MetaClean: “How often should you...”
February 21, 2019 2:08 AM Subscribe

The Guardian: "Experts on 10 modern domestic dilemmas" give their - varied - opinions on bath towels (ongoing MetaTalk), sheets, wearing shoes indoors, jean washing, toilet brushes (“...a fetid liquid bacteria soup...”), cleaning cloths, dusting, vacuuming, deep-cleaning bathrooms, and showering. The World Wide Web is full of opinions, hygiene shaming, disguised cleaning product ads and more opinions on toilet brushes, the frequency of vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, toilet cleaning, (CW) cleaning after intimacy (“Toss the sex towel in the hamper”, “Dick in the sink”) showering frequency, and various cleaning in general. There is also science around cleaning agents and sprays, cotton towel bacteria, decontaminating kitchen cloths, hand hygiene, and toilet flushing.
posted by Wordshore (146 comments total) 55 users marked this as a favorite

After a mentally exhausting few hours of reading various 'articles' of extremely variable quality and legitimacy online, I've come to the bewildered conclusion that the most hygienic routine for using the toilet is:

1. Visit a neighbour.
2. Use their toilet, and put the lid down before flushing.
3. Wash your hands thoroughly (you trimmed your fingernails before the visit), using hot water and soap.
4. Dry your hands on the driest towel in your neighbour's bathroom.
5. Never visit that neighbour again.
6. Never let that neighbour into your own house.
posted by Wordshore at 2:18 AM on February 21, 2019 [107 favorites]

Are these germaphobes under the impression that their health is improved by not using a toilet-brush? Are toilet-brush users dying in vast quantities because of their terrible germy lifestyles? Or could they just be kooks?
posted by pompomtom at 2:24 AM on February 21, 2019 [10 favorites]

I read this and came to the conclusion that I must have died of general sepsis about 40 years ago.
posted by Optamystic at 2:32 AM on February 21, 2019 [46 favorites]

I am still feeling all smug and hygienic after laundering ALL of my towels. Let me enjoy it, will you.
posted by Vesihiisi at 2:37 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

I will never put my hands in the toilet, gloves or no, but I am always horrified by the puddle of water in the toilet brush holder - luckily I discovered THIS actually-pretty-obvious-when-you-think-about-it trick.
posted by cilantro at 2:46 AM on February 21, 2019 [18 favorites]

(I can't edit the post so, for clarity after one horrified email just now, it's a laundry hamper not a picnic hamper)
posted by Wordshore at 2:56 AM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]

In response to the list(icle) my own responses ...

1) How many bath towels does a household need? One big one and one small one per person. A couple of small ones for the sink.

2) How often should you change your sheets? How many people are in the bed and how much sex are they having? Once a week to "until they start to smell a bit or look a little dirty" depending on the answer to the previous question.

3) Can shoes be worn indoors? Christ no. Have you ever looked down at the pavements you're walking on? I live in Switzerland, which is the stereotype of being clean, and still the pavements are covered in dog shit. Side note: if you're one of those dog owners who lets their dogs shit on the pavement and doesn't clean it up you should be made to eat it. Fuck the lot of you.

4) How often should you wash your jeans? See question 2.

5) Is it OK to use a toilet brush? Er... yes? Just make sure you rinse it with a flush and let it dry after use.

6) What is the best way to wash a cleaning cloth? Get one of those anti-bacterial ones and rinse after each use plus soak it in boiling water every now and then. If you use it to wipe up something unpleasant then chuck it in with the clothes wash afterwards.

7) How often should you dust? When you see visible signs of dust.

8) How often should you vacuum under the bed? Do you have wooden floors or carpet? In the former case, see answer to question 7. Latter, I guess whenever you can be arsed.

9) How often should you deep-clean the bathroom? When it starts to look a bit worse for wear I would think.

10) Is it best to shower in the morning or evening? Morning, unless you are one of those mythical creatures that can sleep all night without breaking a sweat. Of course, evening as well if you've had a physical day.
posted by lawrencium at 3:15 AM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]

I live in Switzerland, which is the stereotype of being clean, and still the pavements are covered in dog shit.

Proof that stereotypes are often baseless.

Pavements should not be covered in dogshit. Shoes can be worn indoors.
posted by Dysk at 3:21 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

Do... do people not let their toilet brushes drip dry after they use them? Whenever I scrub the toilet I rinse it in flush water, wedge the handle of the brush under the toilet seat, bristle side in, and let it drip away until the next time someone needs to pee. There really isn't that much gross toilet brush water in the toilet. The thought of manually scrubbing under the rim of the toilet bowl WITH MY HANDS, gloved or not, is just a bridge too far.

I am 1,0000% never going to wash my jeans every time I wear them. That's just bananas.

Also, what's wrong with chucking cleaning cloths in the washing machine? I just put my microfibre cleaning cloths in on a regular cycle with a scoop of oxygen bleach to get rid of the crud.

Which is a long way of saying elements of this article are Incorrect.
posted by nerdfish at 3:26 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

The grossest things in your house are most likely your phone's touchscreen and pc keyboard.
posted by farlukar at 3:37 AM on February 21, 2019 [22 favorites]

"The grossest things in your house are most likely your phone's touchscreen and pc keyboard."

I'm guessing you don't have kids?

For those with the more severe cases of toilet-o-phobia and whatnot, here's a little reminder that most of us did being smeared at least partially with our own excrement on a daily basis, and most everyone can recall more severe incidents from early childhood as well as those of their kids...

I have personally lost practically all touch with the concept of disgusting or gross at the level of physical (including biological) objects when I worked at a swimming pool for three years. I think the shoes in the house thing is culturally ingrained: I wish I could do it, i.e. always take off my shoes outside, or at least outside the bedroom door, but I just consistently fail to have the mental discipline.
posted by holist at 4:02 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

Shoes indoors? Indoors (or at the beach/summer lawn/in the tulips) is where you can be free of the tyranny of shoes! Off with their shoes!

Cleaning is one of those necessary things that is best done on a routine, but often occurs when it's noticeably needed. Life happens.
posted by mightshould at 4:10 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]

Reading the first link I discovered the difference between cleaning as a profession - in and out in under 2 hours - and regular life schedule home maintenance type of cleaning.
posted by infini at 4:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

Previous Mefi posts on this theme are collected at MefiWiki's YouWHAT page.
posted by zamboni at 4:30 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

The toilet brush thing is simply madness. Are these people considering that they might lick their toilet brushes? I rinse my toilet brush with an extra flush, tap it a couple of times on the rim, and then put it away. Then I don't worry about it because I LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE.

Seriously, do these people think they might use it to serve salad or something?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:36 AM on February 21, 2019 [79 favorites]

I'm really uncomfortable being told to take off my shoes at somebody's house. It's so . . . . intimate.
posted by JanetLand at 5:08 AM on February 21, 2019 [15 favorites]

Seriously, do these people think they might use it to serve salad or something?

Quora: "I heard that you can attach a toilet brush to a drill and fill a bucket up with water to quickly peel potatoes. Just put the potatoes in the water and fire up the drill!"
posted by Wordshore at 5:09 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

Shoes indoors? Indoors

Slippers... Problem solved for those of us in colder climates.

Except... when the littlest dog leaves an accidental present on the backdoor mat, and you didn't turn the lights on before letting the other dogs out, and... boom... one more dead pair of slippers... and mat... (little crapper)
posted by jkaczor at 5:13 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

Proof that stereotypes are often baseless.

