Feel Under Attack By Bathroom Germs?
There are not just a few people who, concerned about the presence of bathroom germs, will go to great lengths to avoid visiting any bathroom that is not in there own home. After all, you usually know how clean your bathroom is, but you don't know how clean a bathroom in someone else's home is, or how clean a public bathroom is. Step into a public bathroom that has wide usage, or worse yet into a Port-A-Potty, and you envision yourself walking out, covered with bathroom germs.
We usually associate bathroom germs with human waste. After all, our intestines and colon are loaded with bacteria, although they are supposedly helpful bacteria, and our kidneys flush out toxins and other bad stuff. Urine in point of fact is both sterile and supposedly has antiseptic properties as well, yet if we come into contact with a drop of someone else's urine, we feel terribly unclean. A wet spot of water on the floor, toilet seat, of flush handle (use your foot) on the other hand, probably holds a million or more germs per square inch.
It's true that bathrooms that aren't regularly cleaned can be havens for bathroom germs. What isn't necessarily true is that, especially in a public bathroom, we suspect the previous visitor to the toilet stall was the dirtiest person on earth. The fact is, it isn't so much people who create unsanitary conditions, though we do our share, at least to get things started, it's dampness and moisture which allow germs to flourish. Warmth can help as well. Imagine the joy germs must feel when their home is a Port-A-Potty sitting in the sun.
Handles Are The Culprits - The truth is, we usually pick up more germs in the bathroom from touching the faucet handles and the door handle when we leave that we do while visiting the toilet stall or the urinal. Even in a spic-and-span private home, where the toilet and sink are kept immaculately clean, the bathroom door handle is probably cleaned about once a year, if ever.
If you scrub your hands while in the bathroom and wipe off the faucet handles and door handle before you're finished, you may well escape from the bathroom almost germ free. Next thing you know you're holding the telephone receiver or working at your computer keyboard, and before you know it your hands are loading up with germs again, and none of them are bathroom germs.
Push The Button With Your Elbow - Here's an interesting public bathroom statistic. It may or may not be true, but makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it. If you wash your hands before leaving the restroom, and dry them with a paper towel, the number of germs on your hands left after washing, and there may well be a few, decrease by about a third. If you use a warm air hand dryer, the number of germs on your hands can triple. Warmth and moisture, no matter how brief, can be part of the reason for that. More likely is the push button on the hand dryer, if there is one, which may not have been washed since the device was first installed.
Admittedly some of what you've just read may be a bit exaggerated. A bathroom, public or private, that is not kept clean and dry to the greatest extent possible, can be a haven for germs. In your own home however, you're just as apt to pick up germs in the kitchen, from the telephone, the computer keyboard, and from door handles. A percentage of the germs you happen to be walking around with at any given moment may well be bathroom germs, but they're apt to be in the minority.