If a keyboard is neglected for years but used daily, a lot accumulates – especially with pets.
How much hair can collect under the keys? Many, even innumerable intertwined tufts. Together with dust and other dirt, they create a unique biotope right under the fingertips. User Starforcraft posted his find on his home desk in a subreddit as a reminder to everyone: “Reminder, please clean your keyboards.”
What does the second photo show (Click the arrow on the right in the Reddit window)? The apparent shot of the cleaned keyboard is misleading, as Starforcraft admits further down in the comments: It simply shows the keyboard before he took the keys off. An effective showcase of how deceptively clean a keyboard can appear – only when the keys are lifted does the true extent of the dirt become visible.
What is the user puzzling over? The sight astonishes the user not only because he probably didn’t expect such contamination. No, the hair itself confuses him a lot there. He does have a cat, but it usually only sleeps on his chair and not directly on the keyboard.
User MSD3k solves the puzzle specifically and seemingly very experienced in such situations: Cat hair needs no physically logical way to reach a place. It teleports directly from the cat to an unpleasant place of free choice.
What else does Reddit say?
Aside from the quoted comment above, several others also express themselves on the topic – some with tips. Others see it as a pragmatic bonus feature of the keyboard thanks to the pet.
- “We don’t clean keyboards. We buy new ones.” (YohanSeals)
- “Free noise dampening, organic PCB mat.” (Ruhart)
- “I threw mine in the dishwasher last week, taking off plastic parts beforehand, of course.” (Cpt_kaoss)
- “Well, after what I’ve seen here, I’m not going to clean my keyboard right now – out of fear.” (Babushla153)
Is dirt under the keys bad? The functionality of the keyboard is generally not impaired as long as there are no blocking bulky hard chunks. But such accumulations of hair, crumbs, and grease are the ideal breeding ground for all kinds of bacteria and fungi. In short: clean your keyboards regularly, especially when you eat and drink nearby.
On Reddit, there are regularly quirky stories from the world of computer hardware that can give gamers quite a scare. On MeinMMO, we reported on a user who grabbed a screwdriver due to problems with his RTX 4090. In the end, the answer lay exactly in what he did not discover there, as something essential was forgotten in the factory.