Or at least Basel-less.

wait, was that the joke? Oh, well.
posted by zamboni at 5:18 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

Sorry folks. I wear shoes indoors. I actually never encountered a shoes-off-indoors home until very deep into my adult years.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:23 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]

Germophobes should know: if you over-protect your kids from germs all the time, they might grow up sickly. Also: we are generally (though not always) immune to our own germs, so don't be quite so afraid of your toilet. Other people's toilets are another story, and you should always wash your hands afterwards in either case.
And here's a shocker: the sidewalk outside might have fewer germs than the carpet inside your house. Sidewalks are bathed in sunlight, flushed by rain and swept by winds carrying fresh oxygen, all of which are hard on germs. Your carpet isn't. Just try not to step in dog shit.
posted by tommyD at 5:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [13 favorites]

I adore shoes and they are an integral part of my outfit, generally. I find nothing more annoying than actually putting work into looking okay (with shoes) then going to a party where I am not allowed to wear the shoes inside. The worst of these was when I went to a cocktail party and worse forced to ditch the shoes for hygienic reasons, but the hosts’ giant muddy Golden Retriever came in and out of the rainy yard all night and their sick four year old kept putting his whole face into the hummus.
posted by thivaia at 5:33 AM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]

Shoes indoors? See appropriate Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:35 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

The grossest things in your house are most likely your phone's touchscreen and pc keyboard.

challengeaccepted.png
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:46 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

I am a no shoes indoors person, but my husband wears his indoors a lot due to allergies. I don’t care as much, cause we have zero carpeting in the house (again, allergies).
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:53 AM on February 21, 2019

This is probably my socialization showing, but for those who wear shoes indoors: where do you actually take them off? The front door seems the obvious spot -- the same place where you doff your coat, take off your hat, furl up your umbrella, whatever. Or do you keep them by the side of the bed and put socks and shoes on when you get up for a four A.M. visit to the washroom?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:58 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

for those who wear shoes indoors: where do you actually take them off?

Generally my shoes come off wherever I settle after I come in the house. For me, that usually means they end up under my desk or the kitchen table. They rarely stay on so long that they make it to the edge of the bed with me. It's not so much "shoes must always be on inside" as it is "shoes come off whenever it's convenient and I'm sitting down, rather than the second I come in the door".
posted by Hold your seahorses at 6:03 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

for those who wear shoes indoors: where do you actually take them off?

I keep my shoes in the bedroom closet, except for gardening shoes and snow boots, which are kept in the living room closet. I have a pair of "indoor" shoes that I put on if I come home with muddy or snowy shoes/boots. When I get out of bed in the night, I go barefooted or put on slippers if it's cold (the slippers also live in the bedroom closet).
posted by JanetLand at 6:05 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

Outdoors, I wear sandals about 99% of the time, shoes the rest of the time, never socks. Indoors I'll be in sandals say 70% of the time and barefoot when the family make the place too warm for me again, so my sandals, when not on, are found either by my bed, or somewhere else. This often leads to a hm situation.
posted by holist at 6:11 AM on February 21, 2019

10) Is it best to shower in the morning or evening?

I always thought this depended on the type of work one does (as referenced by collar-type):

Blue collar (manual labor): evening, to refresh after a hard’s work.

White collar (office labor): morning, to primp before presenting at the office.

Terry collar (remote labor): Friday, to revivify before meeting up for drinks.
posted by notyou at 6:11 AM on February 21, 2019 [61 favorites]

it's a laundry hamper not a picnic hamper

Tossing a sex towel in the picnic hamper (before use) is just courteous if it’s that sort of picnic. You need a special sex towel travel bag for after, unless you are thesort of environmental monster who would leave it for the birds and bees.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:19 AM on February 21, 2019 [10 favorites]

MetaFilter: bathed in sunlight, flushed by rain and swept by winds carrying fresh oxygen
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:21 AM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]

for those who wear shoes indoors: where do you actually take them off?

We are indoor shoe-wearing heathens. No hard and fast rule about when/where they come off. Whenever and wherever it feels good to not be wearing shoes anymore.

Exception: Boots or any shoe tracking in visible mud, snow, ice etc that I would need to immediately deal with. Those need to come off just inside the doorway and left there. (My husband gets annoyed at this request to the point where he'll forego the shoes entirely to step outside in snow, then tracking snow & water back inside on the bottom of his socks. Letter of the law, spirit of the law, etc etc.)

We have dogs. They are dirty. They don't wear shoes they can take off. Besides, one of our dogs eats her own poop on the regular. Dog poop breath in my face is way more offensive than invisible sidewalk germs on the carpet or wood floor.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 6:23 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

I tell you what, my whole house will get dusted weekly and my bathroom cleaned daily when I manage to get the people I live with to do their fair share of maintenance chores. At this point, if I kept my house as clean as the house where I grew up (maintained first by a stay-at-home parent and later by both parents doing a pretty equal split plus some child labor) my weekends would involve 16 hours of cleaning. Anything beyond some dish-doing and taking out the trash is done by me, no matter how I beg, set chore charts, get formal agreement, etc. I keep my room clean and that's about it.
posted by Frowner at 6:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

I'm confused abou the indoor shoes business. Are we counting it as "indoors" if we step inside with them and take them off by the door?

My couch is very close to the door so for me, "wear shoes indoor but I take them off at the couch" seems like a bit of a contradiction.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:33 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

“You can’t share a towel,” insists Lynsey Crombie, AKA Queen of Clean from Channel 4’s Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners [...] she has a high towel turnover: she washes them every other day, “if not after every use”.

[...] Is it best to shower in the morning or evening?

[...] In the evening, Crombie says. She likes “to go to bed clean” [...] I think if you go to bed clean, you get up clean.”

My own obsession is internal consistency :-(
posted by trig at 6:34 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

My feet get cold easily and my socks may not be good for walking around. I hate any expectation that I will take my shoes off(!!) at someone else's place! That is just egregious presumption.

At home I take mine off after entering the house and going to the bedroom, and my shoes live in the closet or wherever I leave them. Then I put on some damn socks or slippers or something warm. If it's summer I usually then go barefoot indoors til I have to go outside.

Towels (I have many but only use 4 or so in regular bathroom rotation) get washed like every week or so. You have to have a bunch of old towels for all sorts of reasons. Who the frick can live without a stash of utility towels??
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 6:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

I am glad to see you are attempting to clean up the mess you guys made after Poo Month.
posted by drlith at 6:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [24 favorites]

I like not wearing shoes indoors, but it conflicts with one of the primary recommendations from my podiatrist, to wear shoes with inserts indoors and outdoors.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 6:45 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

Switching out shoes is annoying and I dislike it intensely, but I try to remember that Mister Rogers didn't change into his indoor sneakers eight hundred and ninety-five blessed times so that we could all grow up to track sidewalk poop into the house.
posted by notquitemaryann at 6:51 AM on February 21, 2019 [27 favorites]

...but for those who wear shoes indoors: where do you actually take them off?

~ In general, my bedroom when getting ready for sleep. Just like the rest of my clothes.

The front door seems the obvious spot -- the same place where you doff your coat, take off your hat, furl up your umbrella, whatever.

~ My shoes are not in the same category as an umbrella. They are daily wear like a shirt or pants, not occasional weather-protection gear.

Or do you keep them by the side of the bed and put socks and shoes on when you get up for a four A.M. visit to the washroom?

~ This one is nonsensical. Why in the loving heck would I put on shoes at 4am just to walk the fifteen or so feet to my bathroom?
posted by Thorzdad at 6:54 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

I was also surprised to note that I apparently change my sheets and wash my jeans more often than most people but wash my towels much less.

When I was little, all laundry was done on Sundays - sheets were washed, all clothes were washed, all kitchen towels and cleaning cloths were washed. Anything that wasn't obviously filthy by mid-week was used all week and washed at the weekend, so bath towels were washed weekly. We lived in a small mid-century Cape Cod in a not-very-humid area, so towels tended to dry pretty quickly after use. I feel like I actually grew up in a very clean and well-maintained home, certainly better-maintained than anywhere I've lived since.

I wonder how fast-fashion has influenced all this. When I was a kid, we certainly weren't broke but we didn't have enough money to buy more than we actually needed. We had two sets of towels, and we put one set out on Sundays while the other got washed. Linens are a lot cheaper now (although also terrible - my parents are still using the towels we got when I was in my teens (almost certainly at JC Penney or some other lower-end department store) and they're in perfectly decent shape, but the "fanciest Target brand" towels I got a couple of years ago have all these pulls) so I assume it's way easier for people to have lots of them.
posted by Frowner at 6:56 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

If you are washing towels after every use, you are wasting water. QED.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:57 AM on February 21, 2019 [10 favorites]

The pleasure of reading these is all in the horrified "you do WHAT?" about other people's strongly-felt habits. I love it.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:58 AM on February 21, 2019 [12 favorites]

My shoe hacks are these:

1. Special slip-ons for going into our gross Victorian basement. (Old, old shoes I bought like twelve years ago and didn't like much when new.) These live near the basement stairs (but not near enough for tripping and falling down the steep Victorian steps).

