One More Reason to Lather Up

I consider myself a fastidious handwasher.  My dry, cracked hands bear witness to the dozens of handwashings I put them through each day.  I’m the first to admit I have a germophobic streak, but even I dismissed this blurb in the April 2008 issue of Real Simple:

…wash your hands after transferring loads to the dryer.  "People assume washed clothes are germ-free," says Sandra Phillips, a cleaning consultant and the author of A Clean Break.  "But the dryer helps kill even more germs."

No way, I scoffed.  But the thought of invisible creepy crawlies breeding on my freshly washed clothes kept popping into my head whenever I switched a load from the machine to the dryer.  I begrudgingly started lathering up whenever I transferred laundry.  Fearing I may be slipping into neurotic territory, I Googled researched bacteria in washing machines.

I’m very sorry to report: you do need to wash your hands after handling clean wet clothing.

From the article Bacteria, Viruses Lurk in Washer by Arthur H. Rotstein (full article reprinted here):

More news from the guy who warned about dangerous germs lurking in your kitchen sponges and dishrags and the muck in your office coffee cup: Your washing machine may not be as safe as you think either.

Environmental microbiologist Charles Gerba spends most of his time researching water quality. But he also enjoys hanging around in other people’s homes, mostly in their bathrooms and kitchens -professionally, of course- searching for environmental hazards.

His most recent study, of 50 homes in Tucson and 50 others in the Tampa Bay, Fla., area, has found that coliform bacteria, an indicator of unsanitary conditions, including the presence of diarrhea-causing E-coli, abound in many washing machines.

Bacteria such as salmonella, which causes food poisoning, and viruses including hepatitis A and those most commonly causing childhood diarrhea, rotavirus and adenovirus, also were targeted. While E-coli was killed in the permanent press drying cycle, some salmonella survived on clothes that registered 131 degrees Fahrenheit. So did hepatitis A, adenovirus and some rotavirus.

Most of the contamination, and greatest risk, occurs when a person gets bacteria on his hands in transferring the wet laundry to the dryer, he said. If laundry facilities are next to the kitchen, there’s a good chance that after putting washed laundry in the dryer, the person will prepare food or bring his fingers to nose or mouth.

Scary stuff, no?  We all have to wash our underwear some time–what to do? 

• Gerba recommends running bleach through a cycle in an empty machine after washing a load likely to contain fecal bacteria (underwear, or pretty much anything your kiddos wear.)
• Hot water uses up more energy–and money–than cold, but it’s better at killing germs.  Consider running hot water cycles for underwear and towels.
• If you can’t remember the last time you cleaned your washing machine, brush up with this tutorial from ehow.com.
• Don’t worry too much about it–you made it this far, right?

What weird germy things keep you up at night?  Join the discussion in the forum!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Organizing & Cleaning.