“In North Dakota it is illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on”
No. A search of the North Dakota Legislative Council's Century Code index turns up no provision linking being asleep and wearing shoes, and none of the lists that repeat the claim cite a section number. The state's real sleeping-room hygiene rules bind the people who run lodging establishments, not the guests in the beds.
A law nobody has ever cited
The claim turns up on radio station listicles and weird-law roundups, always in the same words and never with a section number. The station list it was found on credits Only In Your State. That page does not claim much: it says only that it has often been said that in North Dakota it is technically illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on, and then guesses that the rule likely traces back to old health ordinances for boarding houses. Another roundup, LawDumb, admits it could not find a primary citation for it and calls it more legend than law.
What the Century Code actually says
A keyword search of the Legislative Council's own index returns no chapter of the Century Code that mentions being asleep and shoes together. The closest real law is chapter 23-09, which covers lodging establishments. Its sanitation section says all bedrooms must be kept free from insects and rodents, and the bedding in use must be clean and sufficient in quantity and quality. That duty falls on the proprietor. A person operating a lodging establishment without complying with the chapter is guilty of a class B misdemeanor. The chapter never mentions shoes, boots or what a guest wears to bed.
Why the boarding house story persists
The boarding-house explanation is attractive because hotel hygiene laws are real and North Dakota still has one. But a rule about clean bedding aimed at innkeepers is a long way from a crime committed by a tired person in boots. Nobody repeating the claim has produced an ordinance, a session law or a prosecution, so it stays where it started: on lists.
Where the story gets it wrong
The claim says North Dakota has a statute against falling asleep with your shoes on. No list that repeats it names a section, and a search of the North Dakota Century Code finds no chapter that mentions being asleep and shoes together. There is nothing to break.
Some versions say the rule survives from old boarding house health ordinances. North Dakota's lodging law does demand clean bedding and bedrooms free from insects and rodents, but that duty is on the proprietor of the establishment. It says nothing about what a guest wears in bed.
- Current status
- Never Enforced
- Penalty
- None. No such offence exists. The real lodging hygiene chapter makes non-compliant operators, not guests, guilty of a class B misdemeanor.
- Jurisdiction
- Claimed as a statewide North Dakota law; no state statute matches it, and the related administrative rule (N.D. Admin. Code ch. 33-39-01, lodging sanitation standards) does not mention footwear either.