I feed my keyboard a few times everyday, in small doses, when I snack. Some times, it might be savoury dry and oily snacks; at others, biscuits, or some sticky items such as sweets or chocolate. It’s a black keyboard, and looks fairly groomed and gleaming, but lift it and tap it (okay, bang) a few times and you will see a small shower of crumbs. . Sometimes when I see a crumb going in, I try to chase it and prise it out with the sharp corners of a piece of paper but it often remains elusive. The only way is to tap it again firmly but by this time, it could have got wedged in between the keys.

User-friendly design This sets me yearning for a keyboard that does not have spaces between its keys, but a simpler solution would be to use a keyboard cover that you can continue to work through. (Or not to eat at one’s desk, but that’s impractical, we all have to multitask.) And this is just the contamination from food.

Then there are the potential hazards from dust, infections such as cold and coughs, and poor hygiene, like not washing your hands after a visit to the toilet.

A study by consumer advocacy group Which? in 2008 declared that tests of 33 keyboards at its London offices found four that were potential health hazards and one that housed five times more the germs than one of the office’s toilet seats. (That keyboard was even quarantined.) Research by the University of Arizona the previous year found that the average office desktop harboured 400 times more bacteria than the average office toilet seat.

And if it’s a keyboard that’s fed regularly, in an office, chances are that mice – rodent, not computer – might be visiting it scouting for food after you leave for the day, compounding the health hazard.

There are many ways to clean a keyboard in addition to tapping it and dusting it regularly. Cotton swabs dipped in water or a mild cleaning liquid can clean the spaces between the keys, while cotton or wet wipes can clean the surface. Other solutions are compressed air and vacuum cleaners. And this is where, as a consumer, I want more. While cotton and swabs can clean on top, they can’t get rid of the grit and gunk wedged below. All that stabbing at the keys can put too many of the same letters – or knock off a few – in your spellings.

Whither cleaning supplies? Why don’t stores sell cleaning supplies for the computer? Is there no demand? Do customers not ask for it because stores don’t have them? Good marketing, it’s believed, is when marketers launch products that consumers didn’t know they needed. Wouldn’t that apply in this situation? It would be easier if wipes and small, portable, battery-operated vacuum cleaners were readily and widely available in stores, at least the ones that sell computers and office supplies if not at supermarkets. I looked.

There’s a screen cleaning kit for about ₹400 with a cleaning liquid, cloth and brush. I have used the brush, it doesn’t reach deep down, and probably moves some dirt around even as it’s helping you get rid of some of it. There were no wipes or vacuum cleaners. The latter are available only online and I don’t know where to find office wipes. A friend who used a regular vacuum cleaner sacrificed some keys to it. A car vacuum cleaner proved inconvenient. Another friend uses a USB-cabled mini vacuum cleaner. The reviews online for some of these gadgets are not encouraging, though. There are air dusters listed online but are out of stock. Desk and office wipes come with the caveat that any surface cleaned with these should be washed off if it’s going to contact food – which means that I can’t eat at my desk and continue working.

What this lack of availability means is that we aren’t really aware of how this dirt can affect us, or ignore it thinking we can’t possibly catch diarrhoea from a keyboard!

The study by Which? found e. coli, coliforms, staphylococcus aureus, and enterobacteria, all germs that cause tummy upsets. It also found that one in ten people never clean their keyboard, and 20 per cent never clean their mouse. So the next time your stomach rumbles ominously, be aware, you just might have a case of ‘qwerty tummy’!

(Vitamin C is a weekly dose of consumer empowerment)

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