10 grossest things in your house [1-5]

No. 01 - You

At the end of the day, YOU are pretty disgusting.

Your body is home to a wide array of microbes, from bacteria and viruses to (perhaps even) bugs and parasites.

There are 10 times as many bacterial cells as human cells in the ecosystem that is your body -- and as many as 182 different species of bacteria live on your skin alone.

Yep, if you're looking for the biggest source of grossness in your home, you need look no further than your own fingers, feet and belly button, not to mention those disease-carrying mucous membranes.

Much of your own co-habitants are harmless to you, but can potentially cause problems for other humans. So, if you wanted to be super-safe, you could simply avoid all human contact.

Sounds like a plan.


No. 02 - Your toilet

OK, it's kind of a no-brainer: your toilet is disgusting ... but not as disgusting as it could be.

At least it gets washed out with every flush. Still, everything that goes in there is really gross, and as a repository for pretty much all the fecal matter in your house, it really isn't the cleanest surface.

And what about the infamous toilet seat? Should you sit on it? Look, you probably wouldn't want to lick it, but a toilet seat is far from the dirtiest thing out there.

If your immune system is relatively healthy, you probably won't have to worry about any STDs, common colds or hepatitis viruses that may be lurking.

When it comes down to it, your own skin is pretty good at keeping you safe.


No. 03 - Your vacuum cleaner (and bag)

Your carpet is a perfect home for a lot of nasty stuff.

Wet shoes drag in moisture and dirt, spills lead to mildew and mold, bacteria breeds in the dark recesses. Carpets, particularly those of the wall-to-wall variety, can be pretty nasty: as many as 200,000 bacteria can lurk per square inch (remember that the next time you lie down on a rug).

And where does it all go?

Either in your vacuum's bag or out its exhaust. You throw that bag out, right? But what about the vacuum cleaner's brush? Do you ever clean that?

One study found mold, bacteria and fecal matter in those brushes. Ick.

What can you do? Well, you can clean the brush, invest in a vacuum with a HEPA filter, or maybe even attack things head on with a new vacuum that zaps all your filth with UV light right when it enters the brushes. Who knew vacuums were so high-tech?

No. 04 - Your loofah or washcloth or sponge

You need water to live, right? Well, so do bacteria and viruses.

Microbes generally like humid environments. They also tend to like to hide from the deadly UV rays in light. So what stays wet and has lots of little cavities that get nice and shady and dark?

Why, it's that sponge in your kitchen sink or the loofah in your shower.

Don't freak out too much. Much of the life growing in that loofah has ancestral roots on your own body, so you're pretty well acclimated.

In fact, some of it may be of the "good" kind of flora and fauna, the kind that fight off the bad guys and give your immune system a helping hand from time to time.

Still, a single bacteria cell can multiple into an army of a billion overnight, so maybe it's time to buy a new kitchen sponge, huh?


No. 05 - Your garbage pail

So, it makes sense, right? All the food scraps that you don't eat wind up in your trash.

If you had wanted this stuff to stay fresh so you could eat it, you would have put it in the fridge, but you didn't.

Now, at room temperature and with plenty of organic material to chomp through, bacteria and fungi thrive and your trash bin starts to stink. Spoilage is, in essence, microbe-caused decomposition and everyone knows that garbage pails are full of spoiled food.

So, thanks to those microbes, your trash now also contains a lot of sliminess and smelliness. Not to mention a whole lotta life-forms.