2. A pair of Vans slip-ons for house use only. I prefer to wear shoes in the house. Shuffling around in slippers makes me feel lazy and disorganized. House-shoe Vans (which can be pretty cheap if you get them at a discounter/on clearance) are shoe enough to feel like shoes, warm and yet also easy to take off when you put on outdoor shoes.
posted by Frowner at 6:59 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

I always assumed wearing shoes indoors was a bit of a cultural / climatic habitat thing. Most of the homes I've encountered in Canada have been "shoes off at the door" places, largely due to our variable weather. The first time I encountered a "shoe indoors" home was the home of a very wealthy friend who's parents had a maid. And I legitimately didn't want to leave my shoes on at the time. In the US it seems more common to leave your shoes on, which I never fail to find a bit weird.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:07 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

If you are washing towels after every use, you are wasting water. QED.

Yeah - that one makes me mad - the cleanest a person will ever be is after a shower... So, all the towel had to do is absorb some water... Then it will dry before next use.
posted by jkaczor at 7:08 AM on February 21, 2019 [12 favorites]

Back in the summer of 2009, on moving in with my ex- in her apartment in Detroit, one of the first things I discovered is that she used the same plunger - never cleaned - for both the toilet and the kitchen sink. I wasn't happy about this at the time, but kept quiet on assuming it was some kind of either local, or US, cultural thing. Maybe there was only one plunger on the entire Mayflower and the practice continued, or something, don't know. I did quickly buy a(nother) plunger, a newer one that was not alarmingly stained, for the kitchen sink, though this turned out to be a unusually difficult task, in suburban Detroit and with my accent, jetlag, and an unfamiliarity of shopping there.

Anyway, less than a year later we split up on not-great terms, she's now married to someone high profile who works for Twitter, and looking back afterwards that was the very first thing that sowed a seed of doubt in my mind. That's one of the good things about previous relationships; they help to clarify your own red lines.

(I also kept the better plunger.)
posted by Wordshore at 7:09 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

used the same plunger - never cleaned

Gags... Blech... OTOH, I grossed-out my kids once by sticking a brand new plunger I was buying from the store on the top of my head like a hat... They were gagging and mortally embarrassed... I was like, "what?, this is the cleanest it will ever be"... (One of the best perks of having kids is getting to embarrass them in public with your antics and shenanigans... You've got to mess with people...)
posted by jkaczor at 7:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

I tend to either take a bath or a shower before bed. That’s generally where I take off my shoes. Then they go on the closet,which is too small for the shoes (I have a problem, but less than the problem with dresses, books and records)
posted by thivaia at 7:16 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

I just bought slip ons for work, so I can wear big clunky muck boots in winter, then change into nice light shoes once I get here. I ended up getting the ESD variant, which should, in theory, cut down on me zapping things with static electricity. The trick will be remembering to take them off when I leave work during the day.
posted by zamboni at 7:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

What I want to know is, why is that kid wearing a helmet while vacuuming? Is there a ride-on vacuum, just outside the frame?
posted by elizilla at 7:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Bare feet is one of my little joys. I'll occasionally keep my shoes on when I get home if I'm doing chores like taking out the trash. Otherwise, it's shoes off for comfort as much as for hygiene. Socks usually come off within the next 15 minutes, and often I'm removing my pants or changing into comfy lounge pants.

I honestly can't even fathom wearing shoes upstairs. I'm hanging out, playing games on my PC, and still wearing shoes? Why?

As for towels, we wash 'em only so frequently as to keep them from getting funky from ambient moisture. They shouldn't be getting any significant human funk on them if you're properly washing! Makes me wonder about others' showering techniques. Are people wetting the skin and then using the bath towel to exfoliate instead of a washcloth? Is that why they need to be washed after every use? Who the fuck needs FIVE towels per person?
posted by explosion at 7:29 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

We're a no-shoes indoors household. In our house we specifically made the entrance one step lower than the rest of the main floor so that shoes could be removed and kept there. It should also serve as a cue to visitors that shoes are to be left there but seeing how everyone we'd invite over would also be no-shoes indoors I don't know how effective it's been at that.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:31 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm really uncomfortable being told to take off my shoes at somebody's house. It's so . . . . intimate.

YES. I am very much not into sharing the state of my pedicure or the age/matchiness of my socks with strangers. Particularly in colder weather, when I'm wearing boots and dressing for warmth. The shoes stay on.
posted by emjaybee at 7:31 AM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]

All of y'all that are scandalized by having to take shoes off at a friends house - what do you do when the weather is bad? Do you wear your Sorels (big ass snow boots) and Wellies indoors? Do you carry a spare pair of indoor-appropriate shoes with you? Do you only go visiting when the weather is cooperative?
posted by Gray Duck at 7:36 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

for those who wear shoes indoors: where do you actually take them off?

From anthropological research observation of the shoes-stay-on peoples, they don't know either. My latest paper posits there is a cultural bonding element in their ritual calls of have you seen my shoes?! and where are my shoes?! that my own shoes-are-for-outside peoples fill with other semantic signifiers.
posted by Drastic at 7:36 AM on February 21, 2019 [10 favorites]

I recently put on stick on chemical foot warmers between socks to go to a shoes-off house and I STILL ended up under a blanket freezing on their couch. For added fun, my brain interprets the rapid cooldown as Time To Sleep if it’s after 8pm and anything less than all the indoor lights are on. I am great at parties.
posted by deludingmyself at 7:39 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

For me, taking off shoes is to keep sand, salt, and grit out of my house rather than a fear of germs. I have only so much time to sweep.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:42 AM on February 21, 2019 [15 favorites]

Maybe it's a climate thing. I don't have or need snow boots where I live, and yeah, if I tromp through mud, those shoes come off, obviously, but most of the time that's not a thing.

Also if I'm already wearing sandals my feet are "out" so taking those off is not a big deal.

But if I've been running around in athletic shoes or boots and socks doing errands or whatever, and I come to someone's house, I'm really doing them a favor not taking those off.
posted by emjaybee at 7:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Also, I thought the common consensus on how often you should wash your (non-manual labor) pair of jeans is 'almost never'.

That's what denim aficionados say, but my nose says otherwise.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:44 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

If you live alone, you can probably get by with cleaning the toilet every few days.
LOL!
More often if you have kids!
Double LOL!

Cleaning the toilet is actually only a 10 minute job, if you know a few little tricks.
So every few days you have to spend 10 minutes (or 20-30 minutes a week) just cleaning your toilet? Or 70 minutes a week if you have kids?

Cleaning a toilet takes 2 minutes, and it's totally fine to do it once a week or less, even if you have kids.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:44 AM on February 21, 2019 [12 favorites]

All of y'all that are scandalized by having to take shoes off at a friends house - what do you do when the weather is bad? Do you wear your Sorels (big ass snow boots) and Wellies indoors? Do you carry a spare pair of indoor-appropriate shoes with you? Do you only go visiting when the weather is cooperative?

I mean, all the usual solutions apply as for indoor workplaces.
posted by deludingmyself at 7:44 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

Do you never tuck your feet under you on the couch?

Not anymore -- there's not enough room on my lap for both cats if I do that.

Or do you do that while wearing shoes? Are you putting your shoes on your furniture?

It's not like the shoes are GLUED to my feet the entire time I'm home. Yeah, if I want to stretch out on the couch for a nap (which I can't do right now because I only have a loveseat but the principle is the same), I would probably kick off my shoes, and then put them back on when I get up. For just general sitting around and walking around, in the spring/fall/winter I prefer shoes on my feet.

All of y'all that are scandalized by having to take shoes off at a friends house - what do you do when the weather is bad?

"scandalized" is putting it a bit strongly -- I'm uncomfortable, is all, and I don't like it, but I still take off my shoes when asked to do so. (AND THEN I JUDGE! no no, just kidding, I do not judge)

For those who don't wear shoes inside their homes because of, shall we say, outdoor dirt concerns, does it trouble you to wear shoes in an office all day? (assuming you work in one, of course)
posted by JanetLand at 7:47 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

So, just so I understand, there are people who literally wear shoes from the time they get dressed in the morning until the time they get undressed for the night? Like, that's totally fine, you do you, but I cannot fathom doing that. One of the best parts of my day is coming home after work and shedding all the clothing and shoes and makeup from my day. I put on my comfy clothes (usually an old t-shirt and pj pants NO BRA THANK YOU VERY MUCH), maaaayyyyybe socks if it's cold, and get on with my night (assuming I'm in for the evening).

