There’s a neat article on shoes in the September National Geographic. One section discusses the subject of concealed shoes with June Swann, former Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection at Northampton Museum in England. Swann started a registry of concealed shoes that have been found in houses all around the world. Hidden deliberately for luck and to ward away spirits, shoes have been found in roofs, next to the chimney, under floorboards, and plastered into ceilings and walls. 1,700 have been catalogued, but many are probably shrugged away by remodelers and never reported. The superstition has no one root explanation, or at least not one that is known to Swann. An article she wrote speculates on several possibilities and also tells haunting tales of situations where previously hidden shoes were taken from the premises and bad events transpired.