Table 1.

Bacteria cultured from elevator buttons and toilet surfaces^*

Organism	Sampling site; no. (%) of samples*
	Elevators n = 120	Toilet surfaces n = 96
Staphylococcus†	67 (56)	35 (36)
Streptococcus	11 (9)	7 (7)
Coliform bacteria	10 (8)	2 (2)
Enterococcus	2 (2)	0 (0)
Pseudomonas	1 (1)	1 (1)
Miscellaneous‡	2 (2)	4 (4)

^*Samples were collected on different dates. The sum of percentages in each column is greater than overall prevalence because multiple organisms were cultured from some sites (polymicrobial colonization).

^†Coagulase-negative staphylococci in all cases.

^‡Includes other Gram-negative bacilli and fungi.