Sprinkle baking soda on all tub surfaces. For extra-dirty tubs, use tub-and-tile cleaner instead. Fill your bucket with a half-gallon of hot water and two tablespoons of dish soap. Dip a scrub sponge or a stiff nylon brush into the bucket, and scrub all bathtub surfaces.
Scrub showers, bathtubs, and countertops.
"Do it at least twice a week with a disinfectant that contains bleach," Horowitz says.
According to the NHS, germs like E. Coli and salmonella can survive for as long as four hours. Remember Staphylococcus Aureus, the germ responsible for staph infections? Well, this germ can survive for days or weeks, that should motivate you to keep that bathroom clean.
If you want a germ-killing cleaning solution with the convenience of a ready-to-use spray, try Clorox® Clean-Up® Cleaner + Bleach. Just remove excess dirt, and spray Clean-Up® Cleaner 4–6 inches from the surface until thoroughly wet. Let stand for 30 seconds, then rinse or wipe clean.
It's hard to say how often to clean your bathtub, because it depends on how many people use it and whether this is a regular occurrence or not. However, if your bathtub is used often, we would recommend cleaning it once a week, and disinfecting it every few weeks.
Many disease-causing organisms can survive for only a short time on the surface of the seat, and for an infection to occur, the germs would have to be transferred from the toilet seat to your urethral or genital tract, or through a cut or sore on the buttocks or thighs, which is possible but very unlikely.
Mix 3/4 cup household chlorine bleach with 1 gallon water. Or for a ready-made option, try CLR Fresh Scent Bath and Kitchen Cleaner. Wearing rubber gloves, use a stiff brush to apply the formula to one small area at a time. Be careful not to let the liquid splatter on you or surrounding surfaces.
Of all the surfaces, the door handle was the least infected before cleaning, with just 0.9% of its surface showing bacteria, while the most infected was the shower tray, with a troubling 72% of its surface covered in pathogens.
Cleaning vinegar or white vinegar – not apple cider vinegar or wine vinegar – is most commonly chosen for cleaning. However, it's important to remember that while vinegar does work as a disinfectant to some degree, it is not as effective as bleach or commercial cleansers when it comes to killing germs.
All-purpose surface cleaner
Hydrogen peroxide's germ-fighting properties make it a primo option for wiping down every grimy surface in your bathroom — from countertops to tubs to doorknobs. For the biggest benefit, spray H2O2 directly on surfaces and let it sit for 10 minutes before wiping clean.
Dish soap can get rid of bacteria and even the viruses such as coronavirus. Dish soap is mainly used to remove grease and food residue off from your dishes. Like hand soap, dish soap does not kill bacteria, but it lifts them off surfaces to be washed away by water.
Because dish soap is meant to break up oils and lift grease and grime from your flatware and utensils, there's no reason why it shouldn't work on the oily soap and human grease build-up accumulating in your tub or shower!
TUB AND SHOWER CLEANER
Spray on your tub and shower walls, allowing it to sit for a few minutes before rinsing away. This will even take care of the bathtub ring. Let it sit on your shower floor overnight and scrub the gunk away in the morning.
(Although if your tub is seriously grimy, I'd recommend adding some vinegar to the dish soap to make my two-ingredient tub and shower cleaner!) But dish soap alone will work just fine for most tubs. I like to use Dawn, because nothing works better at cutting through tough grease and grime in my opinion!
You might be surprised to hear this, but distilled white vinegar, lemons and baking soda (along with some borax and a little tea tree oil) are all you really need to combat bathroom mold, mildew and grime.
As for its disinfectant properties, for bleach to be effective, it needs to sit on the surface for at least 10 to 15 minutes exposing us to the fumes for a longer period of time. Regardless of your opinion of bleach and ammonia, these products are extremely toxic and can damage many of the surfaces in your bathroom.
Droplets produced by flushing toilets were found to harbor both bacteria and viruses which had been seeded. The detection of bacteria and viruses falling out onto surfaces in bathrooms after flushing indicated that they remain airborne long enough to settle on surface throughout the bathroom.
The scientists reported that in just eight seconds the particles shot out at rocket speeds of 6.6 feet per second, reaching 4.9 feet above the toilet, the bigger droplets appearing to land on surfaces within seconds, while the smaller ones appearing to linger in the air for minutes or even longer, the study found.
Besides the obvious factors that can weigh in on sickness while cleaning, some people find the harsh chemical cleaners used in the process is enough to make them sick. Common cleaners like bleach and store-bought products containing bleach and other chemical additives can cause sickness if they aren't handled properly.
Lysol® Power Bathroom Cleaner can be used on a variety of household surfaces, including: Shower doors. Tubs. Glazed ceramic tile.
Aside from the considerable ick factor, experts say that the microbes that hang around bathtubs probably won't make most people sick.
Our wipes can be used to wipe down sinks, tiles, toilet seats, bathtubs, trash cans and the bathroom floor, and they kill 99.9% of bacteria when used as directed.