Dear LPG, 

I don’t think my house is the cleanest in the world, but I don’t believe it is the dirtiest either. I would say that it is average. I guess I have a cleaning routine that works pretty well, although I have to admit to a bit of dust here and there.  

I noticed it a lot more when we were locked down a couple of years ago. Being stuck at home for so much more time than ever before, not to mention all that talk about how the transfer of germs played a big part in making things worse, affected all of our house cleaning habits.    

I think we all spend much more time at home cleaning things. But now that we can all go out again without worrying about it too much, I know that the importance placed on all that cleaning has dwindled somewhat. I dedicate a fair amount of each day to putting a bit of antibacterial disinfectant on my cleaning cloth and passing it over my surfaces. Still, my routine includes much more going out and considerably less cleaning.  

All this said, I was watching a television programme the other day which mentioned the things we miss and that we and all our visitors’ pre-contaminated fingers come into contact with, and I include mine when I say that.  

During the pandemic, we all became so much more aware of making sure our hands were clean, although, now that the threat of getting ill is not as prevalent as it was, I know that I was much more vigilant than I have been more recently. While I still have a small bottle of hand sanitiser in the bag I take out when I go; I can’t remember the last time I took it out and used it. 

Without getting too obsessive, I recently watched a television programme which mentioned some of the more unusual places that can become contaminated and that we don’t think about anymore. 
The ones that are not as obvious are kitchen surfaces and the toilet.  

When we invite visitors in, they are likely to have handled money, come from a shop where they pushed a trolley or carried a basket, pushed a door or used its handle, used the railing of a public staircase, and done so many other little things that other hands will have done before them, and who knows what germs and bits of bacteria might have been passed on. 

The programme I watched mentioned so many things we all touch without thinking about what might have been brought to that surface. The ones that I often miss are door handles and light switches, my mobile phone and the keys that travel in and out of pockets and bags all the time, and a bit of googling reminded me of some other places where a bit of disinfectant would not go a miss a little more often.

Having found a few lists, I thought it essential to pass the links on. I know I will be fitting a bit more time on a regular spot of cleaning some of the places I have missed up to now…. 

 
FT, Croydon

FT, passes on some of what the internet has to say on this subject…

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