Shoes in The Freezer - How To Detoxify Your Stinky Shoes

Take a look inside our freezer on any given day and you will see something like this:

Currently residing in our freezer are a pair of Salomons, three pairs of climbing shoes, some frozen chicken tenderloins, a box of frozen turkey patties, a couple boxes of Green Giant vegetables and one really old pair of New Balance tennis shoes. "Why", you ask? To kill that funky man shoe stank but of course! Carrie doesn't seem to have quite the odor problem with her shoes that I do with mine.

It all started on a dark and stormy night with my climbing shoes. They smelled horrific. Left to their own devices they could probably have taken out a small country within minutes. Seriously. So when first faced with this problem a number of years ago I came up with a solution: Dryer sheets. And this worked quite well. At least it masked the smell fairly decently. But as I continued to use this technique my feet started getting rashes on them from the dryer sheets (I have sensitive skin, cut me some slack).

And after some fiddling around on the 'net I learned a new trick. I read somewhere that the moisture and stench in shoes is caused by bacteria that grows in moist and warm conditions (i.e. sweaty shoes) and that putting your shoes in the freezer would kill the bacteria, unarming your them from their nostril-terrorizing powers. And it worked wonders. Now most all of my shoes visit the freezer on a weekly basis and my climbing shoes live in there. So if you gots some stanky shoes, throw them in the freezer overnight and see what happens. Plus they feel so good when you put them on. Kind of like a frosty mug for your feet.