How can I stop our entry porch smelling of shoes?

[Neighbourmystery]

We have a small entry porch - and a shoe rack and coat hook lives there- but I am worried that when you come in , it smells of shoes/ feet. I have an oil burner there for when we are in, but when i first come in after being out- it’s not pleasant- there is literallly no where else where we can keep our shoes- does anyone have any solutions or tips- can’t do plug ins and reed diffusers.
Thanks for any help!

Shoes tend to smell if they are sweaty and damp e.g. football boots, running shoes. Find out which shoes smell and put them somewhere else. My DS's football boots sit on the windowsill outside the back door because they absolutely stink!

Bicarbonate of soda can neutralise the smell if you sprinkle it in but the shoes have to be dry otherwise it goes all disgusting inside.....

Remove the shoes.

I have possibly considered an outside the front door box but this may not be practical

There is nowhere else to put them unfortunately

store the shoes elsewhere, we keep trainers and football boots in a lidded bench outside our front door door, other shoes are under the stairs or in wardrobes

Could you get one of those shoes storage things that shuts? So the smell is contained? Or a reed diffuser? Or both.

Do you have room for one of the flip down shoe cabinets? E.g Ikea.

It might almost be in your head, can anyone else smell it? I was convinced my house smelled of fish the other month and was going round and round sniffing but no-one else could smell it.

Or, can you just accept the porch will smell a bit but keep the door shut to the rear of the house? Focus on making the hallway smell nice and contain the shoe smell in the porch?

Just style it out. Do what my posh friend does and don’t say porch, call it a ‘boot room’.

Hmm no room for the ikea thing. No real place to put them elsewhere either without moving the issue to bedroom

I spray my shoe rack (in the porch) with febreeze every other day. Also have one of those glass bottles filled with oil and stick things so it always tends to smell nice.

Do you have room for a shoe cupboard anywhere?

I have this, could that work? It’s about as deep as a normal shoe rack https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/trones-shoe-cabinet-storage-white-00397307/

I don't want to worry you, but the faint smell of fish in a home is sometimes caused by faulty electrical wiring.

Throw the stinking ones away and make sure the owner of the stinky feet is proactive about foot hygiene.

I think I’d move it to the bedroom before I had my doorway smell like sweaty feet/

Add a Neutradol, I find they work well

Discreet bowls of cat litter

Yes! I was also going to say this. We had it and I couldn’t work out where it was coming from. It was coming and going and DH couldn’t smell it. It ended up being a broken shower switch with wires burnt out.

Shoes in the porch shouldn’t really smell. Trying to cover a smell up is usually a bad idea

and it’s hardly been wet weather in most places in the UK so damp shoes shouldn’t be a problem ?

do people have good general hygiene? Wear clean socks ? Avoid wearing the same shoes all the time so they can air and dry out ?

is it all shoes or just one pair ?

Yeah it's not a hygiene issue luckily. We are very clean and look after ourselves.

I have shoes in a wicker basket thing with a lid. The lid keeps any smells in and the basket looks nice and tidy (even though the shoes tend to get chucked in, so finding a pair means hunting about a bit).

I bought these for my son's smelly work boots. I have this terrible habit of buying things after watching dragons den but these really work.
https://bootbananas.com/product/original-shoe-deodorisers/?utm_source=google_ads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=uk_march24_swarm&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21098659354&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-MDTBhCgARIsAKAkdlTT6Aj72rt9pYxfJIT3LA9lB0ECgb_1TsWkvA4V18QCauf3vCCeVe0aAugMEALw_wcB

@teaandtoastwithmarmite @orangehandles thanks both. Electrics are all fine - I posted about this here at the time and had lots of people telling me it could be an electrical problem so got a sparky in. Thanks though x

Seconding the recommendation for Neutradol. We have shoes in the understairs cupboard and it smelt a bit like feet. I tried the ball things that go inside shoes but they didn’t do much, I’ve used odor eaters spray before and wasn’t overly impressed but Neutradol pots really helped.