14 Most Contaminated Items in Your Office

It seems like just another day at the office…until you realize how many of the objects around you are covered in bacteria and germs. Yikes!

The unfortunate truth is that most offices are far from clean. Chances are, you’re not disinfecting the refrigerator handle at the end of your workday. That’s the job of a professional cleaning company. However, the fridge handle isn’t the only thing needing their attention.

Read on to find out 14 of the most contaminated items in your office or workspace.

1. Keyboard

Let’s be honest; how many times have you cleaned your keyboard? You’re not the only one. Even though we use our keyboards all day every day, they’re rarely given a good clean. Don’t forget that everything you touch inevitably finds its way to your keyboard. This includes everything from sweat to food debris to bacteria to viruses.

2. Phone

Your phone does not have an easy life. It comes in contact with your hands, your face, and your breath. All in all, that’s a lot of bacteria. Did you know the average office phone has 25,127 germs per square inch? Do yourself a favour and disinfect your phone.

3. Desk

Given the state of your keyboard and phone, it should come as no surprise that your desk is another bacteria magnet. Between lunches and spilled coffee, the surface of your desk can get pretty dirty pretty quickly. Indeed, desks have around 400 times more bacteria than toilet seats.

4. Chair

Yes, even your chair is a germ magnet. In fact, chairs are one of the most contaminated objects in your workspace. Chairs have more germs than phones, computer mice, keyboards, and desks!

5. Door handles

This should come as no surprise. If the pandemic taught us one thing (besides the risks of at-home haircuts), it’s to be wary of door handles. Over the last two years, we have all become experts at opening doors without having to touch the germ epicentre that is the handle.

6. Light switches

The magic of automatic lighting is that you don’t have to touch the light switch. However, not everyone is so lucky. Between washrooms, conference rooms, and break rooms, your office likely has a lot of light switches. Over the course of a day, these switches are touched several times by many different people. 

7. Elevator button

Think about it, everyone in your office takes the elevator. Okay, maybe there’s that one guy who takes the stairs. For the most part, though, everyone is using the elevator. Thus, everyone is also touching the same few elevator buttons. The elevator buttons are essentially the communal office keyboard. As a result, they’re a hub of bacterial activity.

8. Shared office equipment

Photocopiers, printers, scanners, and other pieces of shared office equipment are used daily by multiple workers. And anything shared must be cleaned regularly! Otherwise, these objects are centres for contamination. Pay close attention to handles, buttons, and touch screens.

9. Shared kitchen equipment

Everyone has to eat. Unfortunately, everyone also has bacteria, sweat, and dead skin particles on their hands. Fridge handles, microwave handles, and faucets are all touched by a lot of people every single day. This situation gets even worse in the kitchen where food debris gets everywhere. Those old sandwiches and cartons of two-week-old milk are breeding grounds for bacteria.

10. Sinks and counters

Any surface that comes into contact with food must be properly sanitized to prevent cross-contamination. This includes sinks and counters! Essentially, deep clean everything in your office’s kitchen.

11. Coffee maker

If you can’t start the workday without a refreshing cup of joe, then you’re not the only one. Over the course of the day, you and your colleagues are frequenting the same machine in search of the next caffeine fix. What this means is that a lot of hands are touching the same coffee maker. 

12. Water cooler

Did you know that those daily water cooler meetings actually provide the perfect environment for bacteria? The water cooler is actually where all the germs in your office go to meet. Water dispensers tend to have four times more bacteria than the average cutting board.

13. Soap dispenser

The soap dispenser is where you go to get clean after a bathroom break. Unfortunately, soap dispensers are crawling with bacteria. We’re not saying don’t wash your hands, but we are saying to also disinfect your soap dispenser. 

14. Your coworkers

There’s a reason why we all stopped shaking hands during COVID-19. Human hands are cesspools of germs and bacteria. How else do you think these office objects got contaminated in the first place? Despite being told constantly for two years to wash our hands, many people are still not washing their hands. The result? Bacteria everywhere.

Decontaminate Your Office: Hire an Office Cleaner

If you want to win the war against germs and bacteria in your office, you’re going to need professional help. As you can see, offices are crawling with microscopic pathogens. At best, these are just gross. At worst, they pose a serious health hazard.

A professional office cleaning company, like RBC Clean, has the time and the tools to sanitize these contaminated objects (and more).

We are a certified and BBB-accredited complete janitorial company with more than 60 years of industry experience. Furthermore, we offer a range of janitorial services for commercial, industrial, institutional, and recreational facilities.

To learn more about our office cleaning services in Toronto, call RBC Clean at 866-278-8208 or contact us here.