Shoes or no shoes? The great NJ house debate

It's a hot topic in 2026. When you have guests over to your place, do you prefer they take their shoes off or leave them on?

EJ and I talked about this on the air this week, and by and large, the answer was to take your shoes off.

I couldn't agree more on this. If someone is coming over to my apartment, I prefer they leave their shoes at the door. Now, I'm not scolding anyone if they were to leave their shoes on, but I prefer not to have mud, or dirt, or grass, or small rocks that are wedged in the soles of your shoes on my floor.

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The counterargument for those who prefer shoes stay on is that they don't want people's 'nasty' feet walking on their floors. I would counter by saying, aren't the bottoms of your shoes far dirtier than your feet? You're stepping in god knows what all throughout the day. I'm no doctor, but I can take an educated guess and say you're picking up more germs on the bottom of your shoe than you are on your feet that are in said shoe.

And I don't want all those germs then being spread onto the floor where I live. Is that crazy? According to the listeners we spoke to, it's not. Most of them thought the same way I did. Maybe it's a younger generation thing. Maybe COVID changed us. There's no way to truly find out, but shoes off seems like the obvious answer to me.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kyle Clark. Any opinions expressed are his own.

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