In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 03 Oct 2015 15:30:15 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

On 10/3/2015 3:19 PM, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 03 Oct 2015 02:35:03 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

OTOoOH (three-handed Martian?), I've spent hundreds of hours
doing volunteer work at places where folks have come away with
MRSA skin infections from the sorts of items we routinely handled.

What kind of places are those, where volunteers or others get MRSA?

We processed medical and industrial "cast offs" (not really "waste"
but, rather, things that *could* have continued value -- most often in
another, "less fortunate" country!). One day, I helped another
guy drag an 18" x 18" x 36" of (used) "suture scissors" into the
building (forklift couldn't fit through the doorway).

Imagine looking into a box full of small, stainless steel scissors
with their little "mouths" agape -- and wondering what sort of
germs each may have individually been contaminated with?! No way
in hell do you want to put your *hand* into said box!

I wouldn't do it either, but don't they run these things through the
sterilizers before they get rid of them.

Staph is all around us, all the time. All you need is exposure to
a particularly nasty strain and a "skin scratch" for it to get a
foothold. Gives one renewed respect for the days before antibiotics!

Indeed. I don't ask for antibiotics when I have a cold, but I gather all
those who do are creating antibiotic-resistant germs that may punish me
as much as the people who encouraged their development.

Still, my mother was a bit shocked when I told her that I didn't cover
public toilet seats with toilet paper before I sat on them. No
diseases yet. I think a lot of women would burst rather than sit on a
public toilet. I don't know how they travel.