DrDeClutterBlog.com

 Where has your purse been today?

Where does your purse, tote or briefcase sit when not on your shoulder?

At work it’s on the floor; at home, it gets tossed on the kitchen counter; at the gym it’s back onto the floor or into a well-used locker, and at restaurants, it’s on the table or bench, chair seat, floor and sometimes lap. At the park it goes in the grass or on the sidewalk or dirt; at the beach in the sand or on rocks; in bathrooms it sits on the wash basin counter or bathroom floor; in the car it’s on the floor and in the bar they end up anywhere.

And, whether you switch purses often or just have a favorite one, toting a well-used handbag or “tote” can be hazardous to your health!

What is common to all these places where our purses and bags sit or lay in lumps is another whole world . . . of invisible germs. Lots and lots of germs.

TESTING: So, let’s swab your purse it to see what kind of germs are on it, shall we?

Upon swabbing the bottom and handles of your purse - samples placed in sterile vials and sent off to a lab for analysis -and after incubation and intense testing what we find is pretty disgusting!

A real study at Nelson Labs in Salt Lake City states:
 - “We had several of them that came back with fecal contamination.”
 - “I don’t think they ever realize what they are transferring onto the plate. That is basically like wiping feces on your plate and eating it,” said Rollins, microbiologist.
 - In one sampling, four of five handbags tested positive for salmonella, and that’s not the worst of it. Microbiologist Amy Karen says nearly all of the handbags tested were not only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds of bacteria. Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can cause serious skin infections and if ingested it can cause serious food illness and sickness, and salmonella and e-coli found on the handbags could make people very sick.

GET YOUR SHOES OFF THE TABLE!
Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a pair of shoes.
If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your countertops, that’s the same thing you’re doing when you put your handbag on The countertops - your handbag has gone where individuals before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, emptied bowels, etc!

The scientific word to cover all this would be, “Ew!”

This goes for men and women with briefcases and gym bags of any kind.

SOLUTION
1. Use hooks to hang up your purse where possible, like on bathroom stall doors, etc. and over back of chairs. Here’s a great gadget to help you keep your purse off the floor while sitting at the table. JoeyJunior table hook to hold your purse off the floor and off the table.
2. Never put your purse/briefcase on the table top where food has been (and not cleaned off), floor or other place where feet and feces will naturally have been.
3. Clean, wipe down, launder and clean out your purse regularly. 

The JoeyJunior table hook shown holding purses above keeps your purse off the floor, off the table and safely in your reach! Order here. Comes in 5 beautiful colors.