The findings were presented at a joint meeting of the American Society for Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

"What was really discouraging was that two toys that tested negative before they were cleaned were positive afterward," she tells WebMD. "We don't know how, but the virus is somehow being transferred."

The commercially available germ-killing wipes that are commonly used to clean the toys are "only modestly effective," says researcher Diane Pappas, MD.

That's the advice of University of Virginia germ hunters who found evidence of cold viruses on one in five toys tested in waiting rooms.

Doorknobs, Faucets Also Harbor Germs

In a separate study, Pappas' colleague Owen Hendley, MD, found that people with colds can also leave germs on doorknobs, refrigerator door handles, TV remotes, and bathroom faucets.

Hendley is a member of the team that showed two years ago that cold viruses can linger on surfaces in hotel rooms for 24 hours after an infected guest leaves, waiting to be caught by the next unsuspecting guest.

His new study involved 30 adults who were starting to show signs of the common cold. Nasal secretions from 16 of them tested positive for rhinovirus, which causes about half of all colds.

Participants were asked to identify 10 places in their homes they had touched in the preceding 18 hours, and DNA tests were used to look for rhinovirus.

"As anticipated from the hotel study, we found that people at home also deposit rhinovirus on the surfaces that everyone touches," Hendley tells WebMD. Six of 18 doorknobs tested were positive, as were eight of 14 refrigerator handles, five of 10 TV remotes, and eight of 10 bathroom faucets.

Salt and pepper shakers were germ hotspots; all three that were tested were positive.

Hendley notes that "just having the virus on the refrigerator handle or other surface is not a big deal. What we really wanted to know is whether an infectious virus could be transferred to fingertips, where it could then make its way to the mouth or nose and cause infection," he says.