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I hate shoes in the house, so I think these would also be great for guests who are uncomfortable taking their shoes off in your home.

I don't normally wear shoes in the house (I think it's a Canadian thing). It is really annoying when you've got your shoes all laced up about to head out the door and realize you have to go back in for something. These would be kinda handy.

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One way or the other they will be dirty and have to be cleaned. Now on top of the mucky boots that need to be hosed off, you'll also have to wash these slippers. By the way how washable is felt?

I agree, definitely handy for those, gotta go back into the house moments, because we too have a pretty strict "no shoe," policy...but we don't want to go into that debate again.

It might be an interesting QVC-esque idea, but I am confused about why it was on UnClutterer. This seems like more needless items sitting in your entryway, when you could just as easily take off your boots/dirty shoes at the door and then slip them back on when it is time to go back outside. I mean, isn't "nice to have, but not completely necessary" pretty close to the definition of clutter?

Pretty sure that's what voicemail is for.

My sister who lives in Switzerland has had about dozen of these at the front door of her house for years. People see them and either take off their shoes or put these over their shoes. She washes them in cold water and hangs them to dry.

It's true tho...sometimes you forget something and wiggling out of the boots isn't an option! :P

make these in rubber, like a croc, and it would make sense. just rinse it off easily. But material is a pain to clean. good idea I think... wrong material

um.... excessive?



how about, take the boots off?
and seriously, how often to you wear muddy shoes into your house?

It is on Unclutterer as a unitasker, not a compliment or recommendation from Unclutterer.

I said not hot but these comments have made me reconsider. They'd be especially good for stubborn guests (like my 80-year-old father) who insist on wearing shoes in the house. I think it's really disgusting, but there is no reasoning with him.

It was a 'Unitasker Wednesday' post on Unclutterer, they put up silly things they don't think people should buy.
I can see how some people might need these, but my galoshes would be just as easy to take off and put back on.
So it's a NOT in my book.

It's a matter of lifestyle. I would never even figure out their purpose while living in an apartment in the city. Now when we trek countless times between the veggie garden in the back and the flower garden in front, with many pit stops in the house for drinks/scissor/score checking on the computer/whatever else you thought you didn't need from the house but now that you're in the yard you totally do, these would be pretty handy.

Kids do this in the winter when coming inside from playing in the snow so as not to track water and melting ice all over the floor, but with plastic grocery bags.

I agree with wally3, it's a matter of lifestyle, and for mine it would be a HOT. I can think of one particular weekly event in my house that these would be great for: Trash Day.

Because of our badly designed townhouse complex, we have to store our full trash bags in our back courtyard until trash day when we carry them through the house (no, really) to the front door to take them to the curb. How great would these be to slip on between the back door and the front door when you're carrying two armfuls of trash bags.

I grew up in a sorta-no-shoes household in upstate New York, and the first thing you learn in the winter is that shoes *have* to come off as soon as you walk in the door unless you want to be soaking your socks in melted snow puddles for the next several hours. it didn't matter if you were just running back in the house -- the shoes came off.

of course, our out-of-town relatives never caught onto that (or would walk across to the sofa instead of lean on the wall), and I guess my parents were too nice to school them. so for guests? hot, absolutely.

"Disgusting"??? Wearing shoes in the house is normal for most of America, and while it can be messy (especially if you have tender hardwood that you don't want to scuff) Ithink "disgusting" is kind of extreme... (I advise those who think this way to avoid pets -- now THEY can get "disgusting"!)

Anyhow, as a gardener, some version of these would be great. I was transplanting azaleas this weekend. I wanted to see if the place I was moving them too looked good from various windows of the house. My gardening shoes were collecting dirt. If they were my street shoes I'd just have worn them in and from view to view, but the muddy gardening shoes had to be removed over and over as I fine tuned the placement. Plus my socks were wet from the hose, so getting the shoes on and off was not that much fun. If I wanted a drink or needed to run to the phone before the machine picked up, more problems... People without situations like this can't grok the problem!

And then when you go back outside you can put on your Drywalkers-outdoor covers, available for only 29.95. Lame. Take your shoes off.

My daughter's daycare center and pediatrician's office have these. If you have 100 traipsing through a space where children crawl on the floor, they're great. But in a house where only a couple of people live? Maybe overkill.

"Disgusting"??? Wearing shoes in the house is normal for most of America, and while it can be messy (especially if you have tender hardwood that you don't want to scuff) Ithink "disgusting" is kind of extreme... (I advise those who think this way to avoid pets -- now THEY can get "disgusting"!)
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Sherry, I stand by my choice of the word "disgusting." People walk in public restrooms, filthy alleys, and parking garages where drunk people pee in the stairwells. I know because I am a person and wear shoes in these places. And just because something is "normal" for most of America doesn't make it right for everyone. In other cultures, wearing shoes in the house is considered extremely rude and disrespectful (not to mention unhygienic).

And since you mention pets--they are nowhere near as disgusting as people. My dogs generally walk on the grass or sidewalks in my not-urban neighborhood, or the open land of the dog park. I wipe their paws when they come in the house, and then they wash them. But they are never in any of the human-inhabited environments I described above. Thus--not as disgusting.

They have versions of these for visitors to Sans Souci in Potsdam. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and the felt slippers protect the floors from the literally millions of shoes that pass over them every day. You can't get in without them.

that said, if the phone rings while I'm otherwise occupied, the answering machine picks up. simple.

i live in vancouver, where rain is a (nearly everyday) reality. these are very useful to have. but they're not so much 'hot' as handy

I agree with sally305's comment. Wearing shoes in the house is disgusting. How can you walk outside and then walk in your house with dirty shoes and later put on socks and lay on your couch. Or even worse putting your feet on the couch with dirty shoes on. It's just common sense. Have you seen what's on the street your walking on YUCK!

