Take Your Shoes Off, Please - Why Health Customs Make Sense for American Homes

It's a long-held custom among many cultures to remove your shoes when you enter a home. In Asian homes, for instance, it's considered a gesture of respect for your host and a way to honor a house's purity and cleanliness. On the other side of the world, it has been considered impermissible to enter someone else's home without removing your shoes since the 15th century. However, for some reason, that custom has never been universally accepted in America--but there are some good reasons for considering starting that custom in your own home. Here are just a few:

Removing your shoes can be seen as a symbolic gesture, meant to represent kicking off the cares and worries of the outside world when you enter the home. It's a way to emphasize and honor the role of the home as a sanctuary--a place of peace and refuge away from the insanity of the world at large.

At a more practical le5B1vel, there can be no doubt that removing shoes will bring less dirt and small rocks into the house, thereby lessening the chance that those stones will leave gouges in hardwood floors and dirtying up the carpets. You'll also spend less of your time having to clean those floors if people remove their shoes when they walk in the door.

On the physical front, there is much to be said for the pure sensation of walking around the house in your bare feet and feeling the sensation of the hardwood or other floor coverings. As an added benefit, your hardwood floors will actually receive a gentle buffing as they're being walked on by bare feet in the warmer seasons or by feet covered by soft slippers when the temperature begins to go down in the winter months.

Infants and young children with more sensitive immune systems inhale cleaner indoor air in homes where everyone removes their shoes at the front door, because the soles of shoes track in whatever you've been walking in, including pesticides and other pollutants.This is especially true for very young children, who generally spend more time on the floor than other family members. Your pets will benefit from the healthier home environment, as well.

For the health of your family, both physically and psychologically, as well as a way to save clean-up time and energy, you may find it well worth your while to consider instituting a "shoes off" policy in your own home.

Free interior design psychology reports, conference calls, and decorating tips at http://www.joytothehome.com

Copyright 2008 Jeanette Fisher

This article provides some insight on what guadua angustifolia bamboo is and the unique advantages it offers as a construction material. Using bamboo for construction is a fantastic way to build structurally-sound buildings while avoiding much of the time and effort that using traditional materials often requires.

2 X 10 Roof Rafter Vent Blocks