Home HEALTH These are the harmful areas in your home that you need to keep clean – Metro

These are the harmful areas in your home that you need to keep clean – Metro

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These are the harmful areas in your home that you need to keep clean – Metro

The cleaning craze has us dusting our skirting boards and wiping down the hinges of our windows.

But a new report from the Royal Society for Public Health suggests we might not be picking our cleaning battles wisely.

The report says that people should worry less about cleaning floors, walls, and furniture, and concentrate more on hygiene hot spots where harmful microbes can thrive.

The experts also want to take down the myth that being ‘too clean’ is bad for health or causes allergies. They say keeping clean is quite important, actually. So take note, grimy housemates who refuse to do a kitchen wipe-down.

The report explains that the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ popular in the 80s, which suggested that overcleanliness lead to allergies in children, has been scientifically disproven.

Instead of rolling around in our own dirt, what we actually need is diverse exposure to microbes that are mostly harmless, such as those we encounter by going outside the house.

What we don’t need is exposure to dangerous pathogens that put us at risk of infection.

So, yes, we should keep the house clean. But if you’re already rushed off your feet worrying about doing the dusting, the report encourages you to go for a ‘targeted hygiene’ approach rather than worrying about scrubbing your grouting.

The report says that the most important areas to clean are surfaces where you prepare food, utensils, and your hands during and after food preparation.

People should also wash their hands with soap and water before eating, after using the toilet (we hope you’re doing that already), after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose, after handling dirty clothing, after playing with pets, after putting out the bin bags, and clearing up pets’ waste, and after caring for someone who’s experiencing vomiting or diarrhoea.



The areas that are especially important to keep clean:

  • During food handling
  • While eating with fingers
  • Using the toilet
  • Coughing, sneezing and nose blowing
  • Handling and laundering ‘dirty’ clothing and household linens
  • Caring for domestic animals.
  • Handling and disposing of refuse
  • Caring for an infected family member who is shedding infectious microbes into the environment by vomiting or diarrhoea, or by touching foods or hand contact surfaces

The report also recommends washing towels and bedsheets at 60C to prevent the spread of infections.

Professor Lisa Ackerley, RSPH trustee and food hygiene expert, said: ‘Getting outdoors and playing with friends, family and pets is great for exposure to ‘good bacteria’ and building a healthy microbiome (genetic material that is essential for development and immunity), but it’s also crucial that the public don’t get the wrong end of the stick – this doesn’t need to get in the way of good hygiene.

‘Targeted hygiene undertaken at the crucial times and places is a way of preventing infection that is cheap on time and low effort, and still exposes you to all the ‘good bacteria’ your body benefits from.

‘Good hygiene in the home and everyday life helps to reduce infections, is vitally important to protecting our children and reducing pressure on the NHS, and has a huge role to play in the battle against antibiotic resistance.’

Professor Sally Bloomfield, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: ‘The problem is that we have become confused about what hygiene is, and how it differs from cleanliness.

‘Whereas cleaning means removing dirt and microbes, hygiene means cleaning in the places and times that matter – in the right way – to break the chain of infection whilst preparing food, using the toilet, caring for pets etc.’

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