These 15 Things Actually Have More Germs Than Your Toilet
#1 Ice
Restaurant ice is supposed to be refreshing, but it's kind of chilling (in the bad way). According to ABC News, the ice from fast food restaurants is dirtier than toilet water 70 percent of the time. Employees touching the cubes with their bare hands is the primary reason.
#2 Keyboards
They're packed with germs from your hands, dead skin cells, and crumbs of all the food you eat over them, so it shouldn't be that surprising that your computer keyboards are teeming with bacteria. Wipe yours down with rubbing alcohol once a week to keep the pathogen levels under control.
#3 Bathroom Floors
They're right near the toilet, so it doesn't seem like they should be that much dirtier. But you have to remember that your shoes track in germs as well, and you're not putting your feet up on the john. In addition, every time you flush your toilet tiny droplets of contaminated water shoot up and land in the surrounding area, so there's probably more fecal matter on the linoleum than on the porcelain.
#4 Phones
Think again before you bring your iPhone up to your ear. Your cell phone has thousands upon thousands more bacteria than your toilet, likely because you never clean it off, but your bathroom gets a weekly scrub-down.
#5 Carpeting
You only use your toilet three or four times a day, so it doesn't see that much traffic. Your carpeting, however, is a different story. Your shoes, kids, and pets bring in all sorts of icky things from the great outdoors, and all those skin cells you shed while you're watching Netflix in the living room only keep the bacteria fed.
#6 The Kitchen Sink
It gives the appearance of general cleanliness because there's running water washing things down the drain, but your kitchen sink is dirtier than your toilet. Most sinks have more E. coli bacteria than toilets do because the germs ride in on meat scraps and stay for the moist environment and the bacteria-laden food remnants, notes Food and Wine Magazine.
#7 Money
Forget all those tropes about money being the root of all evil--the root of disease is more like it. Think about how many people before you have touched those Benjamins nestled in your wallet and how grimy their hands might have been. Plus, it's not as if anyone ever launders money (at least not with soap and water). Each bill can have up to 200,000 bacteria living on it, reveals Business Insider.
#8 TV Remote
Like your computer keyboard and cell phone, your remote is another device that's positively filthy due to a lack of cleaning. How many times have you wiped it off in the past year? Exactly.
#9 Kitchen Sponges
If your kitchen sink is really that dirty, expect your sponge to be equally as filthy. In fact, sponges are likely to have the highest concentration of E. coli and salmonella out of anything in your home because they're always wet. Toss these portable bacteria breeding grounds in the garbage every week to stay on the safe side.
#10 Your Toothbrush
Those same airborne particles of urine and feces that land on the bathroom floor when you flush also find their way over to your toothbrush. You can solve this one easily by keeping all your dental hygiene products stowed away in a medicine cabinet.
#11 Cutting Boards
Meat is an excellent source of protein and a number of harmful bacteria (from animal feces, unfortunately). It has the potential to contaminate anything it comes into contact with, which is usually your cutting board. Try to avoid plastic boards in the future; they're extremely porous, so they're really good at harboring bacteria even after you wash them.
#12 Your Purse
No matter what classy designer made it, your purse is a hotbed of filth. It has all the dirty heavy-hitters, such as money, your phone, and your keys, and peppering the interior with all sorts of germs.
#13 Steering Wheels
You wash your hands before you leave the bathroom, but it's doubtful that you do the same thing before entering your car. You touch all kinds of dirty things out in the world, such as ATMs and elevator buttons. Then you hop in your vehicle and rub your hands all over the steering wheel, transferring enough bacteria to make it five times dirtier than the average toilet seat, states Business Insider.
#14 Light Switches
The switches in your bathroom are dirty because of that fine, particulate spray that comes up out of the toilet and settles around the room, but the ones around your house are dirtier than your toilet, too. Everyone in your family touches them with messy hands, and it's a rare occurrence that you take the time to clean them off.
#15 Restaurant Menus
Sure, the bussers wipe the tables down with bleach after every customer leaves and the plates go through the high-heat dishwasher, but that shouldn't give you the impression that everything in your favorite eatery is clean. Restaurant menus are brimming with germs because staff rarely ever wash them after all those customers touch them.
