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Comment by tekla | Hacker News Reader

Never understood how people could walk inside their own homes with their outdoor shoes on. Seriously one of the most bizarre things ever.

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Japanese I have met go as far as having an extra pair of slippers for walking into their toilet.

IMHO it is a good idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan#Toilet_slippe...

Even cheap ($40) hotels provide you with a disposable pair of bathroom slippers.

I have friends who thinks it is absolutely discussing to walk with shoes off inside anyone's home... they only walk around their home with shoes on. They have a dog, so a clean floor isn't even possible. So I guess it makes sense. They even sleep with their shoes or slippers next to the bed and quite literally never touch the floor with their skin.

In most shoes-free houses I know we also rarely touch the floor, we have indoor slippers.

In Japan it's common to rinse dog feet after getting back from a walk, if the dog doesn't have his own shoes.

> They even sleep with their shoes or slippers next to the bed and quite literally never touch the floor with their skin.

...huh. So that actually sounds internally consistent and weirdly sanitary. Like... Sure, the floor is dirty, but if you're permanently separated from the floor I guess that might be fine?

I know right! When they explained that to me I felt like I was doing life wrong. I still make them take off their shoes when they come over though.

Same, I moved to US about a decade ago and this is pretty much the most major cultural shock I still seem to experience. Like I simply cannot fathom how people just walk around their house with shoes, then jump onto their beds/couches, how do you feel confident there is no contamination from outside to your bed or couch?

Is there any actual evidence that contamination travels to any meaningful degree? Hasn’t seemed to have any impact that I know of.

Or that it has any meaningful impact?

I suppose this is part of the "culture shock" I'm talking about. It is outside, it's literally the unwashed sidewalk we're talking about. What other "meaningful impact" does one need to be grossed out by this?

Would you feel comfortable lying down on a sidewalk and sleeping there, in a major city? Well, that's how I feel like when my friends walk around their houses with shoes, socks then jump on their couch. Their feet touches the couch which, to me, means couch == sidewalk. It's gross.

EDIT: Now, to be fair, hygiene is all about culture. I fully admit that. E.g. I seem to have no problem eating things off of a table in restaurants which is likely equally, if not more, unhygienic. But it doesn't bother me. Walking in my home with shoes on completely devastate me. Maybe it's a form of OCD, I don't know.

Taking shoes off is way way way more common in the frozen north parts where you’re guaranteed to track ice and mush in.

Agree am from north and have friends from south who will visit me in the west and waltz right in with shoes on even on nice rugs like Rick James at Eddie Murphys pad.

I live in Boston, MA, this still happens. People wear shoes at home. Not everyone, but seems like a lot of people, perhaps majority, or maybe close to it. Boston is not exactly in the frozen north parts, but it is very much in the north and it's frozen a couple months a year.

Question is if its really that bad, the contamination. If you would have the ability to zoom into your hands at at any time you would see colonies of various bacteria all over your hands. Is it really harming you? I agree though that a certain level of hiegene must be present.

It was quite surprising to see it happening en masse in Europe. I only knew about Japan.

My family did it for years and some visitors had very extreme opinions about it, even though we never asked them to take their shoes off. Some got offended by me putting slippers.

Oh my father-in-law was a fiery "it's my house so I wear shoes inside".

So when I moved in with my then-girlfriend-now-wife, we made a rule... "it's our house so you take off your shoes".

We did warn him ahead of the rule, and told him, bring slippers if you don't want on your socks...

And yet we demand people keep them on during flights, because feet are even more disgusting.

Do we? Besides takeoff and landing, it is pretty common to take off shoes during flights.

I wonder if it's country-dependent too.

Some people's feet are disgusting. They should keep their shoes on during flights and, with a little self-awareness, should know by now whether they have odor issues (which, btw, can be dealt with). Besides, most people wear socks during flights which means you don't typically encounter anyone's feet.

And yet, flip flops and sandals pass the test? Small issue with coherence.

And we demand that they take their shoes off at the security checkpoint. Really disgusting.

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