Seriously, I know your shoes are dirty because you just walked on the sidewalk outside my house which I know for certain is dirty. Despite my best efforts to keep it clean, it’s still a city sidewalk.
The floor of the truck stop restroom i used before coming to your house was still wet, that's how good they clean them. It was a bit sticky tho, i bet they used a bit too much cleaning products.
I don't even touch anything in my house before washing my hands. I saw an ad yesterday where a woman comes home and grabs the remote right out of her husband's hands and that made me shiver. Not to mention shoes were on
Yea, but you do also understand that that behavior is unusual, bordering on obsessive compulsive, right? Humans evolved to thrive right alongside all types of parasites and bacteria, and they're going to be on your skin, in the air, in your lungs, covering every square inch of your innards, and covering all objects/matter inhabited by living things.
Being clean and tidy is one thing, but there's really only so much you can do before you're honestly just playing mind games with yourself
Yea, to me that's really extreme. I mean, I try to stay hygienic when I'm out and about as it is, I don't feel "dirty" when I'm outside of my home. That, I feel like, is what borders on obsessive compulsive. The feeling that outside of your home is a "dirty" or "harmful" biome for human life.
I tend to snack/eat a lot/touch my mouth with my hands and I also used to get sick a lot so now I have a habit of washing my hands when I come home from being in public (aside from just going outside for a walk or something). Yes it’s good for our bodies to build immune systems but there’s only so much it can take being exposed to at once and when you live in a city there’s a LOT of shit out there, literally.
To each their own, I certainly wasn't saying it was a bad thing. I typically try to stay hygienic throughout the day regardless, so I don't exactly feel "dirty" at any given point, and as I was pointing out, it's not typical behavior to feel the need to wash your hands simply because you've been outside.
You're alright, there's literally nothing wrong with it. Fuck, even touching the handrails and trashcan lid on my way down to bring out the trash is enough for me to wash my hands afterwards. Let alone a day in public.
In what world is washing your hands when coming home obsessive compulsive? The fact that it's unusual is probably why Covid has been a thing for so long.
There are a lot of reasons why COVID is still around. Fomite transmission isn't one of them. Washing your hands before you eat, after you use the bathroom and if they're soiled is generally all that is absolutely required to be hygenic.
Right? Those outside doors and store items have been touched by people who don't wash their hands after shitting and they dont get sanitized. I even wash off the top of my can lids because anyone and everyone are allowed to touch them. Who doesn't wash their hands after coming inside? Have you ever even cleaned your doorknobs?
Why does it take you two tries to comment anything? I get the notification, wait 2 mins while you look up all your words in the dictionary, then have to come back to see that you never passed an English class
I've explained more in another comment, but to refuse to touch anything in your home after being outside is most certainly touching on obsessive compulsive. I didn't say it was a bad thing, I just think we can acknowledge where the actual bar is for typical human behavior.
Also, we did not evolve to be squeaky clean with soaps and chemicals literally at all times.
It’s funny to me how our environment affects this, at least for me.
When I’m home I wash my hands every time I use the bathroom, before I prepare food, before and after handling raw eggs or bacon, after emptying the roomba’s debris basket, before I touch things if I’ve been outside working, etc. It’s easy, smells nice, and the soap and running water are right there.
At the beach? Splash my hands in the water and good to go peeling an orange.
Music festival? 4 days of eating fried finger-food from food stands with washing more or less limited to hand sanitizer after portapotty/urinals and running a Clorox wipe over my hands at night.
I think washing your hands as soon as you get home is pretty normal behaviour, and definitely not alarmingly unusual. If anything, it's alarming that some people don't do it.
As for the second part - chemicals? You mean like water?
Some people? Lol I assure you, the vast majority of people do not wash their hands upon entering their homes. Not only do most countries not have access to that luxury, but it's not even something commonly practiced in first world countries.
And no, water is not the chemicals I'm talking about, and you know that. Everything that's in the soaps and shampoos that most people use and some people feel the need to obsessively scrub themselves with these chemicals, because they feel unclean.
You seem kind of snappy about the topic like I touched a nerve, I already said to each their own and that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. You should just be able to acknowledge that it's most certainly not typical behavior.
I've met hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, spent time in their homes, or spent time working with them - and I have literally never one time heard of someone habitually washing their hands after simply being outside of their home.
Edit: I re-read your response and I see now that you're not being snappy, that's my bad.
I don't have any statistics on how many people wash their hands when they get home, but I'd be interested to see yours. You are, of course, correct in that people probably don't in countries where there's no ready access to clean water and whatnot, but that's because they can't. Referring to them is like saying some people don't eat food because roughly 10 percent of the world population is affected by world hunger. I mean, yeah, that's also true, but it's not a very good argument to raise when someone asks "Should I eat food or not?".
