We let a professional germ buster sweep our office for pathogens

WE LET a professional germ buster sweep our office for pathogens. The results were disturbing and not what you’d expect.

WHEN a professional germ buster offered to sweep the news.com.au office for pathogens, I’ll admit I was pretty nervous.

Like many journos, I have been known to eat at my desk while typing frantically, and I’m aware that this is not the most hygienic of practices.

I’d like to say I give my keyboard a regular scrub with antibacterial wipes, but in reality it’s about once a month.

But curiosity got the better of me, so I accepted EarthEcco cleaning company founder Jake Tyson’s offer to give his fancy germ-detecting machine an official tour.

Who would have the filthiest desk at news.com.au? Would it be one of our burger-loving reporters, a member of the product team or a well-manicured sales exec?

In order to make the challenge as fair as possible — and ensure my colleagues didn’t cheat by doing some last minute spring cleaning — I put up a bottle of wine as the prize for the dirtiest workspace.

Here’s how it played out.

An “acceptable reading” is between 10 and 30.

ADMIN IS A DIRTY GAME

Team Assistant Lauren Elias agreed to be our first sacrificial lamb, stepping back to allow Mr Tyson to swab for pathogens.

As he swept the hi-tech swab over Lauren’s desk and keyboard, Mr Tyson explained that while there were hundreds of thousands of strains of harmless bacteria, the dodgy ones could make us seriously ill.

“If you use a proper disinfectant or cleaner there should be nothing there,” he said.

“Water will kill 99 per cent of germs, but it’s the one per cent that you have to worry about.”

Child care centres, industrial kitchens and hospitals kept the bacteria count at their premises close to zero, Mr Tyson said, but for most workplaces an acceptable reading would be between 10 and 30 organisms per square centimetre. No pressure.

With that, he placed the swab into a device that resembled one of those Geiger counters, used to measure radiation after a nuclear meltdown.

We stood back to watch the numbers climb. 100, 250, 375 ... It was not looking good for our admin superstar.

The meter finally stopped at 2129, a massive fail by any standard of hygiene.

To put it in perspective, we measured the door handle of the men’s toilets — and got a reading of 2284.

While the meter did not specify what type of pathogens were in the mix, Mr Tyson said that the higher the reading, the more likely that harmful bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella and staphylococcus aureus were present.

Lauren promptly wiped her workspace down with antibacterial wipes, which brought the reading down to 224.

“It’s still a fail, but it’s a better fail,” Mr Tyson said.

Rashell Habib scored 1121 on the germ-o-meter.

HANDS DOWN THE FILTHIEST

Next up, we visited Social Media Editor Rashell Habib, who assured us that she kept her desk and keyboard fresh.

“I did just clean it about two weeks ago,” she said.

With a reading of 1121, Rash, you might want to make that a regular event.

State Reporter Benedict Brook scored a close 1024 for his keyboard and 1160 for his mobile phone.

But the filthiest staffer was yet to be revealed.

Our copyeditor Roy Fleming, a self-confessed pedant, came up sparkling. After swabbing his mouse, desk and keyboard, he got a reading of just 332.

“That’s still classed as a fail, but it’s a very clean fail,” Mr Tyson said.

For the record, my personal workspace scored a humble 147.

Deputy Editor Lisa Muxworthy’s dusty keyboard came up a reasonable 934, narrowly beating Sales Integration Specialist Lou Blair who got 960.

Integrated Sales Executive Jane McIvor was shocked to learn that, at 1458, her desk was dirtier than the bin handle in our shared kitchen, which got a reading of 1443.

“I clean my desk every week with spray and wipe,” she protested.

Commercial Content Editor Caitlin Chandler showed up her peers with a pristine 222, while Commissioning Editor Hannah Stenning scored 477 for her desk and keyboard, and 107 for her telephone and mouthpiece.

Hand washing is the cornerstone of our civilisation’s health and hygiene.

Finally, Technology Editor Matthew Dunn offered up the part of his body that should have been the cleanest: his hands.

Disturbingly, they scored 3305 of the germ scale.

“That’s around the reading you’d expect from a toilet,” Mr Tyson said.

Matt, where have your hands been??

We didn’t test the toilet seat, but we did swab the inside of the staff fridge.

The meter came back with a reading that would put any food producer out of business.

Our filthy fridge had a whopping 7637 live organisms per square centimetre.

I’m getting take-out for lunch from now on.

EarthEcco, which has developed a TGA approved, non-toxic alternative to bleach-based cleaning products, is offering businesses a $150 self-test kit to analyse how clean their workplace is.

Originally published as We let a professional germ buster sweep our office for pathogens