HEALTH ALERT..........Check Your Bathroom...

[rsmith6621]

Faucet fixtures......

My wife has has months of swelling in her limbs and face. Tuesday her Dr. sent out a lab tech to take samples of air,paint and other locations. The tech took samples from behind the faucet handle and found a build up of a jelly like mold substance. They had it tested and found it to be related to STAFF.....on tuesday we elected to clean the handles and this morning my wife woke up with no swelling anywhere, the first itme in months.


Do Yourself a Favor and Take off the Handles and see if there are any Koodies growing there.

[Stuckinthebush]

1. oh man....ick!

*going to check for jelly faucets*

[roguevalley]

40. some physics on toilets: (ESPECIALLY FOR MEN!)

someone on the discovery channel put die in a toilet bowl and then flushed. then, with an infrared light, he showed where the water went from the centrifuge action of the toilet. it not only hit the seat good, it threw droplets up to four feet out onto the walls. MEN! SEAT DOWN, DAMN IT!

Imagine, your pee and poop all over your bathroom walls ...

RV, concluding the health lesson.

[Wickerman]

2. kick

and :puke:

Glad she is doign better and thanks for the gross but helpful warning.

[Minnesota Libra]

3. OMFG - I'm heading for the tools now - thanks for the heads up............

...on this. OMFG, just the mental picture this conjures up is absolutely sickening.:puke: So much for lunch!:puke:

edited for spelling

[HereSince1628]

4. Staff or Staph? Get rid of one by firing, disinfect for the other...

I personally find the idea of jellied STAFF behind the faucets _really_ horrific.

[nickinSTL]

15. hahahaha!

:spray:

[klook]

22. I think I saw that on X-Files once. (eom)

[caligirl]

45. slimed.

[soothsayer]

5. Might want to stop pooping in the sink. Just sayin'....

[New Earth]

21. LOL

:rofl:

[nickinSTL]

6. umm...how is mold related to staph?

staph is a bacteria...mold is a fungus. They're completely different things.

[liberal N proud]

7. But Staff can live on such items as Bathroom fixtures

When I had an infection last year the doctor said these things are notorious in bathrooms.
Toilet Seats are a breeding ground for Staff and other fun little problems.

Clean with bleach.

[bigscott]

8. staphylococci are just about everywhere

including all over your skin - there are many different types of Staph. Staph aureus is generally harmless and a natural colonizer on the human skin. Other staph can be pathogenic. It depends on the bacteria and on the host's (your wife) immunocompetence

[nickinSTL]

14. yes, as I learned recently...

they also live in your nose.

Can be some nasty stuff. Had an ingrown hair in my nose get infected with staph...most of my face swelled up...and I had to have my lip drained of the accumulated pus.

:puke:

[kestrel91316]

10. Um, this is why part of Basic Housekeeping 101 includes little things

like disinfecting bathroom surfaces, like toilet seats, faucet handles, etc. And you don't need bleach. Any good disinfectant will do. I often use Roccal, a quaternary ammonium product.

And good handwashing technique with soap and hot water also helps.

Bathroom germs are old news.

[nickinSTL]

11. well, that I don't argue with...

sure, it can. But it isn't related to mold.

And it's staph (sorry, I'm a spelling nazi) - Staphylococcus aureus is one of the more common varieties.

[Dorian Gray]

39. Staph is everywhere,,,,

YOu should clean the toilets and sink with bleach, of course, but you can't evade STAPH forever.

[pnwmom]

13. they're different, but maybe they can co-exist?

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

9. Question from the plumbing-challenged

How do you take off the handles? Do you have to turn off the water? Thanks.

[gkhouston]

20. there are a lot of different faucet types.

To be on the safe side, I'd turn off the water. Underneath the sink, there should be shutoff valves for the water supply. Turn them all the way to the right -- check that they're all the way shut by turning on the faucet to see if there's still water flow. (Water will dribble out and then stop once the water's been shut off.) If you haven't used the shutoff valves in a long time, they could be frozen in place but you can spray them with WD-40 or there's some sort of lubricant specially made for plumbing that's supposed to be even better for that task. My #1 home plumbing rule is that I don't do any action that is irreversible until I've thought about it for a long time.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

24. Thank you kindly

That's very helpful.

I might go the extremely safe route and add it to a list of small projects I'm getting a handyman to do. :dunce:

[gkhouston]

28. LOL, or you could pick up a "plumbing for idiots" book.

A lot of home plumbing jobs are fairly simple things like replacing faucet washers or toilet tank valves.

[SmokingJacket]

12. Ya gotta clean your bathroom.

Use old toothbrushes to scrub the gunk from faucets and other little nooks and crannies.

The rest of my house is a junkpile... but my bathroom is clean. Seems like you have to be careful when people are crapping just a few feet away from your toothbrush.