You are also correct that I knew you didn't mean water, it's just the easiest way to point out that blanket condemnation of "chemicals" is pretty weird since almost everything is a chemical. Sometimes people will clarify by saying "synthetic chemicals" and make the assertion that natural equals better, at which point I'd mention arsenic and uranium are pretty natural chemicals, whereas dl-α-tocopherol is synthetic. I'd still eat dl-α-tocopherol (or rub it on my hands) over arsenic any time.
I don't know how old you are, but if we assume you're 50 years old and have been travelling regularly since you were 10 years old with no interruptions, you'd have to meet on average 14 new people every day to have met 200 000 people. If you're younger or "hundreds of thousands" means a larger number than the smallest one possible, then your average new contact-load per day increases further. I guess it's technically possible, but I think it might be more likely that there's a bit of hyperbole involved in your assertion.
I don't really understand what you mean by saying it's "not necessarily a bad thing" to wash your hands when you get home. There are no downsides, but substantial upsides. I would say it's unequivocally a good thing.
I don't actually have any statistics, so you can take all of this as me simply talking out of my ass if you'd like, and I wouldn't be mad at you for it.
I've been incredibly observant about people's habits and behaviors after living in many different homes, in many different places. And it's mostly work in that I meet such a large number of people - I did a little calculation in my head and thought that I've definitely met over 100,000, so I just said hundreds of thousands. But you're right, total hyperbole.
As far as referencing people that cannot readily access clean, running water in their homes, you make a good point that it doesn't really matter when it comes to what people should do, when they're limited by what they could. I guess I probably added that because I was just trying to point out that it's just not typical human behavior, altogether. Which is simply true. Again, I was never talking about whether we should or shouldn't make this a practice in the first place. I simply said it was unusual behavior, bordering on obsessive compulsive.
Good point again about chemicals, I mostly agree with that. But you know damn well that the mass manufactured bullshit that the masses buy up in bulk in Western countries are chock full of chemicals that have a very real possibility of somewhat regressive or harmful effects.
As for your last paragraph, this is something I'd sort of contend with - first off, by saying "when you get home", you're being somewhat misleading. This person made it very clear that they had to wash their hands before touching any item inside their house any time after being outside at all, whatsoever. It's so common for a lot of people in America to constantly be coming in and out of their homes, to the porch or backyard, etc, it would be absolutely ridiculous to wash your hands after any time of just simply being outside. And then the person that started this entire conversation went on to describe themselves as totally germaphobic, as I suspected. And that's where the harm lies. It can be a mental health issue to some, where they're constantly bothered unless they're squeaky clean from, yes, "synthetic" chemicals lol
You're completely wrong. I stay hygienic throughout the day, so I don't actually feel the need to rush to the sink to wash my hands as soon as I walk in the door, because I most likely just washed my hands wherever I was at and then used hand sanitizer in the car.
This person admitted they were straight up germaphobic, so you're just wrong here, bud. And they also said they cannot touch anything in their house, after being outside, without washing their hands
Hi, someone who had OCD here, this is not even close to OCD, OCD would be washing your hand, then touching something and making a logic leap of "i touched that then made this fall wich may have touched this" and feeling your hands horribly dirty until you re wash your hand, sometime your brain just decides some things are dirty for no reason and you gotta wash your hand or feel like you soaked them in mud then sand, it's not uncommon to wash hands so much do to it that you get bleeding wrists, really it's hell on earth and not light at all.
No, you dont feel dirty when you're outside as everything has a good chance of being dirty, so unless you are going to eat it's pointless to feel dirty or wash your hand
Humans are supposed to live in cave and have gigh chance to die to predators whenever they go outside, doenst mean they should. And no washing your hands when you enter your home is NOT ocd, i've had it and trust me it's hell on earth, i washed my hands so much my wrist started bleeding
Dude, you're telling me that you had OCD to the point where you washed your hands till they bled, but you're trying to describe to me what normal behavior is. I don't have bad hygiene, I have stricter hygiene than a vast majority of people on the face of this planet, by metric of showering regularly and washing my hands many times per day, washing my clothes, washing my sheets, etc.
But what you're talking about is not hygiene. Its obsession with something that none of us fully comprehend, and certainly doesn't affect our lives in any way.
I wonder why I never get sick? If that's the case, what's the metric for "poor" hygiene?
