What people say
Never sweep after dark, never sweep over someone's feet, never bring the old broom.Household · 110 searches a month
Broom superstitions
Never sweep after dark, never sweep over someone's feet, never bring the old broom.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Medieval Europe; the new-house rule documented from the 1800s
That makes it
about 226 years old
Rank by age
28 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Household
Searched
110 a month
Sweeping removes dirt, so by extension it removes other things — luck, money, people. Never take an old broom to a new house is one of the most widely shared moving rules there is.
Why it stuck. Any tool used for removal attracts rules about what else it might remove; the same logic governs drains, bins and doorways.
What is going on
Sweeping after dark was genuinely wasteful before electric light — valuables swept up in candlelight were lost.Where it applies. Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, with the feet-sweeping rule strongest in West African and Latin American tradition.
Other household superstitions
Recorded around the same time
Broom superstitions is the 28th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →