13 Ways (or 12 if you want to avoid bad luck) to get Through Friday the 13th

In some places a pile of broken dishes or glasses is a sign of good things to come. In Denmark, people save their broken dishes until New Year's Eve when they throw them at friends' homes for good luck in the new year.

Walking under a ladder is just dangerous to begin with but it’s also seen as one of the more well-known superstitions. Walking under a ladder is seen as breaking up the trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost in Christianity, since a ladder is a triangle. Fortunately, you can undo the jinx by walking back through the ladder or crossing your fingers until you see a dog.

Everyone knows breaking a mirror is bad luck, but it’s even worse luck to throw away the broken pieces. Instead, grind the broken pieces down to dust and scatter them in the wind or take a piece of the mirror to be able to reflect the moon when the next full moon comes around. Looking into the reflection of the full moon through the broken piece will undo the bad luck created by breaking the mirror. Also, if you plan on hanging a horseshoe nearby, make sure the ends are pointing up, otherwise your luck will fall out. Make sure you won’t have to deal with a broken mirror by hanging it right.

Step on a crack and break your mother’s back, right? Jack Nicholson couldn’t step on a crack in As Good as it Gets as one of his many obsessive compulsive disorders. Some folklore has people believing that the stepping on one could lead to misfortune. Avoid having to step over any crack by patching them.

It’s important to place your shoes and hat in the proper place to avoid bad luck. Placing shoes on a table and a hat on a bed are bad luck. According to an anecdote, when coal miners died in northern England, their boots were placed on the table. In the years after it became a symbol of tempting fate. A hat on a bed signals a similar sentiment. A hat on a bed attracts death while others say it’s a measure to prevent the spread of head lice.

Throwing salt over your shoulder to avoid bad luck is one of the oldest ways to avoid bad luck. But why do you have to throw it over your left shoulder? That’s where the devil is supposed to be and throwing salt to that side is supposed to blind him. The superstition is also displayed in Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper where Judas has spilled salt. Others claim that because salt was so expensive centuries ago, spilling it was akin to throwing money away. To rectify the spill, throwing some over your shoulder would blind the devil and make him think again about trying to fool someone.

If you sense there’s some bad energy hovering around the home start decluttering it. Too much clutter can block positive vibes from flowing through the home. Plus, it’s one of the more tangible ways to symbolically erase bad luck.

Increased light decreases the number of dark spots in a home for bad energies to hide. Take a step further by burning a white candle on a white dish with a glass of water next to it. As the candle burns the water will absorb the negative energy. After you’re done burning the candle throw the water outside, away from your home to make sure the negative energy and bad luck stays away.

Whether symbolically or literally, brushing yourself from the head down is said to absolve someone from bad luck. However, make sure you don’t use that brush for anything else. Some compare it to dusting windows around the house or cleaning blinds.

Keys have several good luck meanings from representing the gates of heaven to protecting children from evil spirits. Just don’t jingle keys on a Wednesday because that will bring on madness and bad luck. Wear three keys together and they will unlock the doors to wealth, health and love. Just make sure you can find your keys when you rekey your doors.

Black cats get a bad rap for being bad luck, especially if you cross one’s path, mainly for being loosely associated with witchcraft. People in the middle ages believed that witches existed and practiced black magic. They also believed that it was often old women who were women and performed black magic. Older women were also known to take care of alley cats. According to legend, a father and son in Lincolnshire in the 1560s saw a black cat cross their path. The pair threw rocks at the cat, which ran into a woman’s house who was suspected of being a witch. The father and son saw the woman the next day walking with a limp and so began the thought that witches turned into black cats at night. Interestingly many humane societies won’t accept adoptions for black cats in the days before Halloween for fear that they will be used in a ritual, though humane societies mostly institute a moratorium on black cat adoptions since may people want to adopt one as an accessory to their costume. Stay on your cat's good side by cleaning up after it with these handy tips.

House crickets are believed to bring good luck in many Asian cultures. As far back as 500 BCE people kept crickets to enjoy their sound, which is made by male crickets when they rub their wings together to attract a female cricket. Apparently if you count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and add 37, that will tell you the approximate temperature outside in Fahrenheit. Crickets have been seen as protectors because they will stop singing when anyone approaches and can help prevent bad luck. But if you don’t find crickets as charming as others, here are some tips to eradicating them and other pests from your home.

The superstition is that a bird flying into a window or a house foreshadows death. According to a Snopes article, Lucille Ball refused to stay in any hotel that displayed pictures of birds in their wallpaper. She remembered that a picture fell from the wall the day her father died and a bird flew into the house, according to a 2003 book Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball by Stefan Kanfer. She suffered from ornithophobia. If you need to repair a window, check out some hints here.