Cleaning

Here’s an exercise: Take some dog feces, antifreeze, herbicides, gasoline, motor oil and most any other common toxic substance you can think of, mix it all together, then rub it all over your home’s floors. While this might sound a bit dramatic, it’s exactly what happens when we wear our shoes in our homes.

The outside world, while filled with great people and opportunities, is a cesspool. And our shoes are the main point of contact with this wondrous cesspool, so it only makes sense that when we get home, we should take our shoes off.

Few single actions are as effective at keeping our homes sanitary as well as dirt, dust and stain free as taking shoes off every time we enter our home. It also has the benefit of preserving the finish of our floors.

Many countries, particularly in Asia, seem to get this. Most every Japanese home includes something called a Genkan (pictured above), which is an area by the front door where you keep your shoes. It is recessed so dirt and debris is quarantined to this front area.

So you know all of this, but you still don’t do it. Here are a few tips to lose the shoes forever:

Don’t make exceptions. This is the most important tip in maintaining a shoe-free home. Even if you’re popping in for a second, even if it’s your rambunctious nephew or new friend, get your shoes off.
Put a sign at the door asking guests to take their shoes off. Sometimes asking others is the hardest part of maintaining this rule. A sign lets people know the policy is universal, not personal. Put it in a few different languages if you have a lot of foreigner guests.
Have a place to remove your shoes such as a bench. Make it easy for people to get their shoes off.
Have a place to store shoes such as a rack or cubby holes.
Keep slippers or some other type of footwear used only indoors. They’ll keep you feet warm, and protect your floors from bare feet, which often are dirtier than socks or slippers [Note: make a no-exception policy about slippers as well–they are only for indoors. No runs to the mailbox, etc.]. While slippers for guests might not be feasible, a few pair of nice, clean socks are.

What are your experiences or tips with keeping (or not) a shoe-free home? Let us know in our comments section.

The e-cloth is a cleaning cloth that cleans virtually any surface without any cleaning fluids. The cloth has 1.6M threads/inch as opposed to most microfiber cloths, which have between 90K-200K and standard cloths, which have 25K-75K. The high density traps dirt, oil, dust and most any other particulate you put in its path. E-cloth also says the cloths remove 99% of bacteria from hard surfaces.

The company cites another interesting claim, saying:

‘Women who work at home have a 54% higher death rate from cancer than women working away from the home.’ A 15 year study concluded that it is directly linked to the toxic household chemicals in the home.

Eliminating cleaning products, they suggest, is a great way of reducing the presence of those chemicals (we suspect it’s healthier for men too).

In terms of durability, the company guarantees the cloths for 300 cleans and says that if you wash it once a week, a cloth should last you about six years.

All this would be a bunch of marketing BS if the things didn’t work. But they do. We picked up one of their “Kitchen Packs” from Green Depot for the LifeEdited apartment, not knowing what to expect. They work great, cleaning glass, chrome and counters equally well, all without cleaning fluids.

Beyond the lack of toxicity and durability, they eliminate a cabinet full of various cleaning products, saving space and creating less waste.

We often think of technology as something applied to faster laptops and hydrogen fuel cells, but sometimes it’s the mundane improvements to things like dress shirts and rags that really make a difference in the way we live.

Do you have other products that streamline your home? Let us know in our comments section.

Tag: Cleaning

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