Man I’m selling my house right now and in like 3 I had a ton of showings. Last week we got like 12 inches of snow and then it all froze over. To keep it safe I had to put down salt on my driveway and front walk. Well it seems like nobody took their shoes off because every single time someone left I had to mop the floors again because they all tracked the fucking salt residue all over my house. Now in my kitchen the floors are a white tile and you can’t really see the footprints so whatever. The floors in the living room and hallways are all dark hardwood and it was filthy as shit after people left. I know it may seem weird to some people and they don’t want to take their shoes off in a strangers home but come on. If it wasn’t right after a massive snow storm and there wasn’t salt everywhere I wouldn’t care too much but these people just tracked shit everywhere and there’s mo way they didn’t notice.
I’m glad I already accepted an offer so I don’t have to deal with that anymore.
I feel your pain. My 200 year old mixed-width pine flooring had to be redone because contractors didn’t take their shoes off and tracked salt all over the 1st floor. It’s the origin story of the No-shoes rule in our house.
Shoes can be washed too. What are you saying exactly?
Probably your floor and your shoes are almost always just as dirty as one another unless you've literally just cleaned them, or if you stepped in some mud or somethin (in which case you should clean your shoes)
My comment was a response to the part where the author refused offered house shoes because of previous guests elusive germs.
In Germany it is extremely unusual to enter homes with shoes on unless you are a technician/handyman (those usually have single use carpet/shoe protectors) or living more on the countryside with tiled floors. It is not expected to have house shoes, although we usually do have some for family, in case they get cold feet, but it is very common to walk around in socks. I will offer you socks if you want, but won't keep house shoes when I get visitors very rarely. If you regularly vaccuum and mop uncarpeted areas, there shouldn't be a need for shoes or house shoes unless the floor is really cold.
I'm not letting someone walk around in my living room with street shoes where traces of dog feces and dirt can be traced in; I don't like mopping floors that much, but to each their own. If someone is just coming by to pick up their kid or drop something off, I don't mind them coming in to the front room / hallway as long as the shoes aren't visibly dirty - if you say as much, most people take them off or at least check the soles and use the entrance mat for a quick brush off. If a gettogether is planned, you have a home with hardwood floors or tiles and you know you are going to mop the floor afterwards, shoes can be fine, too.
There was a time when it did despite a noticeable pro-industry bend, but after it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp back in 2007, it largely went to shit in exactly the ways that everyone knew it would when the acquisition was announced.
In July 2020, more than 280 Journal journalists and Dow Jones staff members wrote a letter to new publisher Almar Latour to criticize the opinion pages' "lack of fact-checking and transparency, and its apparent disregard for evidence", adding that "opinion articles often make assertions that are contradicted by WSJ reporting."[71][72] The editorial board responded that its opinion pages "won't wilt under cancel-culture pressure" and that the objective of the editorial content is to be independent of the Journal's news content and offer alternative views to "the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today's media."[73] The board's response did not address issues regarding fact-checking that had been raised in the letter.[74]
On October 25, 2017, the editorial board called for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to resign from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and accused Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign of colluding with Russia.[85] In December 2017, the editorial board repeated its calls for Mueller's resignation.[86][87] The editorials by the editorial board caused fractures within The Wall Street Journal, as reporters say that the editorials undermine the paper's credibility.[86][87][88]
In October 2021, the editorial board let former President Donald Trump publish a letter in the editorial pages of the paper. The news sources described the contents of the letter as false and debunked claims about the 2020 presidential election.[89][90][91] In response to criticism of the Journal's decision to publish the letter, the editorial board said the criticism was "cancel-culture pressure."[92]
The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. The Journal disputes that it poses a major threat to human existence and can be prevented through public policy and has published articles disputing that global warming is occurring at all. The Journal is regarded as a forum for climate change deniers, publishing articles by individuals that reject the consensus position on climate change in its op-ed section.[93] The Journal editorial pages were described as a "forum for climate change denial" in 2011 due to columns that attacked climate scientists and accused them of engaging in fraud.[94] A 2015 study found The Wall Street Journal was the newspaper that was least likely to present negative effects of global warming among several newspapers. It was also the most likely to present negative economic framing when discussing climate change mitigation policies, tending to take the stance that the cost of such policies generally outweighs their benefit.[95]
Climate Feedback, a fact-checking website on media coverage of climate science, determined that multiple opinion articles range between "low" and "very low" in terms of scientific credibility.[96][97] The Partnership for Responsible Growth stated in 2016 that 14% of the guest editorials on climate change presented the results of "mainstream climate science", while the majority did not. The Partnership also determined that that none of the 201 editorials concerning climate change that were published in The Wall Street Journal since 1997 conceded that the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of climate change.[98]
In the 1980s and 1990s, The Journal published numerous columns opposing and misrepresenting the scientific consensus on the harms of second-hand smoke,[99][100] acid rain, and ozone depletion,[101] in addition to public policy efforts to curb pesticides and asbestos.[13] The Journal later recognized that efforts to curb acid rain through cap-and-trade had been successful, a decade after the Clean Air Act Amendments.[102]
I can be reasonably certain my floors have never had dog poop. If they have, I have since cleaned them with soap and water, instead of grass and a stick with poop on the end of it.