1. I like being clothed. A big dread for me is some kind of emergency happening while I'm flopping about in garments not suitable for the public, or in clothes that are only "comfortable" if you don't need to do anything strenuous that might make them gape or fall off. If I lived in a different era, I'd be the sort of person who wore a suit on the weekends.

Also, I don't feel focused when I'm wearing pajamas. Pajamas are my cue for sleep, not chores, hobbies or work.

2. I spent a lot of time living in places where you needed to wear shoes indoors because they were intrinsically, uncleanablely dirty. You put your shoes on after showering and took them off while sitting on the bed so that you could whisk your feet directly under the covers.

One was teaching accommodations in a very polluted, coal-powered city where effective cleaning implements, sufficient water, etc were difficult to get in any case. Everything was already coated with coal gunk from the air pollution, and if you cleaned everything would be dirty again in a day or so. You couldn't let clothes air dry outside because they would be actively dirty and smell of coal, and the balcony was literally visibly coated in coal dust and exhaust dust anyway.

The other was a very dirty, run-down house that was being renovated. Most surfaces were grimy with the grime of years even after an initial scrub, so until the floors had been sanded and refinished and most of the walls repaired and painted, you didn't want to touch anything. I had my bed on a big bamboo mat in a room I'd painted the first day (it didn't need major repairs) and I took my shoes off before I stepped on the mat.

I currently live with people who will not pull their weight, which means that unless I want to sweep and mop a large house every week in addition to doing everything else, the floors get somewhat dirty. I sweep and mop my own room regularly because I like a clean room and it makes me sad that I can't really keep a clean house as I was raised to do, but it's too big to keep up without help.
posted by Frowner at 7:48 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

For those who feel it's too intimate to show your bare tootsies to your friends, we have invented cloth coverings for your feet, they go between your feet and shoes, we call them socks. Perhaps you should experience them for yourselves.
Also, Birkenstocks? You are satan!
posted by evilDoug at 7:50 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Also, I thought the common consensus on how often you should wash your (non-manual labor) pair of jeans is 'almost never'.

That's what denim aficionados say, but my nose says otherwise.

How are the pants getting stinky? Are folks not wearing underwear?
posted by explosion at 7:52 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

For those who feel it's too intimate to show your bare tootsies to your friends, we have invented cloth coverings for your feet, they go between your feet and shoes, we call them socks. Perhaps you should experience them for yourselves.

And wasn't it jolly fun when I took off my shoes at someone's house and was walking across their shiny wood floor in my socks and promptly slipped and fell, beer and all.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to wear shoes at home -- I too have wood floors, although not so shiny.
posted by JanetLand at 7:57 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

I mostly don't hold with the disposable cleaning tools, but...you guys know you can solve the toilet problem by using the brushes with the disposable heads, right?
posted by praemunire at 7:57 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

The grossest things in your house are most likely your phone's touchscreen

Get a case and a screen protector; swab with an alcohol wipe every so often.
posted by Iridic at 8:01 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

So, just so I understand, there are people who literally wear shoes from the time they get dressed in the morning until the time they get undressed for the night?

Maybe a few, but for the most part people wear shoes until they choose to take them off, and 'at the door of the house-few exceptions' is not the most common choice. Kick them off in the hallway after dinner seems pretty common. Next to the couch is also common.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:07 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

How are the pants getting stinky? Are folks not wearing underwear?

Are folks literally only wearing their jeans to walk from home to car to desk and back again, all in extremely moderate temperatures? My clothes get smelly because I am a mere human creature and I sweat into them when I, eg, do heavy chores or ride my bike. Also, you sweat and shed skin and various minor kinds of ick just because you're being alive, and while that doesn't mean your clothes stink after light wear, they do start to get smelly given enough time. (Consider sheets - sheets get smelly if you sleep on them long enough, even if you sleep in pajamas.)

Also, it's worth considering how good your sense of smell is. Mine is poor, my partner's good. Things that don't smell strongly to me can be unpleasant to my partner. If you wear your clothes for days and days but they smell basically fine to you, they may still reek to others.
posted by Frowner at 8:09 AM on February 21, 2019 [19 favorites]

When I lived in the fraternity house, I wore my sneakers in the shower.
posted by AugustWest at 8:10 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

I'm staying out of this one, I think. Except ...

ctrl/f "allergies" "allergic" allergy" = barely any hits at all.

Which brings to mind the Hygiene Hypothesis. Still just a hypothesis, mind you. But it seems worth at least a consideration.
posted by philip-random at 8:21 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

It's been a while since I've worked in an officey office, but I used to keep a pair of black slip-ons under my desk so that I didn't have to wear my Sorels to Board Meetings. I don't keep slip-ons at friends houses. Nowadays I work in libraries, so its not weird to keep the dirty shoes on because everyone else does anyway. I make a sincere effort to remove the crud when I come in, though. Can't say as much for many of my patrons!

I suppose, if I knew that my friends house would receive the same level of cleaning as my librarys floor (dailyish, paid professional, with floor mats designed to suck up crud) then I wouldnt feel like a jerk dragging in the snow/salt/mud to a friends house.
posted by Gray Duck at 8:29 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'll admit to having a long-time interest in the shoes on/shoes off debate. I do think a lot of it is cultural/contextual. I grew up in the south, where snowboots are a "maybe once a decade" necessity unless you travel to ski or whatever. Those are/were left at the door because the notion of doing anything in snowboots other than recreation or chores on a snow day or, maybe, casually (stress casually) visiting the neighbors for hot choloate would have been unthinkable. Or to put another way, if there was enough snow on the ground for snow boots, the odds were that you you were not working/not going to school/not attending a party.

The other thing about the south, or specifically the way I was brought up in the south, was the idea that your guest is always right, even if they are most definitely wrong. is your responsibility as host to not only make them feel welcome and comfortable, but to intuitively anticipate exactly those things that will make them welcome and comfortable. A good hostess should know what you want before you even have to ask for it. The other side of this is that the guest should be able to communicate what they want without having to frame it as a demand. The result is a kind of prolonged exercise in subtext and mild passive aggression that generally ends with everyone feeling equally unsatisfied but much too polite to mention it. Shoes off would be a demand, so even your co-worker's new boyfriend tromps spoils your new white carpet by tromping across it in post-flash flood, red-clay soaked boots, it is preferable to demanding he remove them. Also, you have the fringe benefit of later acting the martyr as your scrub out the stains on my hands and knees until God knows what time and what in the world is Shelly thinking dating horrible man. Did you see that he actually used the monogrammed linen towels in the powder room . . .to wipe his hands! .

To be clear, I don't do this, but I was raised in a world that did.

I did spend a lot of my childhood barefoot, to the continual horror of my grandmother, who thought I might catch something, like fungus or the perception that I came from ill-mannered people. I don't think my grandmother ever went barefoot in her life, save on the beach, and maybe--maybe--on a sailboat. This was a woman known to wear a girdle and panty hose with shorts in July.

Ironically, what finally shifted me into the shoes on camp was living in a series of shitty, old dirty apartments/houses that were never truly clean with a whole bunch of roommates and a regular party schedule. Nothing like getting a thick shard of wine bottle in your foot on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night to turn you off barefoot forever.
posted by thivaia at 8:31 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

I have neuropathy in my feet, and need supportive shoes even when I am sitting in a chair. I don't wear shoes in bed or in the shower, obviously, but I certainly don't take them off at the door. If/when I progress to a wheelchair I expect I will wear shoes to sit in it.

Also, when I fall I can't get up, and I don't recover very fast. Must avoid falling! Proper, supportive, non-sloppy shoes with predictable traction are a key part of my "do not fall" strategy, and that is another reason to always wear shoes. Slippers don't make the grade, and most boots don't either.

When I was younger, before all this happened to me, I was a shoe hater, barefoot at any opportunity. But I can't do it anymore. I'm a woman in sensible shoes all the time.

