You might be sitting in the dirtiest part of your office right now. You’ve probably eaten in this place before – maybe a slice of birthday cake, or a handful of crisps. Do you still want to know what the dirtiest place in the office is? Then read on.
The DIRTIEST place in the office is…
Your desk.
It might sound unbelievable, but your desk is home to 400 times as many germs as a toilet seat.
While most of these microbes are concentrated around your phone, the surface of the desk itself is a breeding ground for harmful bugs – ones that can make you and your team unwell.
That’s why it’s so important to thoroughly clean your office desk, phone and any other surface you regularly come into contact with.
We make these areas a priority in our office cleaning schedules, but maybe you’ll think twice about eating at your desk now!
The dirtiest office areas away from your desk
When we move around our office spaces, we’re helping the microbes get around, too. In a post-COVID world, hygiene is going to play a big part in how offices are managed, and it’s now more important than ever to know where germs are being passed from person to person.
After desks, these are the top areas of an office that germs can be found in:
1. Lift buttons & door handles
People come and go in a big office. Some of them are just visiting for a meeting or dropping off a parcel, some are getting ready to start a day’s work. Not everyone will have washed their hands (even after they’ve been to the toilet).
Some could have a cold, or worse, and not even know it.
As soon as someone touches the lift buttons or opens a door, they’ve spread their germs to that surface. Now imagine those surfaces were never cleaned – and in many big buildings, they never really have been.
Office cleaning shouldn’t stop at communal areas. If anything, these are the most important places to pay attention to, because they act as junctions where germs pass from one person to another.
2. The kitchen
It doesn’t get much better, I’m afraid. One of the dirtiest places in any office is the place with all the food and drinks.
The worst offender is actually the place you’d think is cleanest – the office kitchen sink.
Taps in offices get a lot of use before hands are washed. That means that they’re exposed to all the stuff on your fingers that you want to get rid of – like sticky jam, a tea spill or a misfire with the squirty ketchup bottle.
The sink receives all that gunk, which usually gets washed down but traces of old food can hang on, allowing bacteria to thrive. Smelly sinks are a sign of a bigger health and safety problem, but they can be avoided with regular and thorough office kitchen cleaning.
And the less said about that tatty old washing up sponge, the better – just replace it.
Related post: How to Keep Workplace Kitchens COVID-Safe
3. The toilet, of course!
Well, it goes without saying – when we have to do our business, we go to the toilet.
Toilets are a high-traffic area in any office, where germs can be spread easily. Toilet germs are extremely harmful: e-coli is of particular concern, here.
That’s why there’s such a tight focus on office toilet cleaning, with most workspaces operating on a strict, accountable cleaning schedule – so on average, toilets often end up being some of the cleanest spaces in the office!
There will be exceptions, though, and you can’t always monitor and enforce hygiene in everyone. But you can at least take care of yourself, by always washing your hands and minimising the contact you have with surfaces.
Related post: How to Give Office Bathrooms a Professional Clean
Meticulous cleaning, manageable schedules
Grimey office? We’ll get it cleaned up on a schedule that works for your business. For reliable, diligent office cleaning, call 029 2067 9323 today!
