Jerry from ‘Seinfeld’ Is Far From A Neat Freak, Actual Neat Freaks Say

Though Jerry Seinfeld’s eponymous sitcom character may famously detest germs, throwing away a shoelace that touched the men’s room floor, pitching a belt that bumped into a urinal and refusing to kiss his ex-girlfriend, Jenna, after her toothbrush fell into the toilet, he’s far from the clean freak he claims to be, according to actual clean freaks. 

Last Tuesday, Redditor TheJewPear headed to the Seinfeld subreddit with a strange observation about the stand-up comic: For someone who claims to hate dirt and grime, Seinfeld sure takes a laissez-faire approach to allowing New York City street shoes on his furniture. 

“How come Jerry is supposed to be a neat freak, yet him and his friends regularly put shoes on his couch?” they captioned a snap of the actor enjoying a Diet Coke with his sneaker firmly planted on the cushion of his light teal couch.

Though seemingly nitpicky, TheJewPear just might be onto something with this perceived plot hole. According to Environmental Resilience Institute higher-up Gabriel Filippelli, outdoor shoes not only bring all sorts of dirt and germs into the home, but also set the stage for several illnesses. 

“We can track in all sorts of bacteria, but certainly some of the ones we’re most concerned about are E. coli that cause severe abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhea and vomiting,” he told CNN last December. “There’s been studies that swab the bottom of shoes and something like 99 percent of the shoes test positive for fecal material.”

Considering the decidedly dirty truth about wearing shoes indoors, it’s no wonder that several Redditors have posed similar questions about the sitcom star’s TV hygiene habits over the past few years. “Jerry ends the lace for touching the men’s room floor but steps on the coffee table with his shoe that touched the very same floor,” noted Jeanphilipperameau alongside a still showing Seinfeld’s shoe on his coffee table. “He is quite insane, but (a) little bit confused, I guess.”

“It’s safe to say that Jerry is a ‘clean freak,’ unable to relax if there is anything dirty in his apartment. (But) NYC is one of the dirtiest cities in the world, yet Jerry is not bothered by Elaine stepping all over his couch with her shoes on,” Majestic-Unicorn33 mused with a questionable clip from the series.

Why he fails to bat an eye at all the germs and diseases being shuttled into his apartment from the streets of New York is unclear (okay, it’s totally clear — Seinfeld fanatics have found a fun character contradiction to dissect that I’m sure the real Seinfeld and Larry David just mistakenly overlooked), but this much is certain: “That’s a shame.”