My house has beautiful hardwood floors, and everyone thinks they should take their shoes off when they come in. But if I myself am going to wear shoes in the house, I can't fault others for doing it too.
posted by elizilla at 8:37 AM on February 21, 2019 [10 favorites]

Are folks literally only wearing their jeans to walk from home to car to desk and back again, all in extremely moderate temperatures?

Yes. Jeans are good for like 10 wears in the winter....and 3 in the summer.
posted by explosion at 8:39 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Turns out I also have strong feelings about wiping hands on monogrammed towels! And using decorative soap.

I'm going to wash my hands when I go the restroom in your house, and I'm going to dry them, so hopefully you want me using the soap and towel you put in the bathroom.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:42 AM on February 21, 2019 [17 favorites]

Great concepts from this thread and an anecdote...
Oh my God, I accidentally served salad with my toilet brush!
What? You don't brush your.teeth with the toilet brush?
Oh yeah I use my toilet brush to scrub those hard to get at places, including my back.
16 hours of house cleaning on the weekend, I'd be frowning too.
Metafilter: The better plunger!
Evil Doug, knows his satan.
Satan's business-girdle with panty hose under shorts in July.
Thanks to Wordshorts for another great post.
But like c'mon, the toilet brush is sitting in disinfectant.

swizzlethat
posted by Oyéah at 8:49 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

No way! I know those cookies from house beautiful are going to be dirty. The karrma of suppression...
posted by Oyéah at 8:52 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

If you want me to take my shoes off at your door, you had better have a pair of guest slippers waiting for me.
posted by pracowity at 9:18 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

You can also avoid the toilet brush issue by living in an apartment, never scrubbing the inside of your toilet and just moving to a new place when it gets too much to bear.

Personally, I think the fact that toilets are so damn hard to keep clean (too many nooks on the outside, porcelain that stains/scratches/holds on to dirt easily, gross filth-collecting lid hinges ARGH) is a major design flaw that should be addressed by the people that design the damn things. Who, I assume, have never tried to clean one.
posted by emjaybee at 9:31 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

Are folks literally only wearing their jeans to walk from home to car to desk and back again, all in extremely moderate temperatures?

I dunno.

I believe that some people just don't dirty their jeans much and this makes sense. I don't sweat much unless it's very hot or I'm being very active, so I can get away with re-wearing clothes more often than someone who sweats more.

But on the other hand, I have a roommate seems to follow the "wash fabrics whenever they seem dirty or smell" rule and as a result, I had to buy an air freshener because I can smell his bedroom whenever I walk by it. He tried to give me some sweaters once because he'd gotten too big for them, and I had to throw them away because the BO wouldn't even wash out. He has worn the same clothes so often that I had to tell him they needed to be washed because I could smell him from the other room. I don't know what's wrong with his nose.

It makes me paranoid enough that I can't smell my stink that I do sheets, towels, etc more often than I probably would otherwise. I don't trust the "smell test" because some people just do not notice how bad they smell.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:41 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

I've struggled with the 1 vs. 2 showers a day thing. Even keeping them short taking two seems so wasteful. My preferred/necessary shower is the evening one as I like to feel clean going to bed and I generally feel just as clean in the morning. However, as someone cursed with bizarre hair that is somehow frizzy, flat, poofy, unpredictable and generally awkward all at once, no amount of trickery in the morning replaces either a shampoo, quick soap rinse, or even few minutes of steam to get it settled. All bets are off on what it might look like throughout the day if I don't shower.
posted by dreamlanding at 9:44 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

I don't get all the people who say they regularly step in dog crap or in puke. I've been to a lot of cities and I've spent some time (not a lot, but some) on the seedy part of town, and I spent time in people's backyards where they are very unlikely to pick up dog crap, and I haven't stepped in dog crap since I was like 10 years old.

It's more a problem that someone else has stepped in dog crap and then of course spread that dog crap around sufficiently enough that the pavement is now a thin veneer of dog crap for everyone else who uses said pavement to get trace amounts of dog crap on their shoes.

If you see a little bit of dog crap, and think "woo! glad i didn't step in that" then you can guarantee that you will have some amount on your shoes due to some *other* dog crap. It's like the broken windows theory. Maybe not a lot, but any amount greater than nothing is enough to follow the "shoes off" rule IMO.

Also, this time of year is particularly annoying in that dog owners will let their dogs crap on the pavement then there is fresh snow and thus there are now hidden dog crap traps waiting for anyone who strays sufficiently far enough (i.e. about 30cm) from the middle of the pavement. Unless of course the snow clearing machine gets to it first, which is probably worse as said dog crap is thrown several meters somewhere else in lots of little pieces chopped up by the snow removal machine.

I really hate dog crap on the pavements.

Also, you know, toxocariasis.
posted by lawrencium at 9:46 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have outsourced all my thinking about when/how to clean things to googling "Jolie Kerr + (whatever issue)" and generally doing what she says.

Here are her thoughts on the towel thing.
posted by rewil at 9:54 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

JanetLand, that was unintentionally comedic, correct?
posted by evilDoug at 10:02 AM on February 21, 2019

The shoes-on-inside thing will never cease to mystify me. The entire country of Canada, as far as I know, is a shoes-off-inside place. No one questions this. The only time I've ever felt weird about this is when I've worn sandals to a friend's place and was then barefoot in their house. That did feel weird and a little too intimate, to borrow a phrase from upthread. As long as I'm wearing socks, though, it's extremely normal to take shoes off at the door, even in nice summer weather. Although, by the same token, if everyone is out on the patio for a BBQ or something, suddenly the general rule is: don't worry about taking off your shoes if you need to go inside to use the washroom, since you'll have to put them right back on as soon as you're done.
posted by asnider at 10:05 AM on February 21, 2019 [13 favorites]

I have met many people who insist they do not need to shower every day, because they don't stink.

These people have, to my nose, been terribly, terribly wrong.

As for me, I'm a Crazy Person, Endurance Athlete division, so I shower every morning, and then again after every workout, which works out to much more than daily. It would not be wise for me to reduce this frequency.
posted by uberchet at 10:05 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

For those who don't wear shoes inside their homes because of, shall we say, outdoor dirt concerns, does it trouble you to wear shoes in an office all day?

No, because I'm not responsible for cleaning the floors at the office. Also, personally, there's a difference in my mind between "home" and "outside" (which isn't necessarily outdoors), and "home" should be kept cleaner than "outside". To solve the cold floors problem, I wear slippers, and when I travel I collect hotel room slippers for guests. (I don't even do the patio BBQ exception like in asnider's comment; sandals are easy to kick off and slip back on.)

For people who wear shoes inside their houses, what do you do if you have a nice rug? Do you just YOLO and step on them with shoes on?
posted by airmail at 10:11 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

Reasons to shower at night:

* Raynaud's is a bitch, and I can go from shower to bed with warm appendages and stand some small chance of eventually falling asleep (I still have to wear socks these days in bed as well)
* If you sleep sans clothing, see first point as well

Downside:

* You wake up with crazy hair (aside from being somewhat bald, one of the reasons I've sported a buzzcut the last few years is that crazy hair is no longer a thing, something my now "normal length" hair, what's left of it, reminds me of daily).
posted by maxwelton at 10:12 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

Personally, I think the fact that toilets are so damn hard to keep clean (too many nooks on the outside, porcelain that stains/scratches/holds on to dirt easily, gross filth-collecting lid hinges ARGH) is a major design flaw that should be addressed by the people that design the damn things. Who, I assume, have never tried to clean one.

Sooo much this... Those stupid caps that cover the "always" rusty bolts that never stay on... Just the other day, I was looking at a raised seat and top of bowl area and wondering... Why are they not simply sloped inwards, so that is there is some accidental liquid "spray" (someone not aiming well), it simply drains into the bowl?
posted by jkaczor at 10:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

One of my favorite passive aggressive things to do is go to a "no-shoes" household in my wheelchair.
posted by thorny at 10:20 AM on February 21, 2019 [13 favorites]

Shoes on/off isn't just a weather divide; it's class-based too. If you work outdoors on a farm or on a construction site or even in a commercial kitchen or a hospital say, you'll have specialized foot wear that you're not going to want in the house either. Indeed, I have a wardrobe of clothing suited for specific purposes. With weather this often means seperate footware at home, outside and then at work. In my case, I wear slippers at home /boots outside/clogs at work in the sloppy seasons, while slippers/ then clogs outdoors and at work in the better parts of the year. Clogs typiucally mean a slip-on shoe with safety features, because I'm lazy and prefer that to laces.

