How to Stop Tracking Leaves into Your Home

Even though I have a back porch mudroom, my family and the family pets still manage to track leaves all through the house. Door mats definitely weren’t doing the trick, nor were friendly reminders to knock off the leaves from their shoes before traipsing through the kitchen. Here’s three strategies that do work.

Sweep off the steps regularly. I’m a bit on the lazy side which is why I don’t usually bother sweeping the steps and all 300 feet of sidewalk for most of the year. During the fall season, sweeping the thresh holds, the steps, and some of the sidewalk will keep the leaf mess outdoors and out of the house. To streamline this task which should be done at least twice a day, I bought three $1 brooms from the dollar store to stash next to each of my three exterior doors.

Find alternate footwear. Have you noticed how leaves stick to certain types of shoes more than others? After figuring out that tennis shoes were the main leaf tracking culprit in my house, I bought a bunch of insulated irrigation boots and garden clogs for my family to wear out in the yard instead. Not only do leaves tend not to stick to these shoes, they are easy to slip off when it’s time to come indoors. (The irrigation boots will also come in handy when the snow hits).

Buy some long rug runners. To catch the leaves that do come indoors, I substituted our interior door mats for some long 6 foot hall runners instead. The longer runners give my family more opportunities to knock off the leaves from their shoes, keeping the leaves contained in the mud room instead of drifting into the rest of the house.

More by this contributor:
How to make an Autumn wreath on the cheap
3 easy cake frostings to try for fall.
Easy Autumn decor to make.