You may not want to be eating when you read this……..
New research has revealed that the average British household cleans out the inside of their sofa an average of every four to five years, allowing plenty of time for nail clippings, food and more disgusting debris to accumulate underneath where they sit.
The detritus discovered down the back of Britain’s sofas ranges from the usual suspects of small change and food crumbs to one or two unexpected scares, according to new research by an interiors brand.
www.hillarys.co.uk carried out the survey of 2,394 British parents aged 18 and over, all of whom stated that they live with their partner and at least one child under the age of 11 years old.
Initially, all respondents were asked ‘When was the last time that you cleaned out the inside of your sofa (i.e. down the back/sides)?’ to which the average response was revealed as ‘four to five years ago’. All respondents who said one year or more were then asked why they didn’t do it more often, to which the most common responses were ‘I forget to do it’ (39%) and ‘I only tend to do it when I lose something and end up searching through the sofa, which is not often’ (33%).
All respondents were then asked what they had found down the back of their sofa when either feeling around or giving it a clean. When provided with a list of possible responses and told to select all that applied, the most commonly found items were:
- Small change – 65%
- Finger and toe nails – 51%
- Food crumbs and chunks – 47%
- Clumps of pet fur – 31%
- Empty food wrappers – 26%
What’s more, when asked to state the more unusual or disgusting things that they’d found down the back of their sofa, some of the weirdest discoveries stated by respondents were revealed as follows:
- A deceased hamster that had gone missing one month earlier
- Nokia 3210
- Years old, uneaten chicken nuggets from a popular fast food chain
- Multiple pieces of dried up, chewed gum
- A bag of dead skin
According to the poll, 10% confessed that they regularly tucked things into their sofa to keep them safe or so as not to be found by people coming into the room, with one third of those (35%) admitting that they’d forgotten that they’d done this until a later date.
Additionally, more than a third (34%) of the relevant respondents stated that they had, at least once, caught their child trying to hide food items within the sofa that they didn’t wanted to eat. A further 15% stated that they’d caught their partner trying to put/hide disgusting items down the side/back of the sofa, such as nail clippings.
Tara Hall, spokesperson for www.hillarys.co.uk, said:
“Knowing the grim reality of what lurks down the back of Britain’s sofas is enough to put anyone off rooting around for a lost pound.”
KidAround Magazine UK 