By late autumn there is a pile inside the front door. Wet shoes on top of a doormat, a coat dripping down a wall, two umbrellas leaning shut in a corner and a rucksack that has been damp since Tuesday. Nothing in that pile is drying, because none of it has air moving around it.
Why the pile never dries
Drying is evaporation, and evaporation needs three things. Air that can hold more moisture, air that is moving, and surface area exposed to it.
A pile by the door defeats all three at once. The items touch each other, the air between them saturates and stays put, and the surfaces facing inward never see moving air at all.
One wet coat on a wide hanger in a room with a door open dries overnight. The same coat squashed between two others on a single hook is still damp in three days.
That damp is where the musty smell comes from. Mildew grows on damp fibre in still air, and once a coat lining or a shoe insole smells that way, the smell takes real work to remove.
So the fix is separation and airflow rather than heat. Heat is the tool people reach for and it is the one that causes the damage.
Which wet shoes can go in a machine
More than people expect, with a short list of exceptions that matter.
Canvas trainers, cotton plimsolls and fabric slip ons go in happily. Cold water, a gentle cycle, a small amount of detergent, and a low spin.
Take the laces and the insoles out first and wash them separately. Both dry far faster on their own and both hold dirt the shoe itself does not.
Put the shoes in a mesh bag or a pillowcase and add three or four old towels. The towels cushion the tumbling and stop the shoes hammering the drum.
Knitted running shoes usually wash well, but check the midsole first. If the glue line at the toe has already started to lift, washing will finish the job.
Leather, suede and nubuck stay out. Water swells leather and detergent strips the oils that keep it flexible, so it dries stiff and pale and cracks along the flex points.
Waterproof membrane boots get wiped by hand instead. Detergent and softener clog the membrane and it stops breathing, which is the one thing you bought it for. Rubber boots and sliders just need a rinse under a tap.
Why the dryer destroys glued soles
More wet shoes are ruined by a dryer than by anything else, and the reason is glue. Almost no modern shoe is stitched. The upper is cemented to the midsole with adhesive, and that bond is the shoe.
Adhesive softens above a certain temperature. It loses grip, shifts a fraction while the shoe is being thrown around a hot drum, then sets again in the wrong position. That is why a sole starts peeling at the toe after one dryer cycle and never sits flat again.
The foam midsole is the second casualty. Compressed foam shrinks and hardens with heat, so the shoe changes shape, loses its cushioning and stops fitting the way it did.
A synthetic upper shrinks unevenly against a sole that does not shrink at all, which loads the bond line further.
The tumbling alone does damage. Shoes hitting a steel drum loosen eyelets, crack heel counters and split the stitching that is there.
If you have no alternative, use a no heat air cycle and hang the shoes by their laces over the door so they swing rather than tumble. Even then, air drying with a fan is usually faster and costs the shoes nothing.
Drying wet shoes properly with paper and air
This is a ten minute job that has to be repeated a few times, and done properly it beats any heat source.
Pull the insoles out and stand them up separately. An insole left inside keeps the whole shoe damp for days, and it is the part that holds the smell.
Loosen the laces all the way and open the shoe as wide as it will go. Fold the tongue back.
Stuff loosely with plain paper or kitchen towel. The paper is a wick, not a plug, so packing it tight defeats the purpose by blocking airflow. Swap it out after an hour, then every few hours as it stops feeling dry.
Avoid printed newsprint against pale linings. Wet ink transfers and you will be dealing with that instead.
Stand them on their sides or upside down somewhere with air moving. A small fan pointed at a pair of wet shoes shortens the job dramatically and does none of the damage that heat does.
Radiators, heaters and a hot car dashboard cause the same adhesive problem as a dryer, more slowly and just as permanently.
In a genuinely wet season, two pairs in rotation is the honest answer. A shoe needs the better part of a day for the foam in the midsole to dry through, and no amount of technique changes that.
Coats that come home dripping
Shake a shell coat out before it goes anywhere. A waterproof face fabric holds a surprising amount of surface water that will otherwise end up on the floor.
Hang it on a wide hanger with air on both sides. A coat on a hook touching a wall dries on one side and stays wet on the other.
