The Unilateral Solution
I stopped making a mess because I came up with unillateral solutions, until I found the ideal one. I experimented with skewers to remove the mud from shoes, I experimented with rubber boots that I could rinse under a tap. I tried with spare shoes in the letter box.
A Simple Doormat
In the end my favourite solution was the doormat by the car in the garage. This is my favourite solution because it takes seconds to brush the mud off my shoes before going upstairs, and best of all, I walk with muddy shoes, into the garage where no one will complain. No more mud in the building.
The Absurd
As mentioned above I already have a solution to the issue, so this is purely an excuse to write a blog post, without spending hours trying to find inspiration.
The solution to dirty hallways, according to one apartment care company is “If you make a mess clean it up”. If you live on the ground floor, right by the door this makes sense, because there’s no skin in the game. Thirty Seconds of sweeping and you’re done. If you live on the top floor the solution requires several minutes.
It’s a shame they didn’t ask
“What is the actual problem?”
“Mud”,
“Okay, so get a proper door mat for the front door.”
Unfair Solution and Curiousity
What I want to discuss is the analytical mind. There are two type of people in the world. Those that hear “The hallways are messy, so clean them up when you make a mess” and those that would ask “What is the mess?”. If the mess is from leaking bin bags, then carry bin bags in a waterproof container, if the problem is wet shoes then dry the shoes. If the problem is mud, and your solution is to tidy up the mess then you’re both lazy, and short sighted.
Demudifiers
If mud is the problem then cleaning up the mud, after you deposit it in the hallways and on the staircases is not a solution, because it will happen again and again. It will occur at the end of walks, and at the start of walks. If your shoes are muddy they drop it as you enter a building, but also as you exit.
The solution to mud in a building has been known for generations. My school had the solution. Private homes have the solution. The solution to muddy hallways is not to clean up after you’ve made a mess. The solution is to get a doormat. The solution is to get a shoe scraper at the front of the building, before you enter.
The Habit of Asking Questions Before Coming Up With Solutions
The notion that professionals, in building care and maintenance would not ask this question saddens me. It’s such a simple and rational question. It’s also an issue that every building in a rural area has.
What frustrates me is that when I was making a mess almost every day no one complained. it’s when I stopped making a mess that people complained. It’s when I forgot to clean my shoes, after two months of being tidy that people went mad.
Passing the Buck / Shirking Responsability
I’m frustrated that the building’s solution to messy hallways is to tell us to clean it. I find this to be a shameful response, since the issue is muddy shoes, and everyone, especially parents, will have to deal with that problem. The doormat I have to clean my shoes is 30 CHF. The one for the front door costs from 100-200 CHF in Europe. That mat would ensure that no one has to clean the hallways themselves, not even the cleaner.
The Childhood Problem
In the grand scheme of things I am still the same person I have been, since childhood. I still get muddy shoes and trousers, and it still doesn’t bother me in the least. Mud is organic dirt. It’s not harmful, and once it has dried it is very easy to clean up.
I never plan to stop getting muddy. I’d rather have my very own proper doormat, in the garage, that I can use at the end of a walk where I got my shoes dirty. I find the idea of cleaning the hallway used by everyone else absurd, especially since there is a simple and elegant solution, the doormat.
Remember, schools implement another solution, shoe cubbies at the entrance to the building. You put your shoes in the cubby and you wear “pantoufles” in class. I would quite like that solution in my building.
And Finally
We live right next to the fields. There are five roads in and out of this village, but there are no clean paths for pedestrians to walk along. If we want to go for a local walk without using the car we have to walk along muddy paths, unfortunately. The result is that shoes get muddy. If the commune, and Switzerland at large, didn’t just speak about mobilité douce, but actually built infrastructure to make it possible, then I wouldn’t have muddy shoes. If car drivers didn’t try to terrify us, out of walking along roads, then we’d walk on the clean tarmac rather than the mud at the side of the road.
We need more cycle and walker friendly routes between villages and towns in Switzerland. It’s free to encourage people to walk and bike, rather than use cars, but too little is done to ensure we feel safe. If clean walking solutions existed then my shoes would remain clean.
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