And yes, it's really common for women in particular to bring dedicated indoor shoes when they want to look put together (men do it too). Practically, any sort of expensive shoe *will* dissolve in Ottawa brine slush. Even a single exposure will permanently damage a patent leather shoe. Minimalists will bring ballet slippers in a discrete bag, but heels in a purse are extremely common. Cloak areas at fancy performance venues have seating for people to change footware, for example.

That also affects the "when do I clean myself" calculus. If I've been working in a kitchen or landscaping, I want a shower before bed. If I'm out in the cold, I want one to warm up (also you sweat a lot in winter clothing). If I'm at meetings all day, I'm showering first thing. I'm functional, not dogmatic about it. Work and activity drive how I clean myself.
posted by bonehead at 10:24 AM on February 21, 2019 [13 favorites]

My feet get cold easily and my socks may not be good for walking around. I hate any expectation that I will take my shoes off(!!) at someone else's place! That is just egregious presumption.

So speaks a person who does not live in a place with a salt on the ground for six months of the year. It's not just about dirt, the salt will eat away at any kind of flooring or carpet that you have. If you can't afford to replace your carpet or floor boards every couple of years, you take your shoes off at the door. That's why Canadians have mudrooms and/or use backdoors.

And once everyone is used to walking around barefoot/sockfoot, it feels weird to wear shoes inside, and you want to keep your floors cleaner all year round, so you keep up the habit in the summer.
posted by jb at 10:25 AM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]

For those who don't wear shoes inside their homes because of, shall we say, outdoor dirt concerns, does it trouble you to wear shoes in an office all day?

Office buildings have substantial mats to try to minimize the salt and dirt being tracked in, the carpets are especially robust (and thin piled) - and it's also probably a reason that bare boards have never caught on. You can see the salt on my wood floors at home from just one puddle.
posted by jb at 10:28 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

Most people in my office, even those "on the carpeted parts" all day (i.e. not in the bluer collar areas) have shoes for the office they either bring in for the day or leave at work. We are encouraged by my employer not to wear boots around the office. There's a significant social pressure to wear "indoor shoes" as well.

One (male) fashionista I'm aware of is famous for the shoe rack he has in his office with more than a dozen pairs of shoes arrayed, proudly displayed for all to see.
posted by bonehead at 10:31 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I think we need to start arguing about the taxonomy of shoes, like followers of Brian. Are boots really shoes? Can espadrilles be worn indoors? Clogs: a subset of sandals? None of the above are sandwiches anyway.
posted by St. Oops at 10:38 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

Yeah - that one makes me mad - the cleanest a person will ever be is after a shower... So, all the towel had to do is absorb some water... Then it will dry before next use.

How often should you wash towels? I think (no real proof) that, unless you're a fanatic about exfoliation, i.e. practically scrubbing yourself raw in the bath or shower, you probably leave some skin cells on the towel; plus, if your space is humid and/or hot, unless you put your towels on a drying rack (I do) instead of doubling them over on the bathroom rack, you probably get a little bit of mold or other growth on them. Even with the drying rack and fairly dry air, I wash mine as often as I do laundry.

Also, WRT cleaning up after intimacy, something that I learned from a former partner is that one of the simplest and best solutions is either to a) cut up an old towel into several sex cloths or b) go to Bed Bath & Beyond or another home furnishings place and buy a multi-pack of washcloths that are a different color/pattern than your regular washcloths.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:40 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think a lot of people who aren't from snowy places don't realize how much salty slush full of road-grit gets caked onto shoes and doesn't just wipe off on the doormat. That stuff will destroy floors pretty quickly.

Is there anywhere in Canada where 'shoes off' isn't so expected, like maybe parts of BC where it doesn't snow much? There seems to be a pretty sharp divide in the US, with northern states heavily favoring 'shoes off' and southern and west coast states much more 'shoes on'.
posted by theory at 10:50 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

I've been to farms where the guys don't take their boots off in the house. This too often indicates a near complete lack of self-care, especially in bachelor farmer situations.
posted by bonehead at 11:00 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

The shoes-on-inside thing will never cease to mystify me. The entire country of Canada, as far as I know, is a shoes-off-inside place.

Can vouch for the fact that Canada is in fact not an entirely shoes-off-inside place.

I think a major divide is whether your home has a lot of wall-to-wall carpeting and how often you expect to enter/leave your house in the course of a day. My home growing up was all hardwood or linoleum and we were in and out of the back garden constantly - futzing about with shoes every time we wanted to pop inside would have gotten onerous quickly*.

* Yes I am aware slip on shoes exist, but no they do not fit all feet well and they are not appropriate for all activities.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 11:08 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Without doubt, the greatest thing I ever did for myself was to switch from Cotton towels to Linen. More absorbent, faster drying, great for travel. To think of the time/money wasted waiting for cotton towels to finish in the dryer.
posted by dobbs at 11:21 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

My feet are so profoundly, ridiculously sensitive and ticklish that the only times I'm ever, ever barefoot is in the shower or on a yoga mat; the yoga thing took me nearly a year to get used to, and I keep my socks on until I'm actually on the mat. Honestly I do my very best not to touch my feet at all except to wash and dry them. And, to quote the great Mr. T., I pity the fool who tries to touch my feet. My idea of hell is an eternal pedicure.

I do not walk barefoot on the beach because sand feels like thousands of tiny shards of glass. (My toes are curling up in my shoes right now just thinking about it.)

I do not walk barefoot outside on grass, because the very thought of how much it would tickle makes me want to throw up.

I do not walk barefoot at home because we have hardwood floors and the sensation of pieces of random household grit digging into my feet is intolerable. Immediately after exiting the shower, I put on a pair of slippers so I can tolerate the walk from the bathroom to the bedroom.

I also have really, really severe Raynaud's. Even in the dog days of summer, when it's so hot in our house that I'll sleep otherwise naked, I'll still have on a pair of socks. If I don't, my feet will be cold.

If I come to your house knowing ahead of time that you'd like me to remove my shoes, I will bring my own slippers. If you don't tell me beforehand that you'd like me to remove my shoes, I will need to borrow something or cover my shoes in a plastic bag or go home to get my own slippers and come back again.

But I absolutely, positively must keep sweet, sweet thick and insulating shoe soles between my feet and the floor. Socks alone just won't cut it and I will spend the entire time I'm in your home freezing and miserable.
posted by jesourie at 11:25 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

my toddler uses the toilet brush to brush the dog
the dog sleeps in my bed
i'm starting to come around on this whole toilet brush thing
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:26 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

RE: Shoes indoors

Doesn't anyone else remember Mr. Rogers? You come in the door, take off your jacket, put on a cardigan, take off the shoes you wore out of the house and put on your casual house-shoes all while singing a nice little song.

Personally, I just take off my shoes and if my feet get cold I have some nice slippers I can wear but when my plantar fasciitis was more of an issue my doctor advised me to wear shoes all the time and Mr. Roger's habit of having a pair of shoes that only get worn in the house was the first thing I thought of.
posted by VTX at 11:28 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

Man, people are afraid of cleaning their toilets?

Never be a janitor. I've been elbow deep in so many shitty toilets I couldn't count them, gloves or no gloves.

Hell, I've been inside a septic cistern to muck it out and replace the sewage pump.

I've started hose siphons of some very questionable things with my mouth.

Granted I'm probably a dirty mutant weirdo. If it doesn't kill me it's just going to make my immune system stronger.
posted by loquacious at 11:39 AM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]

Also, if you ask me to take my everyday boots off without warning me you may regret it, and I know I'm not the only one with stinky feet.

And around here it's hard to not have somewhat stinky feet. It's wet all the time, people tend to wear waterproof shoes and boots like Keens or other tech shoes.

I do bring spare clean socks with me when I visit someone who doesn't do shoes inside, and then I go put my boots outside on the porch. I have no problems doing this and I'm in to it when hanging at a friend's house for dinner and game night or something.

Our house here is generally no shoes inside, too, but I have slippers and flats and stuff for that here. But it's not really a hygiene thing, we're just lazy and don't have to want to sweep as much.
posted by loquacious at 11:51 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I swear Wordshore has been making these posts just to get us all to talk dirty to him and confess horrible things.

