Without a doubt, most people truly understand that regular cleaning is an effective way to keep your rental home safe during flu season. But, on the other hand, cleaning just the obvious dirt may not be fully enough. Doorknobs, light switches, computer keyboards, smartphones, tablets, television remotes, and game controllers are easy to miss when cleaning the house. If you are not sanitizing them regularly, they may acquire more harmful bacteria than your toilet.
How dirty are standard handheld devices?
It is highly recommended that you regularly clean your smartphone, tablet, keyboard, mouse, television remote, and gaming controller. Cause these electronic devices are touched so often each day, particularly phones, controllers, and remotes, they can have ten times the amount of bacteria found on other surfaces in your home!
Seriously think about it: when you touch something and then touch your phone or computer keyboard, you’ve transferred bacteria from one surface to the other.
The more often you touch a particular surface, the more bacteria will collect there, easily becoming a serious health hazard. Through the course of flu season, it’s easy to pick up germs and unwittingly pass them along to others by sharing devices, controllers – and even the TV remote. This is what makes cleaning your dirty devices so vital. If you aren’t cleaning your devices every day or after every use, the chances are quite high that they might get you or your family sick.
Surfaces you touch every day
Have you ever tried to attentively keep track of everything you touch around the house daily? You may be actually surprised! High-touch surfaces, most of all, get a lot of use but, in fact, may not make it onto your general cleaning lists. Take for example, doorknobs, cabinet handles, window blind controls, and light switches are all touched daily, and sometimes, numerous times daily.
If you haven’t wiped these surfaces down with a germ-killing solution, they are in any way harboring high levels of harmful bacteria. Studies have found these surfaces conventionally contain far more bacteria per square inch than your toilet.
Sanitizing high-touch surfaces in your home is especially critical during flu season. But, take note, these surfaces cannot easily be sprayed with liquid cleaners or disinfectants. Spraying anything on your tech devices will actually ruin them. Instead, you can just use wipes designed to clean electronic devices. These wipes normally contain alcohol, which kills harmful bacteria.
For other high-touch surfaces around the house, use a microfiber cloth and spray a disinfectant solution on the cloth, not exactly on the light switch or doorknob. A commercial cleaning solution that specifically details it will kill bacteria will work for your home’s plastic or other durable surfaces. Just don’t use harsh chemicals on painted surfaces, wood, or natural stone, as the chemicals will damage these areas.
With high-touch surfaces, the CDC recommends washing your hands frequently and cleaning all surfaces in your home with a disinfectant that’s great for the type of surface you’re cleaning. Just be meticulously careful to have proper ventilation and carefully obey the label directions, doesn’t matter what cleaning agent you opt for. By taking these extra safeguards, you can keep your home as germ-free as possible during flu season and for the whole year.
Are you in the market for a new rental home? Contact Real Property Management Full Service to discuss things with one of our property managers servicing Antioch and nearby or take a look at our available listings.
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