These Are the Dirtiest Places in Your Hotel Room

You may want to pack some disinfectant wipes the next time you travel. When you stay in a hotel room, you usually expect that staff have cleaned it thoroughly after the last guest stayed there. But this is not always the case, and even regular cleaning can leave travelers open to other people’s germs, experts say. In one 2012 study presented at the general meeting of the American Society of Microbiology, 81% of surfaces sampled had some fecal bacteria. Researchers found that light switches and TV remotes were among the objects most heavily contaminated with bacteria, and toilets and bathroom sinks also had high levels of microbial organisms. This is not surprising, says Kelly Reynolds, germ expert and associate professor of environmental health at University of Arizona, because hard surfaces that are frequently touched by multiple people provide good environments for microbes to collect. Any time you touch a lightswitch or TV remote, microbes from your hands transfer to the new object. So items like the hotel phone or a keyboard also harbor lots of germs, Reynolds says. When it comes to the bathroom, most surfaces around the toilet are likely pretty dirty. “When you flush the toilet, the viruses and the feces do get spread throughout the walls of the toilet, the flush handle, and the walls of the bathroom,” says Reynolds. In a recent study in the American Journal of Infection Control, Reynolds and her colleagues found that flushing a toilet can send contam...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Germs healthytime onetimetravel Source Type: news