Shoes and boots on a boot tray. (Provided photo — Diane Chase)

At our house, there isn’t much debate about whether or not to take our shoes off when entering the house. We generally do it. It isn’t to prevent germs and disease. We have had dogs, chickens and small children deliberately bring other living and dead creatures into our house. Germs from shoes won’t be what infects me. It will be the dog or the red squirrel she chased into the house.

I ask the family members to leave their shoes at our entrance mainly because I don’t want to clean. I need the mud, snow, or rain to stay outside the house. It would seem practical if I also followed my own demands.

I often forget something upstairs and manage to track whatever is on the bottom of my boots around the house in a quest to locate the lost item. I could take off the boots, but I’m not writing about what I could do, am I? When we have friends over, I do not require them to bare their feet. Sometimes they choose to leave their shoes at the door. On or off, as long as the shoes are dry, I want people to be comfortable inside my house. It is also my excuse to clean my house the next day. Yes, I need an excuse.

Cultural and religious reasons exist for people to take off their shoes, and I honor those requests. There are also demographic and other cultural reasons for not taking off shoes. I respect that as well.

In a 2008 study, University of Arizona professor Dr. Charles Gerba with The Rockport Company, a shoe company, collected germs from footwear. Gerba found various types of bacteria on the bottom and inside of the shoes, with a 96% transfer rate from the shoe to an uncontaminated floor tile. With an opposite view, Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security on Infectious Diseases, concludes that taking off our shoes “isn’t going to significantly diminish the microbial load found in a house.” The floors and house are already loaded with bacteria and viruses, most of which are not harmful. He concludes that we can’t live in a sterile environment.

So if you are coming to my house, just check the bottom of your shoes. If you stepped in “a bit of the dog,” gum, or something noticeably wet and muddy, you can leave your shoes at the door. Otherwise, come in and add to the house’s bacteria level. We all know I don’t have a sterile household.