With cold and flu season beginning, it seems time to consider a prime pathogen breeding ground - your desk, phone and keyboard.
In a CNN Health Report, Dr. Charles Gerba, a microbiologist down the road from us at the University of
Arizona, "counted bacteria on workplace surfaces for a study sponsored by The Clorox Co., makers of Clorox bleach. Office toilet seats had 49 germs per square inch, he found. But desktops had almost 21,000 germs per square inch. Phones were worse -- more than 25,000 germs per square inch. Desks, phones, computer keyboards and mice are key germ transfer points because people touch them so often..."
Easy enough to sanitize desktops and phone handsets, but hard to properly disinfect computer keyboards using a chemical disinfectant - you need to up-plug the keyboard, use compressed air to removed lodged particles, and use a Q-tip to swab disinfectant onto tops and sides of the keys. Time consuming and sloppy. I know of no local janitorial firm including such service in their standard package.
A good alternative is an ultra-violet light sanitizer. It won't help the visual impact of a dirty keyboard but, with a 10 second or so application, it can pretty effectively sanitize the keys. That's why we're making it available as part of our "cleaning for health" package.
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