ORLANDO, Fla. – If you think where germs and dirt are in your home, you probably think the bathroom or maybe your garage or laundry room.
But Local 6 found some of the dirtiest spots in your house is the kitchen.
[WEB EXTRA: More info from NSF International ]
According to NSF International, a global public health and safety organization, the kitchen has the most hot spots for germs.
Local 6 contacted Andrew Burns of Florida's Department of Health in Orange County to show some areas of concern.
"Countertop is important," Burns said. "You're doing food prep on the countertop. You want to make sure you sanitize it."
Also chopping blocks.
"You're getting a lot of grooves in there, very hard to sanitize so once it gets worn down you really need to toss it," Burns said.
Another item to toss, your sponge.
"It's holding in bacteria with the water, you don't really clean too much and you probably over use it," he said.
Burns says toss the sponge and use a dish towel to be safe.
Handles and knobs are also hot spots in the kitchen-- on cabinets, your coffee maker, toaster oven, faucet and most of all, the fridge.
"You may be handling pets or you may be changing diapers the first thing you grab is the refrigerator so I would wipe this down every day," Burns said.
"Kitchen drain right there leads the way in one of the places that's the dirtiest in your house," Burns said.
NSF found all of these areas in many homes test positive for E.coli form bacteria, which can cause food poisoning.
In bathrooms, the most germs were found in the toothbrush holder.
"Sometimes you'll have water in there that still doesn't look too good yeah it does need some cleaning some good scrubbing, I don't use these anymore," Burns said.
Other hot spots in the bathroom include toilet handle.
"It's around the toilet bowl that people don't think about it's one of the higher places where you're going to find the probability of bacteria is around the toilet bowl," Burns said.