The natural habitat of the bacterium Staphylococcus is human skin and it can therefore be passed indirectly from person to person through fomites. An initial study investigating the metal push plates of 46 public restrooms throughout Angelo State University's campus for the presence of the bacterial species Staphylococcus aureus yielded evidence that the metal composing the push plates might be exerting a fairly rapid level of auto-disinfection. To test this hypothesis, studies were done to compare the re-isolation of S. aureus, S. capitis, and Salmonella typhimurium from metal and plastic surfaces intentionally contaminated with these organisms. All three organisms were more difficult to re-isolate from the metal surfaces as compared to the plastic surfaces.