Office workers' dirty little secrets

The UK's offices are among some of the dirtiest places in the country, according to a new survey from Durable UK.

Gearing up to launch Computer Cleaning week on Monday 17 September, the supplier of office cleaning products said wants to highlight the issue of dirty offices.

Its latest survey show that Britain's white collar workers indulge in some of the most unsavoury practices at work.

Men seem to be the worst culprits with only two in 10 believing it important to have clean computer equipment, compared to nearly eight in 10 women.

Yet although eight in 10 of us share computer equipment, and most of the people surveyed thought that their computer keyboard was dirtier than a toilet and as dirty as the bottom of a shoe, we think nothing about tapping away at it every day without cleaning them.

To add insult to injury, over two-thirds of those questioned claimed to have seen male colleagues pick their noses regularly; seven in 10 saying their male colleagues sneezed our coughed without covering their mouths.

Durable said the direct correlation between poor desk hygiene and sickness goes over the heads of most men.

Women do not come out squeakly clean in the survey either. Female workers apparently like to rifle through the rubbish; six in 10 admitted they retrieved rubbish from their bins by hand.

Stewart Anderson, Durable's vice president of marketing, said: "It is quite shocking to see how many bad habits people pick up at work.

"Men and women across the country work in filthy conditions and are unable to detect the amount of microscopic bacteria such as E coli or Salmonella that surrounds them. Sick days are on the rise and poor workspace hygiene is a major contributor."