【2024 Archives】

Essentials Weekspotlights unexpected items that make our daily lives just a little bit better.

When it comes to shoes in the house024 Archives I am an absolute despot.

Wearing shoes in the home, during my childhood, was simply unthinkable. Between tradition — removing shoes indoors is common in many cultures, and is especially prevalent in Asian households — and the fact that I grew up in a house with cream-colored carpeting, taking shoes off at the door wasn't an option.

My mother reigned over the house with an iron fistslipper. The slippers were essential in a house that banned shoes beyond the foyer, and offering them to guests made it easier to enforce that rule. I now do this (you can gloat now, mom), and you should, too.

If I snuck to my room past curfew with my shoes on because I couldn't be bothered to take them off at the door, she knew. When my siblings and I forgot something on the way out, but already had shoes on, she would insist we take the extra time to remove them instead of dashing into the house to grab it. Once, my parents' friends came over for a dinner party and one declined to remove her shoes. They haven't visited since.

Taking shoes off in the house not only prevents us from dirtying perfectly clean floors with whatever gunk sits outside, but also stops people from tracking literal crap into our living quarters. A 2008 informal study from the University of Arizona found bacteria associated with fecal matter on the bottom of shoes. The study swabbed 26 participants shoes for three months and identified nine types of bacteria, including E.coli and coliform, which is present in fecal matter. Even worse, 90 to 95 percent of the bacterial colonies present on dirty shoes were transferred to clean floor tiles.

"Every step they took, we sampled after them — 10 to 20 steps," Charles P. Gerba, the microbiologist who led the study told the Baltimore Sun. "We could still find plenty of organisms on every footstep."

Granted, the study wasn't peer-reviewed, and it was commissioned by Rockport, a company that makes washable shoes. But still. Ew.

On the other hand, asking guests to take off their shoes can be contentious. A writer for Realtor.com was thoroughly eviscerated on Twitter for writing about how she refused to take her shoes off during a holiday party, since it would ruin her festive outfit. Guests may also feel insecure about going shoeless, especially if they're visiting for the first time.

Kelsey Cheng, a public relations manager in Seattle, also has "THOUGHTS" about shoes in the house. Her family dubbed her the "resident shoe police" for yelling at guests who didn't remove their shoes when she was five years old. She still adheres to her upbringing by asking guests to take off their shoes in her apartment, but tries to make them comfortable in her home.

"There might be a reason they're not taking it off," she said in a phone call. "I have offered people socks in the past."

Another solution: Stocking up on guest slippers.

My Asian-American relatives all keep an inventory of slippers specifically designated for guests. My parents still have a collection of mesh and foam slippers to offer their houseguests. When I moved out and began reigning over my own shoe-free home, I too became a tyrant for clean floors. At one point, a roommate relationship imploded after one person in the house of five refused to adhere to an agreement that we'd all keep our shoes off in the house.

While it may be awkward to ask my guests to remove their dirty shoes when they come over, especially if they didn't grow up in a culture that expects it, offering them a pair of comfortable slippers makes me feel like less of a shoe-hoarding gremlin.

I personally keep slippers stacked in a small basket by the front door. The practice of having slippers for household members and guests is common in many Asian homes.

Camille Urbina finds the practice of wearing shoes in the house "physically objectionable." She lives with her parents in New Jersey, where in Filipino tradition, they keep a shoe-free house.

"We always had designated areas in which to put our shoes near the front door, and when we switch from our inside shoes to our indoor slippers," she said in an email. "About a decade ago, my parents invested in a bunch of really cheap foam slippers to keep for any guests who came over as well."

I have always had my own slippers for milling around my college dorm or walking through my off-campus apartment. When I moved into my first apartment after graduating college, though, I went to Daiso, a Japanese convenience store, and bought five pairs of cheap slippers. Much like owning an actual bed frame or having a designated shelf to keep alcohol bottles instead of haphazardly storing them on top of kitchen cabinets, having slippers for my guests felt like a signifier of adulthood. I finally had my ownhome, instead of the transient nature of college living that had me moving every other semester.

Similarly, writer Nicole Clark wanted to impress her mother. She and her roommate are both Asian-American, and their Los Angeles home is a strictly no-shoes zone.

"The home I grew up in always had a basket of slippers for guests, so a big part of it comes from wanting my mom to come over and get excited at her options," she said in a DM. "But my feet are also literally always cold — regardless of season — so I keep a range of slippers in there for how much coverage I want. Summer and winter demand vastly different slippers!"

I don't keep different slippers for different seasons, but I do have very specific rules for indoor slippers. The basket of slippers by the front door can't be worn outside under any circumstances. I wouldn't even wear them in the carpeted hallway of my building, where people wear their outsideshoes. Doing so would ruin clean indoor slippers — the ones that have been dirtied by whatever's outside my front door are reserved for wearing on the back patio. I keep them in the bucket of shame next to the sliding doors that lead out back.

Teagan Kim, a college student in Baltimore, also believes in upholding the sanctity of indoor slippers.

"Shoes I'd normally wear outside are different," she said in a Twitter DM. "Also, I'd never dare wear my house slippers outside the house. They become useless as house slippers once they're contaminated with the outside world."

All in all, I probably do make a tyrannical host and roommate. Hopefully giving my guests the comfort of slippers softens my regime.