Rain shells do need washing occasionally, and people avoid it out of caution. Body oil and grime on the face fabric are exactly what stops water beading off it, so a dirty shell wets out faster than a clean one.
Wash a shell alone, with a small dose of plain liquid detergent, no softener at all, and add a second rinse. Softener destroys a water repellent finish.
Down jackets can be washed but the drying is the whole task. They need hours in a low dryer with a couple of clean tennis balls or dryer balls, and pulling one out early leaves the down clumped and the jacket useless until it is done again.
Wool coats get brushed and aired rather than washed. Hang it somewhere with moving air and leave it.
A wet coat left in a car boot overnight will smell by morning, particularly in mild damp weather. Bring it in.
Umbrellas that never dry closed
An umbrella dries open and it does not dry any other way.
Closed, the canopy folds trap water against the ribs and against the seams, where there is no airflow at all. It stays wet for days and the metal parts start to rust in the folds.
Open it indoors, standing in a bath or over a floor that can take a puddle, and leave it until the canopy is dry to the touch on both sides.
Then close it loosely rather than strapping it tight. A tightly strapped umbrella that was not quite dry is how you get spotting on the canopy and a smell the next time you open it.
Clean a canopy by hand with a cloth, a little dish soap and cool water, then rinse it and dry it open. An umbrella does not go in a washing machine. The frame will not survive it.
Store it somewhere with air rather than in a plastic sleeve, which holds the last of the moisture against the fabric.
The mats and towels underneath everything
Whatever the pile is standing on is taking the worst of it and it usually gets forgotten.
A coir or bristle mat gets shaken out and hosed down, then dried flat outdoors. It should never go in a machine.
A rubber backed mat can go in a washer on cold. Keep it out of a hot dryer, because heat cracks the backing and the pieces end up in the drum and the drain.
Towels used to mop the hall floor need to be in the wash the same day. Left in a heap, they are the fastest smelling item in the house.
Check the backing on any rug you put by the door. Latex backing breaks down in heat and comes apart into crumbs.
Put a shallow tray under the wet shoes rather than a towel. A towel keeps the water against the shoe and against the floor, which is the opposite of what you want.
The New Haven part
The wet season here is long rather than dramatic. Cold rain arrives in autumn and the hallway pile is a fixture from then until spring, so wet shoes are a daily situation rather than an occasional one and the routine matters more than any single soaking.
Cold outdoor air holds very little moisture, and that helps once the air is indoors and warmed. What kills drying here is stillness. Rooms shut up against the cold have no air movement at all, so a small fan or an open interior door does more for a rack of damp things than turning the heat up.
Road salt is the seasonal complication. It leaves white tide marks on canvas and on coat hems, and it stays in the fibre until it is dissolved out. Rinse marked shoes and hems in cool water before washing, since hot water sets the mark rather than lifting it.
Salt is also hard on leather. Wipe leather boots down the same evening rather than letting the salt sit and dry into the surface, where it draws the oils out and leaves a permanent pale line.
Then the summers turn humid, and the same hallway becomes a different problem. Anything put away damp in a closed closet in July will be growing mildew inside a week, so the end of the wet season is the moment to make sure coats and boots are properly dry before they go into storage.
Where the wet pile gets dealt with
A hallway full of soaked mats, towels and canvas is more than one home load.
The machines at our self-service laundry on Foxon Boulevard have the drum size to take a full pile of mats, coats and towels with room left to tumble, and enough water volume to carry road grit out of the fabric instead of around it.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily.
Our wash-dry-fold service covers the everyday laundry.
For general guidance, The American Cleaning Institute publishes a fabric care guide that is a useful cross-check.
The short version
Wet shoes made of canvas or knitted fabric can be machine washed cold in a mesh bag with towels for padding, with laces and insoles removed and washed separately. Leather, suede and membrane boots stay out. Keep every shoe out of the dryer, because heat softens the adhesive holding the upper to the midsole and the sole peels. Dry them open, insoles out, stuffed loosely with plain paper changed every few hours, with a fan on them. Hang wet coats with air on both sides and wash shells without softener. Dry umbrellas open, then close them loosely rather than strapped.
WaveMAX New Haven is at 466 Foxon Blvd, easy to reach from New Haven and the surrounding area. If you have a load that will not fit at home, call us at 917-861-9535.