Some of the keyboards you use at work could be dirtier than a public toilet seat, a CTV News investigation has found.
CTV News tested keyboards from offices around Vancouver -- including our own -- and found that some keyboards we tested contain as much as five times the number of bacteria as you'd find on a toilet.
"You're sitting there, typing away, eating a sandwich, and you might as well be typing on the toilet seat," said Chad Born, the laboratory director at Cantest, which performed the lab tests.
Of the 13 office keyboards we tested, five were dirtier than a public toilet at the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library.
The worst offenders were where people ate lunch at their desks -- and couldn't remember the last time they'd cleaned their keyboards.
Leah Poulton spends a lot of her time at work on her computer at an internet company near False Creek.
She works through lunch -- touching her food after she touches her keyboard -- and said she only cleans her computer every two to three months.
"My mom bought me some hand sanitizer and told me to bring it to work but I didn't," she told CTV News.
Her colleague Aslida told us that she was paranoid about germs.
"I can see dirt from here and I'm worried about it," she said, pointing to hand wipes. "I get sick a lot. That's why I have these things to clean it up."
We swabbed their keyboards with Cantest's sterile swabs, and sent them into Cantest's level two laboratory in Burnaby. Aslida's computer tested in at 190 bacteria. The Vancouver Public Library's toilet seat -- a similar area -- tested at 430 bacteria.
And Leah's computer was found to have 790 bacteria -- almost twice as much as the toilet.
We also tested the offices at the Coast Capital Savings Account. There, Ashley Peacey's keyboard contained 270 bacteria, while Matt Atkinson's keyboard contained 760 bacteria.
"Dealing with money in a financial institution, you never know what's on it," said Matt. He's since started cleaning his keyboards.
But the worst offender was possibly the most important keyboard at the CTV station -- the keyboard in the control room.
That keyboard tested at 2500 bacteria -- more than six times the toilet seat.
Most keyboards at the station didn't fare well either.
"I would say 10 people have lunch at this keyboard every week. Ten different people," said assignment editor Ethan Faber about his desk, which came in at 750 bacteria.
It's dirty -- but is it dangerous? Probably not -- most of the bacteria are likely the kinds of things you'd find on your hands, your mouth and your ears, said Born.
"There's a source of food for the bacteria, plus probably the moisture from your hands that would probably help them grown, and they're just shedding off your skin all the time," he told CTV News.
Tomorrow, we take our testing outside of the office, and undercover to find what's lurking on the things you handle every day.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Sarah Galashan and Jon Woodward
