20 High-Touch Areas You Should Clean Every Day – LifeSavvy

As much as we all hate to admit it, there are more than a few areas in the home that get overlooked on cleaning day. If your forget zones are high-touch areas, you may want to write this list down.

From your kitchen cabinet handles to the remote control sitting on your couch, there are plenty of high-touch areas that could use a deep cleaning.

High-touch areas are surfaces in the home that are frequently touched by hands. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends regularly cleaning and disinfecting high-touch surfaces.

To reduce the spread of germs, those specific areas should be cleaned and disinfected on a daily or every few days. Before you pull out your bottle of all-purpose cleaner from under the sink, it’s essential to understand your cleaning products and how they’re formulated.

All-purpose, multi-surface cleaners are great for polishing your counters and giving your home a fresh scent, but they aren’t meant to kill bacteria and viruses the way disinfecting chemicals do. Disinfectant sprays are formulated to kill microbes that can make you sick, so using them in high-touch areas is crucial.

Clorox Disinfecting Spray kills up to 99.9% of bacteria on surfaces, including the viruses that cause COVID-19. Plus, the citrus scent leaves your home smelling fresh and lovely. Reach for these when it’s time to clean frequently handled spots in your home.

Kitchen room

The kitchen is a busy room where you will find everyone in the family taking turns eating snacks and constantly opening cabinets and refrigerator doors. You may not think much of it, but there are plenty of germs lingering in areas you might not think about.

Between the refrigerator door handle and your favorite appliances, you’ll want to use your disinfectant spray for these areas:

• sink faucet: It may seem silly to think so, but the kitchen sink, which is full of soap scum, contains a lot of germs. The faucet handle specifically has a lot of hand contact, especially before you wash your hands.
• Refrigerator door: From grabbing snacks to cross-contamination throughout your cooking session, your fridge door is doomed without regular spraying and wiping.
• Cabinet handles: Some cabinet knobs and pantry handles are touched more than others. The key is to find the most frequently used cabinets and give the handles a quick disinfectant spray and wipe.
• Appliance knobs: Think about how often you use your oven, toaster, and coffee maker. If you use them daily, you might as well consider sanitizing them as often.
• Microwave door: With everything you do during the week, the microwave door handle and buttons are certainly full of germs.

Living room

The kitchen may be the hot spot for germy hands, but there are a few select areas where germs seem to linger in the living room, too. Before you get out your cleaning supplies, take the time to tidy up the room and organize all your things first.

Once your living room is clean and tidy, you can move on to disinfecting some of the high-touch areas that need attention. The most common points include:

• The remote control: How many times a day do you grab your remote control to watch your favorite Netflix series? Spray a damp cloth with disinfectant, then wipe it clean to avoid damaging the remote.
• Game controllers: Whether you have an Xbox, PlayStation, or any other gaming console, you know those controllers often get touched. Just like with the remote, spray your towel down and then wipe the device to prevent any liquid from getting under the buttons.
• Front door handles: Door handles are some of the most frequently touched areas in the home, so be sure to disinfect the inside and outside handles frequently.
• Light switches: Electricity and liquid don’t mix well, so don’t spray light switches directly. Instead, use a damp cloth with disinfectant spray and wipe down the switches.
• Railing: If you have a staircase nearby, be sure to clean that railing from time to time. Considering it’s designed for hand contact and support for going up and down stairs, you’ll appreciate keeping it germ-free for everyone in the home.

Disposable wipes are useful in areas like the living room, where you want to avoid spraying some of those high-touch areas. Multi-Surface Cleaners refresh surfaces while killing up to 99.9% of germs on items like remote controls, controllers, and light switches.

Bathrooms

The bathrooms of the houses have a lot of activity. From family members to friends and other guests using your bathroom, you’ll find plenty of germ-ridden places that need attention.

The top five include:

• toilet handles: The toilet handle is touched every time someone uses it, usually before washing their hands. Enough talk. Be sure to sanitize that spot every day with a disposable paper towel.
• faucet handles: The faucet handle is another place that is touched before proper hand washing with soap and water. Be sure to spray and scrub.
• shower handles: The easiest way to clean your shower is to do it while you shower. Follow this housekeeper’s clever shower cleaning hack to make your faucet handle and shower walls shine in the future.
• first aid kits: If you open the medicine cabinet door frequently, you should clean it as often as well.
• Vanity doors: You can probably get away with cleaning these less frequently than other high-touch areas, but at the very least, sanitize your powder room door handles weekly.

Bedrooms and office space

Bedrooms and home offices also need special attention. To keep your bedrooms and home offices neat and tidy, start by decluttering your space. Once you’re tidy, you can move on to sanitizing some of the high-touch areas.

• door handles: Door handles are some of the most frequently touched areas in any home. Every time you enter a bedroom, you have to touch the doorknob. The same goes for cabinet doors. Make sure you clean them well.
• Vanity knobs: Like cabinet door handles and doors, if you open them daily, they probably need to be cleaned every day.

• computer mice: Your computer mouse has a lot of hand contact, but it most likely isn’t sanitized often. Use a damp towel with disinfectant spray to help kill germs.
• Keyboard: There are a few different ways to clean a desktop keyboard, depending on how deep a clean you plan on doing. How-To Geek’s mouse and keyboard cleaning tutorial will give you a complete overview of how to accomplish the task.
• Office desk: Your desk surface should also be sanitized regularly, especially if you eat at your desk frequently.

Your home is full of high-touch areas that could use some extra attention from your disinfectant spray bottle. Beyond that handy chemical disinfectant, you’ll find plenty of viral cleaning products that work well in other parts of the home.