Shocking And Gross Reason Why You Should Take Your Shoes Off At The Door

When you get home, do you take your shoes off at the door or walk throughout the house with them on? If you don't take them off, you might want to think twice about that.

We all know people (and you might be one) who make sure that everyone takes their shoes off at the door when they come inside the house. You might think that this is a courtesy thing or to simply protect your floors from getting wet or dirty. While that might be the case, the real reason you will want to take your shoes off at the door is much more startling.

A couple of years ago, WLWT featured a report about why exactly you want to take your shoes off at the door. Essentially, the soles of our shoes are one of the dirtiest things around. When you think about it, that makes sense. Think about all of the places you walk to on a daily basis. Parking lots, restaurants, stores, nasty bathrooms. Now imagine where all of those other people who have walked those same floors have been. See where I am going with this? Basically, the soles of your shoes carry all kinds of bacteria, including one that we should definitely be worried about called " Clostridium difficile", also known as "C. diff".

This is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. And according to a 2017 study from the University of Huston, Clostridium difficile is found on 26.4% of shoe soles. Other studies have shown that shoes can carry Listeria monocytogenes, which can lead to an equally severe bacterial infection.

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The study also revealed that if you think wiping your shoes off on the porch or doormat will get rid of the nasty bacteria, think again! Wiping your shoes off there only picks up more bacteria that someone else may have left behind.

So do you really want to carry that stuff throughout your house, where you walk barefoot, sit, and lay around to play with your pets and kids? That definitely makes the five-second rule when you drop your food on the floor less okay to attempt. Granted, we are going to have germs and bacteria everywhere we go, it would be wise to eliminate somewhere we can...especially with symptoms like that.