THE DIRTIEST THINGS YOU TOUCH EVERYDAY

1. MONEY
Everybody loves money, but nobody loves the germs that comes along
with it! Yuck. From the Ralphs cashier to the business executive's
office to the homeless man on the street, there's an enormous amount
of bacteria on every buckaroo in your pocket. Dr. Darlington, the
Health Commissioner of New York, found 135,000 bacteria from washing
one bill and 126,000 from another. The way to tackle this problem is
easy: wash your hands.

2. LIGHT SWITCH
Somebody's got to do it, and usually it's the last person in the room.
So pack up your things quick and get out of there because turning off
the light switch in a public area is just about the nastiest task
anyone can be assigned to do, besides counting...
rolls of money (refer
to #1). All the itty bitty germs love swirling around on the plastic
switch that's touched by millions of dirty fingers over the years add
up to about 217 bacteria/square inch. According to a local restroom
sanitation glossary, that's what you'd call a common contact point
where germs are transmitted. Clorox wipe, anyone?

3. COMPUTER KEYBOARD
The computer's your friend (except when it freezes on you in the most
pivotal moments of life) but its accompanying keyboard is a nemesis
thriving with germs. In a study from a British consumer group in 2009,
33 computer keyboards were randomly sampled and out of these tested
four were considered a health hazard. One was even discovered to have
more bacteria than your average toilet. The only way to clean (or
delete) this pile of cooties is to spray the keyboard with a can of
compressed air and wipe with a cloth dipped in mild detergent.

4. CELL PHONES
Forget the dog. Cell phones are a modern (wo)man's best friend. Heck,
the average person probably touches, taps, or strokes their or her
cell phone more times than they pet their neglected pooch at home. New
research from the United Kingdom show that mobile phones are a
technological petri dish for tens and thousands of germs, mainly due
to the heat that they generate as well as the bacteria it shares with
your hands and face. Next time, consider an anti-microbial coating for
your phone or frequent anti-bacterial wipe-downs. Or sterile rubber
gloves every time you touch or use your phone, always disposing of
them in a furnace immediately afterward.

5. TOILET
Though the toilet seat has been good to you on many a bad days, its
porcelain white surface is party-host to all sorts of diseases and
viruses. Statistics show that there are 295 bacteria for every square
inch of the cold, smooth surface. Though that's not as bad as the 3.2
million on the toilet bowl, it's still not a place to rest your head
on at night – or in the morning.

6. SHOPPING CART
Sorry to be a killjoy, but surfing down the grocery aisle just got a
lot less fun. Think of every possible bacteria-filled thing a person
can touch – well, once they hit their local supermarket, those things
can also be found on the handle of any shopping cart. In fact, there
may even be things on there that you haven't touched. A study from the
University of Arizona found that shopping carts were loaded with more
bacteria, saliva, and fecal matter than escalators, public telephones,
and even public bathrooms. So next time you're at a supermarket, you
might as well pick yourself up some Purell. Shop and squirt, shop and
squirt…

7. REMOTE CONTROL
How many times has ice cream splattered onto your remote control and
you've just ignored it? Or even worse, smeared it across the surface
into an expansive-but-barely-there layer? Add to that the MRSA, VRE
and SARS bacteria that is easily transferable by touching TV remotes,
and you've got yourself one soiled artifact. Next channel, please.

8. BATHUB
Sure, you're all clean and spiffy, but what about your bathtub? The
bathtub is home to many toxic bacterias that is often left unnoticed.
That is, until someone in the family catches a staph infection,
urinary tract infection, pneumonia, septicemia, or some form of a skin
condition. Believe it or not, bacteria left lingering near the drain
of a bathtub is worse than bacteria found in the toilet. By cleaning
the bathtub with bathroom cleaner just once a week, you can minimize
these unwanted germs (and illnesses) from you and your loved ones. Go
on, give it a good rub-a-dub-dub.

9. KITCHEN SINK
Contrary to popular opinion, the kitchen may actually be the dirtiest
place in the house. Of course, that's not including your dirty little
brother Jimmy's bedroom but that's another story. Anyway, there's
typically 500,000 bacteria per square inch in the kitchen sink drain
alone, so you can only imagine the total gunk with faucet handles and
all. To solve the problem from the inside out, try pouring 1/2 cup
baking soda and 1/2 cup of vinegar down the drain. Finally, rinse with
hot water, and you just might hear your sink burp a clean gurgle of
delight.

10. KITCHEN SPONGE
"NO! I TRUSTED YOU!!!"
Now it just seems like I'm messing with your head. But I'm not. It's
true. The very sponge that takes the grit off of your dishes and
bathroom sink, is really the dirtiest of them all. The yellow and
green icon of the kitchen is really a cozy home for germs. Its moist,
micro-crevices make it harder to disinfect, so instead of wiping
surfaces clean with a sponge, users are really just transferring
bacteria from one place to another. An easy remedy is to microwave the
sponge for 60 seconds–it improves the odor too!

11. DIRTY USED UNDERWEAR
I don't need to say much about underwear *dirty ones*. After putting
on a boxer short for two days, you should expect it to carry dirt and
germs, same goes to the women with panties. I would have made it
number one on this list but here you have it. It is expected of you to
wash your hands with clean water after handling your dirty underwear.
And at the same time don't wear the same underwear for more than two
days for men while that of the women shouldn't exceed one day!