that canadian girl

Eww! don't touch that mouse!

As if I wasn’t paranoid enough about using other people’s pens because I know I always end up chewing them, touching doorknobs because I don’t know what’s been on them before, and just generally hating shared bathrooms, this Korean research confirms that cyber cafes are dirty ming-holes too.

Computer mouses found in cyber cafes have been ranked as the second most bacteria-infested items in a list of commonly touched objects.

The survey, carried out by the Korea Consumer Protection Board, found shopping cart handles to be the worst of the worst. Typically, they contain an average of 1100 colony forming units (CFU) of bacteria per 10 sq cm.

The detected bugs include all kinds of bacteria including pathogenic ones.

The Dirty Half Dozen:
1. Shopping cart handles – 1100 CFU per 10 sq cm
2. Internet café computer mouse – 690
3. Bus hand straps – 380 (yes it said bush, but I corrected the typo to save you the inane comments)
4. Public toilet handles and door knobs – 340.
5. Lift buttons at 130
6. Train hand straps – 86

(Found via Digg, quality reading for the entire family!)

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3 responses to “Eww! don't touch that mouse!”

  1. lattégirl Avatar
    lattégirl

    Hi CG! I found you in the blogroll at Blog From A Broad. You can easily see by the suffix on my email addy that I am Canadian, too. Fascinating stuff.

    It’s funny that your post about public germs is the first one I read here… cuz I have this thing about germs too, though not in a Michael Jackson or Howard Hughes way, and I recently heard on the radio that grocery carts are the most infested and more often than not, the least-often cleaned/disinfected. YUCK!

    I will bookmark you, read some archives, and be back. Love from the Laurentians, LG.

    Reply
  2. lattégirl Avatar
    lattégirl

    PS: no mention of public telephones (buttons, receiver) or ATM machine buttons or Direct Pay buttons? I Purell my fingers after using any of those.

    PPS: I’m still not Howard Hughes.

    Reply
  3. Vegcat Avatar
    Vegcat

    Which is why I always always carry alcohol wipes in my handbag! Get the kind you buy for use before injecting insulin rather than the overpriced scented bits of fluff sold as handwipes – every pharmacy stocks them and they’re guaranteed to kill loads of germy cooties!

    After years of temping, usually covering sick leave for someone with a hacking cough of dose of the flu, I use wipes to clean office phones, keyboards, ATM machines, cart handles, and sometimes my hands after touching something particularly nasty. Sounds paranoid maybe, but I’ve just don’t catch colds anymore like I used to. 🙂

    Reply

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