CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — When was the last time you deep cleaned your car?
New research shows that more than 3.2 million Texans almost never deep clean their cars.
While it's inevitable that the bacteria will eventually vanish there are some ways that you can be diligent about having a cleaner ride down the road.
Especially of you have kids, your car can quickly become a breeding ground for germs.
"Wherever there are kids, that's where you're going see the most germs," pediatrician at Rani Pediatrics Dr. Sabeen Rani said.
When kids return to school, typically symptoms of sicknesses begin to appear.
"They're in such a close proximity that if one child is sick. Like this, they touch the desk. Another child comes in, touches that desk," she said.
When children skip washing their hands and hop in their guardian's car at the end of the day, the sickness breeding begins.
"Bacteria are germs and they spread from one person to another," Rani said.
But kids aren't alone in making the sanctuary of travel, a destination resort for a virus feeding ground. Adults simply leaving food and garbage in the vehicle can add to the growing percentage of mold, rats and roaches being found by our local detailers across the state.
"I enjoy it, I like seeing the before-and-after process of it. It's a pretty fun experience for me," Atomic Mobile Detailing co-owner Jasion Juarez said. "I wear gloves so my hands don't get too dirty. We just make sure to attack it the right way. Like if it's vomit, we have to make sure we get our extractor and extract every inch of throw up or whatever is in there."
Studies reveal that car seats can carry excessively higher levels of germs to surpass the average toilet seat. Which is why detailers like Atomic Mobile Detailing co-owner Jude Livas, utilizes the strongest chemicals to kill off those nasty germs.
"We do chemical cleaning and steam cleaning, just removing all of the chemicals and the germs off of the panels," Livas said. "The ozone really gets that smell out and gunk out and all of the bad bacteria that you really can't see, the ozone removes all of that."
Both Dr. Rani and our local detailers, recommend deep cleaning your vehicle to remove those pesky germs as needed, but especially with RSV and peak flu season amongst us these next few months.