I demand fancy cake you limey weirdo!
posted by loquacious at 11:54 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

...the greatest thing I ever did for myself was to switch from Cotton towels to Linen.

Turkish towels are awesome sauce. We've completely switched. However the ones we really like are made from bamboo.
posted by bonehead at 11:58 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Shoes on/off isn't just a weather divide; it's class-based too.

That's not really a slam dunk, either, though. I think it's far more weather/regional than class.

And yes, it's really common for women in particular to bring dedicated indoor shoes when they want to look put together (men do it too).

The only time I've ever seen this is in urban areas with snowy weather, e.g., DC. There, in showstorms, I definitely see folks with "commute" shoes on vs the "real" shoes they wear in the office, but only when the weather is especially shitty.

Cloak areas at fancy performance venues have seating for people to change footware, for example.

I think that's absolutely only in areas where heavy weather is common. Performance venues in the south don't even HAVE cloak areas.
posted by uberchet at 12:02 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I think the fact that toilets are so damn hard to keep clean (too many nooks on the outside, porcelain that stains/scratches/holds on to dirt easily, gross filth-collecting lid hinges ARGH) is a major design flaw that should be addressed by the people that design the damn things

My office is brand new and has brand new urinals that spray piss and water everywhere in completely normal use, so I'm not sure we have our best minds designing toilets. That's a bathroom that needs to be cleaned multiple times a day.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:04 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

Also, if you ask me to take my everyday boots off without warning me you may regret it, and I know I'm not the only one with stinky feet.

This used to describe me as well. Then I switched to wool socks (thick for winter, thing for summer) and that one thing did the trick. YMMV.

They're way more expensive but they also take a lot longer for me to wear out and they're a LOT more comfortable, especially in the heat.
posted by VTX at 12:17 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I have a very high filth threshold (the point at which you decide that something must be cleaned - very important in flat-sharing situations), and felt increasingly guilty while reading all these lists of things I generally don't do. Then it occurred to me that I hardly ever get any sort of gut or allergy problems, despite living alone in what is apparently a pool of my own filth, and I concluded that I must have an immune system you could bounce rocks off.

I do wear slippers indoors though - mainly because it is cooold.
posted by Fuchsoid at 12:19 PM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

[...] Is it best to shower in the morning or evening?

[...] In the evening, Crombie says. She likes “to go to bed clean” [...] I think if you go to bed clean, you get up clean.”

I shower in the morning, but shave at night. Night shaving was inherited from a long line of sea-faring folk.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:22 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

People who want me to take off my footwear when entering their house.. I always tell them "sure, let's try that and then you can let me know if you change your mind"

Unless they're brand-new shoes, they usually change their mind pretty quickly.
posted by some loser at 12:35 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

How often should I do X? Probably about once a week.
How often will I do X? In a manic rush the afternoon before company comes over.

In an offhand comment on his podcast, John Hodgman introduced me to the idea of "soft clothes." Like owning a category of garments that you just wear in your house after work. Besides just being comfortable and cozy, putting them on is a sign that I'm done, now is for reading books and watching movies and everything else waits until tomorrow, which is a kind of psychological hygiene.

(in the more traditional sense of hygiene, they are probably lousy with... I mean possibly actual louses. I'm gross as hell.)
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 1:34 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Going to bed without having a shower is basically an affront to God, even if you don't believe in God.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:03 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

My husband and I are militantly against shoes-in-house practices. Nothing enrages him more than watching (American) TV shows that depict characters blithely flopping on their bed or couch with their shoes on, writhing all over the cloth surfaces. WHY!? WHYYYYY!??

And while I admit that, yes, the carpets in my home are grosser than I want to believe, they're my gross....not public grossness. That's the true mental leap we have to make here.
posted by Mrs. Rattery at 2:08 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

On the subject of showering:

I did discover an interesting phenomenon which is that I am weirdly more interesting to many members of the opposite sex if am say 8 or more hours post-shower than if I am 1-4 hours post-shower. Pheromones maybe? (someone I knew once alluded to this phenomenon by calling them my "whore-mones" which I still find hilarious to this day).
posted by some loser at 2:39 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

My home growing up was all hardwood or linoleum and we were in and out of the back garden constantly - futzing about with shoes every time we wanted to pop inside would have gotten onerous quickly*.

I sort of touched on this with my "if everyone is on the patio" comment. If you're just popping in for a minute or two, with the full intention of going right back outside, shoes-on is fine and normal, I think, except if the house in question has wall-to-wall carpet. But if you're coming inside for an extended period of time, shoes come off even in the summer.

Obviously, I've not been to every home in Canada, but you're the first to mention an exception.
posted by asnider at 3:25 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I don't TYPICALLY wear shoes when I'm chilling at home, but I also don't feel the abject disgust that some of you guys apparently feel at the very notion.

Like - when I get home, I unlock my door and go in my room where the shoes live and take off my shoes, at the same time as I drop off the rest of my stuff. When I'm getting dressed for work in my bedroom before I pack up and leave, I get dressed, not get-dressed-except-for-the-filthy-demon-shoes-which-must-not-sully-my-floors-for-even-a-single-moment. I'm not gonna set up an entire separate shoe-and-bench area in the common room of my apartment right by the door, just in case a microscopic particle of dog doo might have wound up on a shoe. I mean, truly, why should I even care about that? I don't lick the floor!
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:26 PM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

I live in canada and sometimes I will actively try to get people to just wear their shoes in my house in the summer. (snow-melt salt in the winter is a real thing tho and boots must come off.)

But in the summer it should be okay because we don't have any carpets or rugs, and we have three cats and a dog all of whom are disgusting and go in and out, and I'm quite often renovating or painting something around our old house and have been wearing my shoes anyways since last floor clean.

It's impossible. Everyone takes off their shoes. When I was a teen and we used to go to house parties, people's parents would be gone for the weekend and their house would get fully used and abused, but everyone shoes would be in a disaster pile at the front door. I have never been to a dinner party where people are wearing shoes. It's actually sad because I quite often spent time thinking about my shoes when I got dressed, and did NOT think about my socks, unfortunately.

I don't like when people wear their bare feet at my house, because of said cat situation, I spend a lot of time with a lot of cat hair stuck to my socks, and the idea of someone coming to my house and then having cat hair stuck to their foot makes me want to die of embarassment.

My toilet brushes are gross and when I go to use it I think "oh gross" and then I stick it in the toilet which is a toilet and therefore already gross, and it seems fine.
posted by euphoria066 at 4:35 PM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

Why in the loving heck would I put on shoes at 4am just to walk the fifteen or so feet to my bathroom?

I do, because Mr. Hubris has to wear shoes at all times (okay well, maybe not in bed or the shower but you get the idea) due to a persistent and unremitting open sore between his toes caused by botched foot surgery. Long story. He goes in and out very frequently and it would be impractical for him to change his shoes from indoor to outdoor/vice versa all the time. Those shoes of his tramp through rest stop bathrooms, and their attendant grime, all over the state on a regular basis. Though I mop once a week with Lysol, no way am I walking barefoot on that. As a sidenote, we have no carpets and very hard floors.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 5:19 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

I did discover an interesting phenomenon which is that I am weirdly more interesting to many members of the opposite sex if am say 8 or more hours post-shower than if I am 1-4 hours post-shower.

Oh man. Ok, and yeah.

So, again, disclaimer, I'm frankly a stinky rural hippy by most metrics, and around here I'm like a 7/10 on the hygiene scale some times. People really don't wear cologne, perfume or heavy fragrances around here, and showering schedules are pretty lax by US standards and people are... free range and organic.

It actually stands out like a sore thumb if someone is heavily scented frangrance or whatever, including the usual hippy stuff like patchouli or sandlewood oil, but especially modern fragrances.

But in agreement with you It seems like if someone is going to say "wow, you smell nice" or something when I haven't had a shower for a bti too long and I'm even feeling self conscious about it because that someone just asked for a hug, and I'm like, what?

