We don't wear our shoes in the house. Think about it. You wear them in public restrooms where people pee on the floor. You wear them outside where animals do #1 and #2. If you then wear them inside, and later walk barefoot... eeew. Here's an article from the Boston Globe about a scientific study investigating that question. >>>>
Should you Wear Shoes in the House?
Boston.com Aug, 27, 2019
Charles P. Gerba, a professor and microbiologist at the University of Arizona, studied how many and which kinds of bacteria linger on the bottom of shoes.
In 2008, researchers tracked new shoes worn by 10 participants for two weeks and found that coliform bacteria like E. coli were extremely common on the outside of the shoes. E. coli is known to cause intestinal and urinary tract infections as well as meningitis, among other illnesses.
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“Our study also indicated that bacteria can be tracked by shoes over a long distance into your home or personal space,” Gerba said in a statement.
Gerba said in an interview this month that the study’s findings had made him change even some of his own behaviors: “It kept me from putting my feet on my desk.”
Contaminated shoes are unlikely to make you sick
It’s possible to transmit germs from your footwear if you touch your shoes and then your face or mouth, for instance, or if you eat food that’s been dropped on the floor.
But in the hierarchy of potential health hazards at home, bacteria-caked shoes rank comparatively low, according to Donald W. Schaffner, a food microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
He said there are more important considerations. Is anyone in the house sick? Are there frogs, turtles or snakes nearby, which can carry salmonella? Is food being stored and prepared properly?
Sponges, which retain water and food particles, are a “cesspool” of bacteria, said Dr. Aaron E. Carroll, professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.
Outside the home, there are objects and surfaces that are frequently touched but seldom, if ever, washed, such as money, ATM buttons and gas station pump handles, he said, adding, “Focusing on people’s shoes feels like focusing on the wrong vector.”
Overall, experts emphasized that washing your hands with soap and water remained the most important health practice.
Lisa A. Cuchara, professor of biomedical sciences at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, said that fecal bacteria were certainly transferred from your shoes to your floor at home but that “for most healthy adults, this level of contamination is more of a gross reaction than a health threat.”
Putting the threat in perspective, she noted that the floor in a public restroom has around 2 million bacteria per square inch. A toilet seat, on the other hand, has an average of about 50 million per square inch.
“Think about that the next time you place your purse or knapsack on the bathroom floor and then bring it home and put it on the kitchen table or counter,” she said.
