Ready to detox your home? Do this one easy thing.

So you want to try to live a less toxic, cleaner life? Congrats. But it can be completely overwhelming to know where to begin. So much information floating around, friends who have opinions, advertising blasting everywhere telling you what products to use. I’ve created an easy quick start list to get you going found here. Before you even tackle that, I have one thing you can do today that will dramatically reduce toxins and pollutants in your home, and also change the cleanliness and well being of your environment. Ready for it? Do this one easy thing. Take your shoes off at the door. That’s it. Reduce toxins and pollution in your home with this one step…and this coming from someone who is known to love shoes with a passion.

If I am hosting a cocktail party or event, I will make exceptions. I fully realize the importance of shoes to your look. Not to mention, the role great shoes play in elevating a look from basic to amazing.  I have hard floors throughout most of the first floor, so it is easier to clean. But on the daily, no shoes are allowed in our home. First, think about all of the places you have worn your shoes today. Target? The bathroom at Target? Grocery store? Gas station? You certainly would not want what is on those floors on the floors in your home, right? That is exactly what happens when you wear shoes in the house. It seems so obvious yet it is often overlooked. The surface of your shoes do not magically clean themselves between getting out of the car and walking in your house.

For the past ten years, my home has had small children living in it, and if you have small children you know they spend much of their time on the floor, with things in their mouths and eating things of the floor (no matter how many times you tell them not to). Furthermore, if you have a child with allergies or asthma in your home, shoes off should be a must. According to Dr. Jana Tuck, spokesperson for the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, a main contributor to allergies in many homes is tracking in dust and pollutions on items worn outdoors . “You step on a lot of different things throughout the day, whether it’s grass or the street,” says Dr. Tuck. “And often that ends up going straight from your shoes to the carpet.”

Additionally, a study by the University of Arizona confirms that over 93% of shoe bottoms have fecal matter on them (uh, yuck) and nearly 27% carry C.Diff ( Clostridium difficile). If you aren’t familiar with C.Diff, it is a bacteria that is responsible for infections ranging from stomach issues to death, so let’s not bring that into the house. In addition to that, your house will stay so much cleaner! You can definitely tell the homes where shoes are worn on carpets. I’m pretty sure everyone would love to clean less. We all enjoy a clean home, but no one wants to spend hours cleaning each day. A shoe free home definitely stays cleaner. Don’t believe it makes that big of a difference? Give it a try for two weeks. There will be a visible difference for sure and I bet you don’t go back.

So how do you urge guests to take off their shoes in your home? First, it is just good manners to remove shoes in someone’s home. If a guest doesn’t, simply ask them to. Additionally, there are a lot of cute little signs you can get that remind guests in a light way that you live in a shoe free home. I’ve gone as far as having a basket of cute (new) slippers by my door for guests. Wear them and take them. One year when we were hosting Christmas, we tied a theme to it; Holiday Socks. Everyone was to wear their best Holiday Socks and we turned it into a contest with a fun prize. This urged people to remove shoes at the door, eliminating all of that snowy, slushy, salty mess from getting tracked all over my house.

I would love to see elementary classrooms be free of outdoor shoes. Not only would it contribute to a more relaxed, homelike and comfortable learning environment, I think it would help curb sickness and spreading germs. And if you have little ones, you know how this works. You hear of one kid in class who has some illness and know it is just a matter of time before it starts spreading. While this is not the answer to classroom germs, it would definitely help. Think about how much time they spend on the floor and what is probably lurking in that circle time rug. As a former teacher, I would be completely on board with this in my classroom.

Give it some thought. If you don’t already live in a shoe free environment, make this small change. Try no shoes on carpeted surfaces, or no shoes upstairs. Baby step it to no shoes in the house. I’d be willing to bet you will see and feel the difference very quickly on how clean your home feels. This could be the first easy step toward a less toxic home environment.