1. wash your hands.

You’ve known it since you learned how to use a potty, but it bears reiterating.

Wash them after you pee. This means you, too, guys. Just be- cause you don’t have to take your pants off past your knees doesn’t mean you’re exempt from germs.

Wash them after you poop.

Wash them after you vomit.

Wash them after you touch the door handles.

If it helps, remember that some people judge you when they don’t hear the sounds of a spigot accompanying the sounds of a flush. If you’re in the dorms and it helps, remember when foam soap was really cool and know that it might not be provided off-campus.

“The one and most important thing for anyone to do when using any restroom is to wash their hands,” said Administra- tive Assistant for the Health Center Ginny Matthews. “Take your time: be thorough.”

The United States Center for Disease Control has found that handwashing is the single most effective method to prevent the spread of disease. So just do it.

2. wear your flip-flops in the shower.

You don’t have to be athletic to get athlete’s foot, and you don’t have to touch a frog to get warts.

“Athlete’s foot and nail fungus are very commonly transmitted in shared showers,” said Dr. Oliver Zong, D.P.M, in an interview with Medical News Today. “Even if the bathrooms are cleaned regularly, that doesn’t help if the person who showered right before you had foot fungus or warts, both of which are contagious.”

And while you’re at it, scrub your feet, too.

“Often people neglect to really scrub their feet in the shower because they assume the stream of soap and water is enough, but it’s not,” said Zong.

3. don’t store medication in the bathroom.

Despite the common placement of medical cabinets behind mirrors, the bathroom is not the place for drugs.

“The humidity and heat in a bathroom can affect the efficacy the-counter ones,” reads an article from Safe Medicine Cabinet, based in the U.K. “The moisture can also destroy capsules and degrade medication storage containers. Aim to install a locked cabinet high up in an alternate room, avoiding the bathroom and kitchen.”

this is about a real myth, one so unknown that it seems I’d have to buy the episode of Mythbusters just to find out whether or not it’s true. Do with it what you will.

Invest in a toothbrush cover!

Or bring it back to your room, or shove it in a drawer.

The stuff in the toilet doesn’t always stay there, and you don’t want bacteria in your mouth.

“You get a great spray out of the toilet when you flush it,” said Charles Gerba, a microbiology professor at the University of Arizona, in an interview with ABC News. “This throws bacteria out of the toilet.”

The Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters did an experiment to see if it’s true that a toothbrush closer to the toilet gets more bacteria on it than one further away. The result? Fecal matter gets everywhere. To be cautious, you could also close the lid before you flush.