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Dirt-trap keyboards contain rat and mouse droppings
19/05/2010
Unhygienic office conditions are seeing mice and rats run riot across computer keyboards and work stations in some London offices.
Rodents are catching on to the rich pickings to be had on keyboards and other hard-to-clean surfaces. Researchers from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) have found that the rodents are even leaving their droppings on keyboards.
One industrial cleaning company said, "One female worker had been wondering why 'seeds' were coming out of her keyboard when she typed.
"She was mystified because she did not eat food at her desk. We had to give her the bad news."
33 keyboards were swabbed and tested for various bacteria in the survey, with one so dirty it had to be condemned. It had 150 times the acceptable limit for bacteria and was five times worse than a lavatory seat.
The RSC is now urging office workers to wash their hands thoroughly between using a keyboard and eating and are also launching a challenge to find the most awful image to exemplify this story.
Spokesman, Paul Gallageher, said: "We are asking office workers to take shots of offensive keyboards and workstations and to e-mail them to us. We will give £300 to the sender of the most awful image, but won't consider contrived photos and will need witnesses."
An inhospitable environment can keep rats and mice out of a building and can be created imperceptibly by electromagnetic repellant devices. They do so by creating a pulsating waves that rodents and other vermin cannot bear.
