your spice jars. Yes, it's not your counters, sink, or cutting board, but your spice jars that may be harboring the most bacteria in your kitchen.
Sponges and rags, countertops and cutting boards are common kitchen surfaces where bacteria can thrive. Sponges and rags are the most overlooked environment for germ infestation. The cellulose sponge is ideal for bacterial growth. Here bacteria have a surface to cling to, a supply of nutrients and moisture.
The kitchen holds the title for “germiest place in the house”, where bacterial contamination is far more common than in the bathroom, for example: Kitchen rags, towels and sponges are notorious for bacterial contamination.
The kitchen is the dirtiest room in a house, but germs also collect in the bathrooms, particularly in toothbrushes. Home offices are bacteria-ridden thanks to heavily-touched objects like keyboards and phones. Also on the list is living room carpet, washing machines, and food and water bowls for pets.
Think the toilet is the dirtiest spot in the house? You'd be wrong. "There's more fecal bacteria in your kitchen sink than there is in a toilet after you flush it," said microbiologist Charles Gerba, known as "Dr. Germ."
1. Kitchen sponge. If you didn't know it already, the single germiest item in your home is your average kitchen sponge. The NSF found that more than 75% of sponges and kitchen rags they tested had coliform bacteria on them.
Ideal areas to swab would be the following: the toilet, a door knob, nothing (as a control), a plant, the kitchen sink, the inside of someone's mouth. Label and seal the collection cups. Once you have introduced the bacteria, you should cover the cup with some plastic wrap and seal it with some tape.
Water and Wet Surfaces
Wet surfaces are a good place for bacteria to grow.
In the kitchen, your trusty sink sponge is health enemy number one. In fact, that sponge is likely the dirtiest item in your home, Gerba says. “It's probably home to hundreds of millions of bacteria,” he says. NSF agrees.
From the deepest oceans to the highest mountains. But there's a place in the mountains of Antarctica where there's no life at all. There are no bugs, no bacteria, not even D-N-A.
The germiest place in your bathroom is likely the spot where you hang your towels! A study and survey, conducted by electric heating specialists Rointe, reveals the filthiest area in terms of bacteria and grime is either a bathroom radiator or towel rail.
Sponges. That sponge you're cleaning your dishes and wiping your counters with is the dirtiest thing in your entire house, according to a study by a group of German researchers. They found a crazy high amount of 45 billion microbes per square centimeter, mostly E. coli and other fecal bacteria.
Handles, Switches, and Buttons
The faucet handles, doorknobs, light switches, and elevator buttons in public spaces could also be harbouring more germs than your toilet seats.
What is the cleanest part of your house? Surprisingly, the cleanest part of your house is likely to be your toilet pan. While the bathroom is wrongly thought to be a hothouse of bacteria in your home, the toilet has been proven time and time again to carry fewer bacteria than certain areas of your kitchen.
It may be surprising but our mattress harbors billions of bacteria, which makes it dirtier than your toilet seat according to recent testing. The reason is simple, we wash our toilet frequently but never clean or maintain our mattress despite the fact that we spend half our lives on it.
Procedure. Use cotton swabs to collect your bacteria samples. All you have to do is wipe the swab on a surface. Some good locations to find a lot of bacteria are door handles, bus or train seats, desks, and faucet handles.
Taking the swab
If your test requires a throat swab: open your mouth wide and rub the swab over both your tonsils (or where they would have been) at the back of your throat.
A bacteria culture test can help find harmful bacteria in or on your body that may be making you sick. To do the test, you will need to give a sample of your blood, urine, skin, or other tissue. The type of sample depends on where the infection seems to be located.
Dishcloths and sponges are dirtier than any other item in the average home, harboring the largest amount of E. coli and other fecal bacteria—mostly because they aren't replaced as often as they should be. Each square inch of these items contains 456 times more bacteria than a toilet seat.
But the filthiest culprit in our homes is the kitchen sponge or cloth. According to Gerba, there are about 10 million bacteria per square inch on a sponge, and a million on a dishcloth. In other words, a kitchen sponge is 200,000 times dirtier than a toilet seat, and a dishcloth is 20,000 times dirtier.
SafeHome conducted a small-scale experiment wherein they took swab tests of the objects inside the bathroom and discovered that shower is dirtier than the toilet in terms of overall germ count. It blows away the toilet when it comes to germ count as it did not win by a narrow margin.