A Germ-Zapper's Guide to Clean

Entryway/Shoes

Problem:

Here's a reason to watch your step: The world just may be, to put it bluntly, covered in poo. At least that's what's getting on the bottom of our shoes. Gerba found 13 percent of the shoes he tested had E. coli on the soles after three months of wear; a whopping 90 percent had other fecal matter. That makes the initial three or four steps inside exterior doorways heavy with germs. Also prone to leaving bacteria tracks near entryways: purses. They're known to pick up dirt and bacteria (sometimes in the millions) from days, months, years of being at our sides.

Solution:

Beyond taking your shoes off before or soon after you come inside, use a doormat and disinfect shoes with a wipe or spray regularly. Similar protocol goes for purses: When both inside and outside, watch where purses are left lying and try to keep them off he ground (especially in restrooms); disinfect every few days and let air-dry.

KEEP BAGS OFF RESTROOM FLOORS.

Handheld Technology

Problem:

The price of technology amounts to extra microbe exposure via phones, remote controls and computers. Recent media commotion over methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which causes serious skin infections that have proved lethal in some cases, brought the risks of sharing cellphones to attention when traces of the bacteria were found there. According to Tierno, 80 percent of infections of all sorts are contracted through direct (kissing, coughing) or indirect (phones, doorknobs) contact. Influenza and the common cold are beneficiaries: When testing homes with at least one ill child, Gerba found 80 percent of phone receivers had traces of the flu virus. He also determined that home offices were germier than work offices: Only 12 percent of work spaces at home were reported to be regularly disinfected, and a quarter had MRSA (compared with no MRSA traces in workplace offices). The keyboard was the top spot for germs, beating out the office phone, desktop, computer mouse and chair.

Solution:

It's as simple as washing your hands. Sure, wiping with disinfectants is needed, but the gold star of hygiene, and the way to curtail cross-contamination, comes down to soap and water. Gerba says children under 2 put their hands to their face some 30 to 50 times in one hour; the adult tally is 18. "Teach kids good hand-washing, good respiratory etiquette," says Rosenbaum. She recommends sudsing for 15 to 20 seconds -- enough time to sing "Happy Birthday" or "Yankee Doodle" -- and using a towel to turn off the faucet. If there's an ill person in the home, she says, handwashing should be a top priority to prevent viruses or bacteria from spreading.

WASH HANDS AT LEAST 15 SECONDS.