I would absolutely buy a pair, for myself, so I can run into the house to get lemonade or answer the phone when I have my muddy gardening shoes on (hard to slip out of when you're in a hurry).

Expect a guest to wear them? Never.

We stopped visiting a family member's house ages ago when they insisted everyone remove their shoes (with a family of 8 who regularly complained about the ailment... what are they thinking??? at least provide regular slippers or over the shoe booties or Something!).

Why not just have some plastic grocery bags near the door to tie over muddy shoes? I can't imagine this being a frequent enough occurrence that you'd need to buy something like these.

I'm also pretty sure you can wash felt, since it's basically already-washed knit wool.

We lived in Denmark for a year and I noticed that a lot of Danes kept a pair of clogs by the back door. They'd slip them on to take the trash out or tend the garden or get the mail, then slip them back off just inside the door.

Taking shoes off inside the house is the custom over there. It keeps floors cleaner. A lot of houses have soap-finished pine floors that have to be washed every week or so, so cleanliness matters.

It also rains a LOT in Denmark year-round and mud is pretty prevalent everywhere except for city streets.

Ugly.....but if they work....it's worth it.

Great idea, but hot? No.

Oh my husband needs these. I have to fight with this man to get him to take his dirty boots off in the house. But maybe I will try the left over plastic grocery bags first.

To all the people who claim wearing shoes in the house is "disgusting" - I suggest you stop eating your dinner off your floors, they may not be as sterile as you think.

idontdobeige--Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet this morning, but upon first reading I have no idea what you're trying to say. Care to elaborate?

I wouldn't go as far as "disgusting," but I do think wearing your street shoes in the house is a bit icky.

I don't eat off my floor, but I do sit on it, work on it, play with my cat, play with my neighbor's kid, spread out work papers and projects. I wouldn't do any of these things on a sidewalk, in the middle of a shop, or anywhere else that I normally walk... 'cause it's dirty. I like my home clean - so it's simplest to just take off my shoes and leave the outside dirt at the door.

1- these are wasteful. i thought this post was a joke. take your shoes off or re-learn what it's like to miss a phone call. phones had cords once. if you are waiting on a call, put the phone in your pocket.

2- regarding the sally305 comments...

i looove my dogs & for my place to be super clean. i find it hard to believe that anyone cleans their dogs' feet every time they come and go from outside, walking through the same grass they & other dogs pee & poop on. "they wash them"? i've even taught my dog "clean your foot" but do you think he licks it all off? of course not. with 3 mats on the way to our front door, anything in their hair/toes/nails, etc gets tracked in our house. so i wear flip flops in my house year round. no amount of cleaning my floors keeps stuff from sticking to the bottom of my feet when i walk shoeless through my place. even pre-dog, old roommates always tracked stuff from the floors onto my couch from not wearing shoes/slippers inside. i then had to clean my couch before i ever sat on it. it was gross. just take them off before you put your feet up.

you could also not hang out in places where people pee in public. or not hang out with humans since we're so much more disgusting than our butt licking dogs :)

Hey, rstrtz, don't be dissing the dogs! I don't know about yours but mine don't walk in poop, ever. Hard to say about the pee. And I'm not saying I have the world's cleanest house--only that I don't think the places my dogs' paws go are as nasty as the places my shoes take me.

I live in a college town. Avoiding public pee is harder than you'd think, although I try. Like you, I wear slippers or indoor flip flops at home. More for the fur than anything else.

My family has a cordless phone. When we are out in the yard doing yard work we bring it outside with us and leave it on the porch if we think we might be missing important calls. Otherwise, we have an answering machine. Fascinating!

PS Hooray, we are going to have yet another argument about taking shoes off when going in and out of houses on AT! What a joy! Who will be the first person to bring up their embarrassment of mismatched socks or smelly feet? Who will be the first person to bring up the fact that their (insert expensive name brand here) shoes coordinate with their outfit? Who will be the first person to say they are an excellent host who despite making their guests take off their shoes leaves a basket of socks at the doorway for them! Have I missed anything else yet? We should make this either a) a drinking game or b) a bingo card, already.

Heh. I vote for a drinking game.

The only time I've ever seen these was at an art gallery installation a few years ago. Visitors had to put them on to go into a cylindrical chamber with a domed roof, set up in the middle of a room. Inside, the chamber was brightly lit and the walls were stark white. A recorded track of alternating male and female voices recited numbers in order from 1 to 1000 in hushed tones. Finally, the artist had installed a bubble machine so that a gentle waft of bubbles drifted down from the ceiling.

Naturally, the floor was soaked in bubble goop so these flipper things served to keep visitors' feet dry and the goop contained in the chamber and not all over the gallery. Otherwise, since they were so awkward to wear and move in, they added to the vague feeling of sensory deprivation I got from being in the chamber (about 6-8 feet across, 10 feet high) because they contributed to the feeling of the lack of sure footing. It was an interesting installation but I didn't stay in it more than a minute or two.

Sally305 - I meant that floors are for walking on, and shoes or no shoes, they're never going to be "clean enough to eat your dinner off".

Having just bought a house, we spend a LOT Of time landscaping these days. We enter the house through the garage - and although the entryway is tiled, the rest of the basement is carpeted. It's usually a PITA to take off our hiking boots/sneakers/etc just to run inside to go to the bathroom, get a glass of water, etc. I think these make sense. Otherwise I spend most of the next day vaccuming, mopping, and chasing mud and dirt all around the house. It's not something I envision purchasing for guests (or even for myself when lounging around as I NEVER wear shoes indoors) but it's to protect me from my (muddy) self when doing outdoor projects.