Warning: Stop reading if you're eating breakfast. A new study has found that your keyboard may be five times as filthy as a toilet seat. Yes, you could be typing away on the equivalent of butt germs! [via Treehugger]
A microbiologist swabbed keyboards in a typical London office and found 150 times the recommended limit of bacteria. The main culprit: eating at your desk. After the jump, five ways to clean-up...
1. Simply turn your keyboard upside down and shake. You'll be surprised at what comes out.
2. With the keyboard turned over, use compressed air to blow the gunk out.
3. Use your vacuum's hose to suck the stuff out.
4. For harder to remove pieces of last week's sandwich, slide a 2 1/2-inch strip of adhesive tape between the rows of your keyboard. The sticky side will pick up loose dust and crumbs. [via Real Simple]
5. And finally, for that crap that's wedged way in there you'll have to laboriously remove your keys one by one. Remember to take a digital photo of the keyboard before so you can remember the layout. Or you can print out a photo or illustration of a standard keyboard to use as reference.
Using a butter knife, gently wedge each key upward until it clicks free. The space bar, Shift, Return and Enter keys,are probably attached to a secondary metal or plastic support so leave those in and vacuum around them after you've gotten the rest of the keys out.
Dump the keys in a bucket with water and dish soap. Let sit while you tend to the board.
Vacuum the board and use an alcohol swabbed paper towel to clean sticky residue. Turn back to your keys and wipe them clean with a towel. Let both the board and keys air dry overnight.
Photo: Ideastorm
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I am stoked on my silicone keyboard cover. After the first week of using it I found crumbs, eyelashes, dust and other gunk had been collected. I love that I can clean it under the sink, which I need to do because it captures the skin oils that make keys get discolored. It has also stopped some spilled milk from doing too much damage.
view slipperymarshmallow's profile
@nadiarl
Did you buy it online? I'd like to check it out if you have a link :)
view ktoth04's profile
nadiarl, for reals, LINK US! ;)
view kdkaboom's profile
I've always kept a clean keyboard (rubbing alcohol is your friend). I assume that the keyboards at my old office have once again returned to the DIZGUZTIN state they were in before I got there. I used to clean the "communal" keyboards from time to time; I was the first person to do so and assume I wasa the last.
view ebrown's profile
I once worked in an IT department and the manager would take home filthy keyboards and run them in the dishwasher using the air-dry option. Then she would place them outside in the sun to dry out completely before bringing them back to the office for use. I never tried it myself, but the keyboards were like new when they returned.
view RayM's profile
the top photo is enough to make me fear for the person's safety with all that wiring, burning of plastic, stomach o.t.c. meds., liquor, cigg's, and is that a foiled cover potato?? germs are the least of this persons problem! lol!
view E.I.F.'s profile
Like nadiarl I am a HUGE fan of keyboard covers. I bought one after an accidental water spill caused me to replace my laptop keyboard. You can take the cover off and clean it every week and it's really amazing to see exactly how much gunk would be trapped in your keyboard if the cover weren't there. I use this one from kbcovers for my ibook:
http://www.kbcovers.com/servlet/Detail?no=18
view gswiszcza's profile
I regularly remove the keyboards from my note books for thorough cleaning. But here is the keyboard of a friend's note book after less than 4 months use by her teenage son. I had to replace the keyboard (no kidding, even the circuit board was full of grunge) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bl1nk/2879144620/
view bl1nk's profile