[pnwmom]

16. Okay, speaking of toothbrushes, it would be better, probably,

not to keep them in the bathroom -- because when you flush stuff gets aerosolized. Yuk, I know.

At least keep them as far from the toilet as you can.

[justjones]

36. That's why you should close the toilet seat cover before...

flushing, so things WON'T get aerosolized.

I saw this on some tv show. Makes sense to me:).

[pnwmom]

37. Uh-huh. But I'd rather not count on my kids, visitors, etc. to do that!

[OzarkDem]

25. Bathroom AND kitchen

The kitchen is the other area that can be a breeding ground for nasty stuff, more related to food, like salmonella, e coli, listeria.

Even if you're not picky about housekeeping, always keep the bathroom and kitchen clean.

[theHandpuppet]

17. I clean all my fixtures with hot (heated) vinegar

It's cheap and does one helluva job getting rid of scale and any other gross stuff building up around the sink and elsewhere. Doesn't hurt to pour some down the drains once a week, either.

Edited to add: BTW, if you have one of those home water dispensers (the kind that use 3 to 5 gallon bottles) make sure you clean out the jug on a regular basis! Soaking it in hot water with a few drops of bleach does the trick but make sure you rinse it well afterwards. Just because you buy bottled water doesn't mean you never have to clean the dispensers! The first time I cleaned mine out I found some black, moldy stuff growing on the inside around the tap! ICK!!!

[laundry_queen]

18. Ever watched "How clean is your house?"

With Kim and Aggie, the cleaning gurus?
Now THERE are some disgusting bathrooms!
My bathrooms have been spotless ever since watching that show.
It really is a health issue.

[Jade Fox]

19. Damn. I HATE cleaning the bathroom.....

Now I'm gonna have to go in there and do it.

Seriously, thanks for the info, rsmith6621. :)

[OzarkDem]

26. Easy ways

Keep a good supply of those clorox or lysol wipes. Pull out a couple and use them to wipe down all your bathroom surfaces, then throw them away. Quick and easy.

[porphyrian]

23. Bleach is cheap and your friend. - n/t

[kay1864]

27. More hints

- Wash your kitchen sponges and dishcloths in the dishwasher every couple of days. Your kitchen has way more bacteria than your bathroom.

The toilet seat was the least contaminated of 15 household locales studied. "If an alien came from space and studied the bacterial counts," the professor says, "he probably would conclude he should wash his hands in your toilet and crap in your sink."

- When flushing a public toilet, hit the handle (me, I use my foot), then turn around quickly. Why? "Toilet plume" (see link below) is much greater with public toilets (which use water pressure to flush) than your toilet at home (which uses gravity from the tank to flush).

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990416.html

[BrklynLiberal]

29. Very interesting ....

Love your highlighted quote :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[radwriter0555]

31. YES, the contamination of your TOOTHBRUSH from the toilet plume

is disgusting. The Mythbuster fellas measured it and GAG ME WITH A FECAL CONTAMINATED TOOTHBRUSH!

Luckily in this house, our toilet is seperate from the bathing room. So the toothbrushes aren't anywhere near the toilet.

But once I learned the fecal factoid, those toothbrushes went under lock and key and the toilet lid IS ALWAYS DOWN when flushing.

[kay1864]

32. Yep. Disgusting but true!

Plus, fecal coliform bacteria can often be found on kitchen sponges and dishcloths. Our sponges go into the dishwasher daily.

[Chiyo-chichi]

35. Adam & Jamie's CONTROL toothbrushes were also contaminated

They were nowhere near the bathroom, iirc.

[radwriter0555]

30. There's a lot to be said for actual, thorough, weekly cleaning of ones

facilities.

[Ilsa]

33. Seems like anytime I use something strong on the sink and

fixtures, there's a chance it'll take the finish off the chrome or whatever. I've worn out a fixture or two cleaning them up. I guess I'll go back to diluted (9parts to 1 part) bleach. That should do it.

I'm glad you found the culprit and your wife is better.

[Hardrada]

34. I'll buy me a gallon of bleach!

and maybe a blowtorch to get those really tough germs. (Remember the SNL motel bathroom cleaning skit?)

[pnwmom]

38. Just be careful not to burn out your lungs . . . open a window?

[Tsiyu]

41. Wow

It's the littlest things that can cause the biggest problems.

I am impressed that her physician had her problem investigated so thoroughly. That's awesome. Thanks for the heads up :hi:

[FlaGranny]

42. The last time I bought a faucet

I spent a lot of time picking the best faucet for cleaning. It's a single handle model and the only nook or cranny is the one faucet handle.

By the way, TV shows I've seen on the subject of germs show that kitchens have even more germs than bathrooms, because of the habit people have of re-using one dishcloth to clean everything and not using a clean one each time.

[riona]

43. Yipes!

time to go back to the lounge.

[caligirl]

44. Uh, thanks for the Staph warning. Short for staphylococcus

aureas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staphylococcus_aureas