The Real Hygiene Care and Health Risks from Bacteria in Public Restrooms, and How to Easily Avoid Them

Even the most hygiene care-insensitive, health-unconscious people are wary of toilet seats and their gruesome bacteria in public restrooms. Those with buns, thighs, and knees of steel will squat-hover above the seat for mildly uncomfortable levitated relief. Others less sporting simply layer toilet paper, seat covers, or paper towels. At the same time, little, if any, thought is given to the bacteria found in any other niches in the room. There's a grand irony in all of this: the toilet seats in a public restroom are, from a hygiene and health perspective, one of the safer surfaces.

I'm not suggesting that you can, or should, eat off them. Don't do that. That'd be unspeakably, gut-wrenchingly disgusting. However, you really can't catch diseases or illnesses from sitting on toilet seats. Diseases don't survive there; they don't wait hungrily for the next victim to lower his or her healthy supple flesh down. While human skin does have significant absorptive properties, most outwardly contracted sicknesses are brought in via the face (mouth, nose, or eyes). The actual bacterial dangers in a public restroom lurk on the surfaces you touch with your hands.

Hygiene Care 101--your hands are your most prolific distributor of germs. Your hands touch everything, picking up all sorts of unwanted filth. Then you touch yourself, a lot. Not in any dirty sense, but it can be very dirty business. Most risky is all the hand-to-face contact you make, whether it's rubbing your eyes, wiping your brow, scratching your nose, stroking your chin, picking your teeth, pulling your lips, caressing your cheeks, or whatever other regular or bizarre things you do to your upper region.

This is why the greatest single protection anyone has against contracting minor illnesses is frequent hand-washing.

What surfaces do threaten your hygiene and health in a public restroom? The easy answer is any surface that everybody touches after going to the bathroom. The most bacteria-laden spots are toilet handles and sink faucet handles (which are operated before hands are washed--and don't think the microbes are carried away by water when the sink's turned off after the hand washing). The locks and interior door handles on stalls are also happy little bacteria havens.

And of course, speaking of hygiene care, not everybody washes their hands after going to the bathroom. Some polls have found as few as 15% of men and 20% of women wash up after taking care of business. Even those who do wash their hands usually don't do so effectively. How many times have you seen someone just give a quick rinse with water? How many folks have you seen actually vigorously scrubbing with both soap and hot water for a full 15 seconds? Needless to say, this does not make for a very hygienic doorknob you're grasping on the way out of the restroom.

None of this calls for avoiding public restrooms. No hygiene care scare paranoia-born boycotts. What you should avoid is touching these surfaces directly with your hands, which is quite simple if you think about it. Flush the toilet with your foot if you're nimble enough, or even your elbow. Otherwise, just flush with a paper towel. That paper towel can get you cleanly out of the stall too, and can be used to operate the sink and open the restroom door. Easy enough, and certainly worth the minimal effort to stay free of bacteria and a bit healthier.

Finally, one other useful hygiene care tip for public restrooms: flush the toilet before you use it. One flush (i.e., the previous user's flush) does not empty the bowl of all urine traces and fecal matter. Like bacteria, just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. That stuff does splash up in minute quantities much more than you realize--directly onto you if you're sitting, or even, guys, onto your legs when standing. I know I've already said that the true hygiene worries and health risks come from your hands being exposed to bacteria; nevertheless, I still find I don't really want that shit on me. Pun intended.