Tips for Sanitizing Your Car Against Coronavirus
Many people mistakenly assume their car, like their home, is safe from the coronavirus. This is only partially true. Any time you venture out into public, you could come into contact with COVID-19 and carry that back into your car or home. Your car has a variety of fabrics, textures and materials. The virus stays on these surfaces for variable amounts of time, which means you need to clean each one differently. Consider this advice for proper car sanitation.
In General
While you may want to avoid using peroxide or bleach in your car so as to avoid damage, you can use solutions that have 70 percent or more in alcohol, which is sufficient in killing the coronavirus. Rubbing alcohol and many cleaners contain this percentage of alcohol. Check the labels of your cleaners. You may be surprised. It’s beneficial to use a spray bottle so that you can quickly spray down a variety of surfaces.
Clean Everything You Touch Regularly
You basically want to go over the items you touch in your car. A quick trip to get gas can potentially transfer the virus to your vehicle’s exterior door handle, seatbelt, steering wheel and anything else you touch in your car. Don’t forget that the bottom of your shoes could have also picked up the virus, which would mean it could be transferred to your floor mats. Ideally, you should use gloves at the pump and elsewhere and dispose of the gloves before you get back into your car. If you can’t do that, you will need to spray down everything you touch, your hands and the nozzle of the spray bottle you used to spray everything down. Don’t forget your keys or your ignition switch. Small alcohol pads can be used for your ignition switch.
Avoid Damaging Your Vehicle’s Interior Surfaces
You’ll want to avoid ammonia-based cleaners for any of your touchscreen surfaces. Also, keep in mind to condition your dashboard, steering wheel and other surfaces alcohol can dry out. Just be sure to use the alcohol first, and don’t wipe it off. You can wipe down your touchscreen surfaces with an alcohol-based cleaner. The wipes are useful for these types of screens and glass surfaces.
Do a Weekly Deep Clean
Regular soap will work against the coronavirus too because soap helps to break down viruses, but you must wash the chosen surface for more than 20 seconds to do so. You can wash your dashboard, seatbelts and any other surface in your vehicle. Be sure to wear gloves while you clean your car. Properly dispose of them by pinching one side and pulling it off. With the remaining gloved hand, wad up the other glove into a ball. While still holding the wadded up glove, take your forefinger under the glove to take it off. You never want to touch the outside of your gloves after it has come into contact with anything else.
Do Extra Car Sanitation if You Have Kids
If you have kids, you will need to use extra care in cleaning your vehicle. You will need to clean everything your kids can come into contact with, which means pretty much everything in the second and third row of your vehicle. If you have an older one, be sure to wipe down everything that is within their reach as well. It would be wise to keep all toys, books and other items in one location or out of your vehicle entirely as these can harbor germs as well.
At the end of the day, you want to spray the things you touch immediately. If you need to commute daily, you should keep a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol, Lysol or another suitable cleaner. Remember that it needs to contain at least 70 percent alcohol. You’ll want to perform a deep clean every week. It’s better to over-clean than under-clean. Just be sure to keep your surfaces free of damage.
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