Bed - At any one time, you're sharing your mattress with anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million dust mites. These microscopic critters typically thrive even in the cleanest houses, lurking not just in the bed, but wherever there are dust-collecting fabrics and furniture. For many people this isn't a problem. But in sensitive individuals, the mite's decaying corpses and faeces can trigger allergies and asthma attacks... And you probably do a good job of feeding those dust mites. They feast on the 10 billion dead skin cells that flake off your body each day. Time to get the exfoliating scrub out!



Eye lashes - Demodex mites are tiny parasitic mites which live in or near hair follicles of mammals. Two species living on humans have been identified: Demodex folliculorum which is found in hair follicles, primarily those of the eyelashes and eyebrows, and the shorter Demodex brevis which lives in sebaceous glands connected to hair follicles.

The mite's digestive system is so efficient and results in so little waste that there is no excretory orifice. The mites can leave the hair follicles and slowly walk around on the skin, especially at night.

An estimated 96-98% of all people carry such mites---with up to 25 in each follicle, so each person can have a potentially huge population of mites living on their eyelashes.

Computer keyboard - Did you know that over 400 times more bacteria live on the average office desk than an average toilet seat! Telephones, desks, microwave-door handles and computer keyboards carry the most germs in the workplace.

Ketchup - Did you realise that in 100 grams of ketchup, there could be an average of 30 fruit fly eggs in it? Mmmmm.

Despite advances in pest control technology, it is still not possible to exclude all insects from our food supply. So on average, 100 grams of your canned sweet corn could contain 2 insect larvae, 100 grams of curry powder could contain 100 insect fragments and 10% of your coffee beans could be infested with tiny insects.

Lip gloss lid - this moist, warm environment can harbour millions of bacteria including Bacillus cereus that can infect you with diarrhoea, Staphylococcus which causes conjunctivitis and the Influenza virus which of course causes flu. If you lend it out your lip gloss to friends, the lid could even carry the herpes virus - nice.