Blast you, Wordshore! May you find towel lint in your buttercream!
posted by loquacious at 5:21 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Sex towel lint.
Sex towel lint frosting, Mr. Wordshore.
Sex Towel Lint Buttercream Frosting is your new band name. In hell!
posted by loquacious at 8:53 PM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

How did this whole thing become about shoes? I'm still hung up on the toilet brush thing.

Look, if you think Canadians are weird for doing things like bringing a pair of indoor shoes when you go to someone's house in winter, visit Japan sometime.

Normally, you take off your outdoor shoes in a specifically designated area of the house, and put on slippers. You wear those until you encounter tatami matting, then you wear socks or bare feet. But, when you go to the toilet, you take off the slippers you're wearing, and put on a different pair of slippers, which you take off again when you're done.

But they all have toilet brushes, so they must be fucking savages, right?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:07 AM on February 22, 2019 [5 favorites]

Cold City dwelling Americans - definitely a shoeless house.

It's not that difficult! We have two mats in front of the inside of our front door entry and two along our back sliding door. This is the "shoe drop zone".

On these mats all shoes come off and house shoes (washable slippers or clean sandals bought for the purposes of indoor use only) go on. We have a basket of these shoes at the entryway and exit way. House shoes get thrown in the washer at least once a week. All dog towels go in a separate basket and washed weekly or as used. No house shoes allowed on couches or chairs or on bathroom floors. No dogs allowed on any furniture and we have trained them to not go in bathrooms or bedrooms. We clean all floors every other week. Dog feet get wiped every time they come back inside, regardless of weather. Once we built the habit, it's old hat. Dog walker takes his shoes off before grabbing our beasties. If he can't be arsed to take the boots off, we have a canister of poly booties to toss on. He actually suggested this.

I will never understand people who sleep with their dogs. FIGHT ME. I know what those filthy fuzzbuckets get into all day. I love them to bits but they roll in their own shit and I know our dog walker lets them root through gawd-knows-what while we are at work. You people really want that IN YOUR BED?! There, I said it.
posted by floweredfish at 4:26 AM on February 22, 2019 [4 favorites]

Speaking of changing shoes between inside and outside, this mastodon thread has shaken my worldview:

So here's a thing you may not have noticed about Mr Rogers.

posted by zamboni at 5:45 AM on February 22, 2019 [5 favorites]

if you think Canadians are weird for doing things like bringing a pair of indoor shoes when you go to someone's house in winter

Is that a thing in other parts of Canada? I've literally never seen that, with the exception of my brother who sometimes brings a pair of slippers with him, because his feet get cold.
posted by asnider at 8:29 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

I recently attended an event at a mosque where we - of course - removed our shoes before entering the main spaces.

The carpets were so delightfully clean compared to any other public space I've been in. Many of us ended up sitting on the floor and we didn't mind.

I was just reminded of this by the mention of special bathroom shoes in Japan. The women's washroom had flipflops at the door, so that one could wear them just in the washroom and not track anything back into the main space.
posted by jb at 8:34 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]

Is that a thing in other parts of Canada?

I've seen people bring their shoes for really fancy dress-up parties like after a wedding but never elsewise. It's pretty unusual ime.
posted by bonehead at 12:18 PM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]

I take my shoes off in the house just to cut down on the amount of vacuuming I have to do, and for the enjoyment of going barefoot. Plus, it's my little gift to my downstairs neighbors - making their lives just a little bit quieter.

But I don't pressure my guests one way or another. My guests should be comfortable in my home and I don't have company often enough for it to be a big fuss to vacuum/sweep up after they leave - no more than a few times a month. Some people find it uncomfortable or even painful to go barefoot due to foot problems, some people are self-conscious about their feet or the state of their socks, and they don't owe me an explanation.

Heck, the other night my own feet were killing me because I had worn ill-fitting new shoes all day (they seemed to fit like a dream at first - it was deeply disappointing), and going barefoot that evening was really painful. I gratefully wore supportive shoes while mucking around the kitchen.
posted by bunderful at 3:56 PM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

What's this about water in the bottom of the toilet brush holder? It's easy to get 90% of the water out of the brush - just hold it down in the toilet (above the water line of course) and spin it - if the brush handle has a small diameter, you can get a pretty good centrifugal effect by "rolling" the handle.
posted by ymgve at 5:52 PM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

Plus a toilet brush makes a fine milk frother for homemade lattes!
posted by loquacious at 5:32 AM on February 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

Shoes off in the house is kinda like the metric system : inconsistently applied within the US, although we're aware it's big in other countries.
posted by panama joe at 6:07 AM on February 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

How did this whole thing become about shoes? I'm still hung up on the toilet brush thing.

To be fair, I also ask my guests to remove their toilet brushes before entering my house.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:07 AM on February 23, 2019 [7 favorites]

Count me as another person who really is not able to walk barefoot. Yes, I even wear supportive footwear in the shower. I envy your barefoot freedom but it is not something I can enjoy in this lifetime.

This is not obvious to people who know me casually because my mobility appears to be fine. Casual observers do not realize that it's entirely dependent on serious custom orthotics.

I respect folks who prefer a shoe-free home, and ask that y'all be proactive about letting guests know in advance. Someone upthread mentioned bringing their own slippers to shoe-free homes/spaces if they know to do so. I do that as well. If I show up to a space that is shoe-free, and I don't have my own indoor footwear, I will either come in with my shoes or I will need to leave. I guarantee that your guest slippers will not be adequate for me.

As you may have guessed, I don't share the view that shoes are in every circumstance unutterably filthy. I wipe my feet at the door, I clean my carpets and floors regularly, it's just not a biggie.

I think about some angles of the larger issue of dirt and germ phobia. One, that disgust is deeply rooted in the human psyche and relates deeply to how we view the world. Two, vigilance against infectious agents in the wake of understanding germ theory truly revolutionized medicine and had the biggest impact on public health of all time. But the era of being able to study and understand germs and the microbiome is here, and humankind are already undergoing a reevaluation of our relationship to germs. Recall that humans evolved to live with and among our own filth for our entire history. My favorite factoid along these lines if the observation that the human gut naturally hosts bacteria that produce an essential vitamin (K, IIRC)--but the bacteria live further along the digestive tract than the place that the vitamin is able to be absorbed. At some point, we're all going to collectively relax a little and the germaphobes from the original article are going to be regarded as quaint and peculiar.
posted by Sublimity at 7:24 AM on February 23, 2019 [8 favorites]

Yeah, I think one big takeaway here is how much of this is driven by fear and cultural norms. I mean, if you were going to rank all the things likely to make you sick, I’m willing to bet toilet brushes and shoes-on dwellings would rank pretty far down on that list.
posted by panama joe at 8:07 AM on February 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't take my shoes off inside because of cleanliness. I take them off because shoes, bras, and pants should be worn as little as socially and environmentally possible.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:11 AM on February 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

One shower per day or two? Recently I was talking with a friend who is a nurse in a hospital setting, and also has elementary-school-aged children. I remarked that in the time I've known her I've never seen her sick, and asked her what proactive steps she takes. She said constant hand-washing, and two showers a day.
posted by vignettist at 1:42 PM on February 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

My conclusion: I am a dirty, dirty person. I’m sorry mom!
posted by eggkeeper at 6:53 PM on February 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I've got to tell y'all, vis-à-vis wearing shoes inside, the answer is guest slippers. Allow me to lay out the proof.

1. It is winter.
2. I live in the northeast.
3. I entertain frequently.
4. I have wooden floors.
5. I want my guests to be comfortable.
6. I wear socks or slippers inside my house, because it is my goddamn house.
7. I would be fine with people keeping their shoes on during the wet or cold months, except that some people choose to go with socks or slippers, and tracking in the wet, dirt, or salt prevents them from doing so.
8. Also, water or salt on wooden floors isn't great.
9. So most of my guests take their shoes off, not because I ask them to - I want them to be comfortable - but because they don't want to track dirt, water, or salt inside.
10. BUT then everyone's walking around in their stocking feet, and it's winter. It gets cold.
11. So I've started accumulating guest slippers. It's a little weird, because I have to hit a bell curve of shoe sizes, but a friend has started knitting slippers for me as well, and those are more flexible on sizing.

The flip side of guest slippers is travel slippers; you take your slippers with you to your friends' homes. Don't have friends who aren't cool with travel slippers, and preferably be friends with people who have guest slippers.
posted by punchtothehead at 6:54 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

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