It’s not terrifying to put on a pair of shoes you’ve left outside.
I left my gumboots outside for the entire winter in Austria this year… and when it came time to trudge around again in the freshly-muddied veggie patch, I just put my socked feet straight into them…
There were no thoughts of but what could be in there.
No chance that a hiding spider lurking within might kill me.
In Australia shoes need to be kept inside, preferably in a cupboard, to be protected from spiders and weird creepy-crawlies… and even then… I would seriously consider feeling around with a gloved hand if they’d been in storage for a while.
Yeah… I guess an Austrian spider or something else random could have made his home in my outdoor living gumboots, but what does it matter? It can’t kill me. There were a couple of random bits of dirt I ended up tipping out, but nothing else. I guess everything was still in hibernation!
an aussie in austria 
I spray Baygon in my winter shoes before I put them away. I don’t bother with the summer ones, ’cause they’re all various versions of thongs.
Good plan. I much prefer summer and thongs!!!! Which for all you non-Australians out there is definitely not referring to underwear 😉
I put my foot in my gumbies which had been in the cupboard out the back, completely forgotten about for a long while and immediately took it out again with an accompanying scream. No not a spider just some fluff & dirt! Phew.
haha. Yep, fluff and dirt is sometimes just as scary! 🙂