednesday.
You can’t see them, which makes everything worse. That pristine-looking conference table? It could be crawling with bacteria from yesterday’s lunch meeting. The sparkling clean bathroom sink? Don’t be so sure about that. Germs laugh at appearances. They set up shop anywhere people put their hands, and folks touch way more stuff than they realize during a typical workday.
Those Handles Everyone Grabs
Door handles could be considered the most frequently touched yet least cleaned surfaces in a building. The main entrance, bathroom doors, conference rooms; hundreds of hands grab these things daily. Now add light switches to that list. Every person who walks into a dark room flips that switch.Â
Bathroom door handles deserve their own horror movie. Someone washes their hands perfectly, feeling good about their hygiene game, then grabs that nasty handle on the way out. The soap use was completely pointless.Â
Your Keyboard Is Grosser Than You Think
Nowadays, people constantly use their computers. Eight hours of typing leads to an accumulation of finger oils and dead skin. Not to mention the leftover bagel crumbs on your keyboard. Mice are equally repulsive. That little scroll wheel? It’s seen things.
Research gets pretty uncomfortable here. Some studies found keyboards carrying five times more bacteria than bathroom surfaces. Yet when was the last time anyone properly cleaned their keyboard? Most people maybe run a tissue over the monitor once a month and call it good. Meanwhile, billions of bacteria throw parties in the spaces between the keys.
Phones and Copiers Spread the Wealth
Desk phones hover near faces all day, catching breath droplets with every conversation. But at least those usually belong to one person. Conference room phones? Those get breathed on by everyone from the CEO to the intern. Copy machines and printers get touched by the entire office. A person with a cold used the copier at 9 AM; by noon, their germs had spread to three departments.
These overlooked areas see a significant improvement with professional office cleaning. AllProCleaningSystems.com, a Boston-area company, targets germ hotspots and uses the necessary equipment to prevent office-wide contamination.
The Stuff You’d Never Think About
Chair armrests get grabbed constantly but are never cleaned. Elevator buttons might be the germiest square inches in any building. Everyone presses them, but nobody wipes them. Vending machines, stair railings, the communal stapler that gets passed around like a hot potato. These are all germ magnets. Air vents play the long game. Dust and bacteria build up inside them over months. Then the heat kicks on and whoosh; it’s raining germs. People sitting under vents wonder why they keep getting sick. Mystery solved.
Conclusion
Germs operate differently than visible dirt. These organisms thrive in seemingly spotless areas and reproduce on overlooked surfaces. Once you discover their hiding place, though, you can fight back. Regularly cleaning these difficult spots stops sickness from spreading quickly across offices. A bit more time spent on hygiene-sensitive spots can ward off numerous illnesses. It can also ensure the office functions efficiently.