12 Things You Should Be Disinfecting (but Aren't)

There’s a difference between cleaning and disinfecting, which means there are different times you’ll need to do both, as well as different products you need to use. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, disinfecting kills germs that remain behind after standard cleaning, and the agency recommends using EPA-approved products or diluted bleach to get the job done. (Read the packaging for exact instructions, but expect to leave the product on your intended surface for at least 10 minutes to make sure it truly disinfects.)

You probably already know to disinfect your countertops and high-touch surfaces like light switches, but there are other spots in your house that need to be hit, too. Here are some of the places and things that need to be disinfected regularly.

AARP has a list of key areas to disinfect. In the top spot? Handles. If you think about it, handles are one of the most high-touch things in your house, from drawer pulls to the fridge to the knob on your bathroom vanity.

Buttons are also on the AARP list because while you probably thought to disinfect your remotes, you may have forgotten about all the other buttons in your home. There’s a button on your microwave, your alarm clock, your garage door... the list goes on, and you touch them all a lot.

Disinfecting isn’t just for in your home. Think of how much time you spend in your car—and how often you touch the steering wheel after touching something else that’s been who-knows-where. Disinfect the wheel, plus any other areas in the car you touch like (you guessed it) your stereo buttons.

As we’ve mentioned before, you want to disinfect your tech to get rid of risky germs. What do you touch more than your phone? Probably nothing. Here’s our guide for disinfecting it.

We’ve also suggested taking care to disinfect fabrics, especially if someone in your home has been sick. Remember to use the hottest setting on your washing machine and follow our guide for using bleach without wrecking your clothes.

AARP points out that railings are designed to be touched constantly, but also don’t show signs of wear or dirt. Just because it looks clean doesn’t mean it’s not covered in germs. Disinfect your railings and the posts they stand on.

Your keys get touched a lot, but especially after you’ve been out and about all day, touching stuff yourself. After you touch them, you probably toss them in your bag, where they bump around with a bunch of other junk from the outside world. Please disinfect them.

Your purse or knapsack goes with you everywhere; that’s the point of it. But as a result, it touches so much. The subway floor? The back of the door on a bathroom stall? Your bag really needs some disinfecting, but luckily, we have a guide for how to do it.

We hear a lot about how dirty cash is, but it’s time to accept that your credit card is probably not much different. Your wallet and the cards within it should get disinfected.

Cleaning garbage and diaper pails is not enough to rid them of stink sometimes, as we’ve pointed out before, so don’t assume it’s enough to keep them germ-free, either. Regularly disinfect these in between clearings.

The Bangor Daily News suggests disinfecting glasses and sunglasses, and we agree. They’re the first line of defense for your eyes, but that means they collect germs and other gross stuff in the process. Pay them back with some disinfecting.

Kids are germy and they’re also clingy. You know what has a lot of germs on it as a result? Their favorite stuffed animal. WebMD recommends disinfecting these, too, especially if someone has been sick lately.