diff --git a/src/database.c b/src/database.c
index 670cf710..b6cff7f3 100644
--- a/src/database.c
+++ b/src/database.c
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ int db__open(struct mosquitto__config *config, struct mosquitto_db *db)
 
 	db->subs = NULL;
 
-	subhier = sub__add_hier_entry(&db->subs, " ", strlen(" "));
+	subhier = sub__add_hier_entry(&db->subs, "", strlen(""));
 	if(!subhier) return MOSQ_ERR_NOMEM;
 
 	subhier = sub__add_hier_entry(&db->subs, "$SYS", strlen("$SYS"));
diff --git a/src/subs.c b/src/subs.c
index 7b9b457c..70968c3e 100644
--- a/src/subs.c
+++ b/src/subs.c
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ static int sub__topic_tokenise(const char *subtopic, struct sub__token **topics)
 	assert(topics);
 
 	if(subtopic[0] != '$'){
-		new_topic = sub__topic_append(&tail, topics, " ");
+		new_topic = sub__topic_append(&tail, topics, "");
 		if(!new_topic) goto cleanup;
 	}