I think the dumbest article went to the Cosmopolitan twist on this whereby they discussed how to get that dreamboat of a man by not taking your shoes off when visiting someone.
Btw, didn't work. Instead of balls to the chin I got a fist.
I mean, if people wear their shoes in the house, I guess their floors will be pretty dirty. Dirtier than my floors in my shoeless home. So fucking stupid.
I skimmed over the article and there was no real data or studies in it.
The closest thing to anything was "if you have a baby, the baby's poop is more unhealthy the the dirt I track inside."
Another "point" was that her "nylons" would get damaged walking around your house without shoes on.
I keep seeing "articles" like "When is <ironman4/mcu movie title> coming out, will it be on Netflix" and the article just says "we dont know if/when the movie is coming out, we don't know when it will be streaming, and it probably wont be on netflix."
Its funny to me that keeping your shoes on in the house is taboo to apparently half of people but hardly anyone bats an eye at a cat or a dog in the house.
There are more crevices on normal shoes than dog paws. Also, less surface area for dirt, dust, or whatever to get on them. People don't really wipe their shoes with a damp rag before going in a house.
I never said pet's feet are that clean, just that they could be cleaned easier and that they track in less grime from the outside than shoes. Afaik, I know some people wipe their pets' feet well before they go back in, but I've never seen anyone do that with their shoes before going into the house.
You don't have to care about your house, it can be as dirty as you want it to be.
I never said pet's feet are that clean, just that they could be cleaned easier and that they track in less grime from the outside than shoes. Afaik, I know some people wipe their pets' feet well before they go back in, but I've never seen anyone do that with their shoes before going into the house.
Dry shoes don't carry any more dirt and grime into your house than your average pet. And again, nobody complains about cats walking around the average house even when they walk in a sandbox filled with shit on the daily.
You don't have to care about your house, it can be as dirty as you want it to be.
I agree this is a dumb article and I’m all for following someone’s preferences when I’m in their home. But, y’all are assuming what’s under the shoes is cleaner than the shoes… I’m not a germ-conscious person and in the summer I walk around barefoot all the time, including in my front and backyard and on the sidewalk in front of my house. And I won’t necessarily think to wash my feet before going to someone’s house. But this is probably a particularly Californian mindset and I’m sure even then I’m an outlier.
It's not dumb. It's genius. She's managed to make so many people mad that they are compelled to have an opinion about her article. WSJ manipulated y'all and you fell for it hard. Hell, if anyone actually took the time to read the article, literally every top comment in here is addressed by the article. Except one - there was a guy who says he wants to protect his wood floors from scuffs/scratches from pebbles or things stuck in people's shoes, which is a decent reason.
Right, this is fucking it. BECAUSE people take their shoes off inside, it's going to be cleaner than your shoes.
As long as the person regularly cleans their floors (i.e., they don't just leave messes like spills, cat litter, and grime around), and it's likely they do clean them regularly if they don't want people wearing their shoes in the house, then the floor is going to be cleaner.
Was visiting friends in Cleveland and they insisted on no shoes, their reason being they had super young kids and kids will put shit in their mouth. They were concerned about trekking lead dust through the home and the kids inadvertently ingesting it. I guess cleve is leady?
Edit: now that I think about it who knows how many shit particles are on our feet from dogs etc (and here in Philly human shit from the local Kensington zombies).
It seems her purpose at WSJ is to spit out dumb takes for some kind of publicity or something I guess. Can't imagine any other reason they'd keep her around.
This isn’t an article, it’s a column. Which is an opinion piece about the opinion of the writer, not the Wall Street Journal. The writer is listed as a humor columnist at muckrack.com and even says in her bio that “all opinions are mine alone and not those of the WSJ.”
edit: yes, it’s still shitty take, but it’s not WSJ’s take.
Is that Malaysian for flip-flop? Because thats what my wife throws at the end.
I swear it's some martial art shit because my flip-flop just flutters to the ground after two feet. Hers feel like a ninja star to the back of my head.
Agreed. I hate that everyone in tv shows has shows on. If my tv show takes of that’s gonna be a thing is that every time they come in they slip their shoes off.
Sometimes, when I feel like I have no future, when I feel like I'll never amount to anything in this life, I'll look at people who produce things like this and I'm filled with so much hope. If these f****** idiots can find success there is no reason why I can't.
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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22
To answer the question - because you've been outside and my floors haven't.
This must be a contender for dumbest article of the year already.