Hasta La Ideas

The humor website Cracked.com ran a crass article last week about the dirtiest places you encounter in a day.

The “6 Items You Touch Everyday That Are Filthier Than a Toilet” article isn’t safe for work and contains some non-child-friendly language, so if you want to see the original, you’ll need to go to Cracked.com and do a search yourself (we try to be at least a wee-bit family friendly here on Unclutterer). But, the research linked to from the article is super safe (albeit disturbing), so I’ll put a few of those links into this post describing the findings from the Cracked.com article.

Coming in at #6 is the soap in public restroom dispensers. If the liquid soap isn’t in a sealed and disposable bag, it likely has bacteria in it. The door knob is also pretty bad. And, the faucet knobs aren’t all that clean, either. Turns out, the toilet seat has less bacteria on it that these three other items.

Taking the #5 spot is paper money. The Cracked.com article says there is a “sponge-like ability for money to absorb whatever it comes in contact with.” Ew.

The #4 award went to dirty laundry and washing machines. They contain a lot of bacteria, including enough E. Coli to make you sick.

Number 3 is the one we’ve all heard about — your computer’s keyboard. A regular cleaning with anti-bacterial wipes will help to keep this under control.

Similarly, the #2 dirtiest object is your cell phone. According to Cracked.com: “weighing in at a whopping 25,127 germs per square inch. Yeah, about 10 times as bad as your keyboard.”

And, the winner of the dirtiest place you encounter on a daily basis is your mouth. It seems impossible, but experts report that we have more than 700 different species of bacteria in our mouths.

Pardon me, I’m going to go and brush my teeth again.

Did any of these items surprise you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.