AIBU to ask in-laws to remove shoes?

🤮 oh the thought of what’s in those carpets!!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2016/jan/10/wetherspoons-carpet-tumblr-blog apparently Wetherspoons carpets are specially made for each location. I appreciate the dedication.

How can you possibly know that? Most shoes that are walked into toilets in public places show faecal bacteria (e.g. strains of ecoli) when swabbed.

Handwashing is probably more important than the shoe issue but it's still absolutely reasonable to ask them to take them off or ask your DH to insist on it.

I agree - if Wezzers carpet freaks you out, how about carpeted floors on British rail trains or on NationalExpress?

It is very rude to ask guests to remove their shoes. It is equally rude, as a guest, not to offer to remove your shoes. So indeed, it is a dilemma. Shoe covers maybe? When they arrive, you meet them at the door and YOU bend down to put shoe covers on their shoes - it is hard for older people to put them on themselves, those airport-style shoe covers can be awkward. Also, do you not have a pen for your children? Or maybe not a pen but a dedicated, fenced off clean area, where no adult foot will tread?

As someone who is not British the obsession with carpets amuses me. I went into a fairly new Wetherspoons today that had carpet. I just don't understand.

I personally think carpet is unhygienic really. Id rather have a hard floor with rugs in the winter.

Tiled or wooden floors are best. You can just hoover and mop them. It’s hard to keep carpets really clean no matter what you do.

You’re not being pedantic. It’s worrying having a poorly child. Whether taking shoes off or no makes a difference isn’t the point, if it reassures you people should just do it. Even if it reduces the risk a tiny bit it’s worth it. Hope your little boy is fine from now on.

That is why our house is shoes off and no pets.

Shoes are disgusting. Every time I'm in a public bathroom where people have trouble aiming into the toilet I imagine all that filth stuck on shoes and then transferred onto house floors. Streets are filthy. I've seen some videos of people pooping straight on the pavement when nobody is looking. Puke, urine, feces. Absolutely disgusting. I'm shoe police in my house, my husband knows that he needs to guard the hallway to make sure everyone from his family takes their shoes off. All of my friends and family do it without asking. I don't want my children crawling on the floor covered in random people's bodily fluids 🤮

I don’t know if you realize this, but you actually proved OP’s point. Those floors are dirty because people walk on them with their shoes. If you wouldn’t walk on those floors barefoot yourself, how on earth would you let your baby crawl on them?

Most of my friends and family are shoes‑off households, and the floors in our homes are so clean you could eat off them. But of course, we also clean them all the time.

I would rather that someone wear shoes in my house, then walk around it with bare feet. Especially this sweaty time of year.

I wouldn't dream of asking someone elderly to take their shoes off.

Same. I don’t want to be falling over people’s shoes.

I think if you go to a shows in home then it’s quite rude to take yours off. I don’t want someone’s manky feet on the floors!

They leave their sandals at the door and slide them back on. It takes seconds.

What happens in the summer when everyone is bobbing in and out from garden to kitchen etc. Are people taking shoes on and off all the time!?

You have every right to ask visitors to remove their shoes, and they should do so. Like pps, I’d suggest meeting them at the door.

I expect everyone to take their shoes off in the hallway, but my MIL just walks straight on through with her shoes on. I’m fed up of reminding her and when I do remind her, she acts like she had forgotten. I’m letting DP deal with her next time.

Though, she takes her own shoes off in her flat and expects everyone else to do the same. (It’s something I do automatically when entering someone else’s house anyway.)

It drives me nuts because she doesn’t have the same respect for my home.

I hope your little one is feeling better.

Our parents get a pass, it's harder for them to take them off, we then have a quick floor wipe when they go if it needs it.

Buy your in-laws some slippers to wear within your home. I think they should be respectful of your wishes.

Is he able to walk right in because you don't lock your door or does he have a key? If he has a key take it off him and then make him take his shoes off when you open the door to him.

Never had a shoes off policy (never heard of it til I moved to this country). My kids played on the floor. I also had dogs and cats.
I would give your in laws leave to keep their shoes on.

Have you (or better still DH) tried telling them that the paediatrician said no one should come in your house with outdoor shoes on? Even if that's a slight paraphrasing of the truth, it might work. My PILs think anything I say is complete rubbish but they do respect doctors.

I've also had a DC with repeated hospital admissions (some by ambulance) for oxygen due to breathing difficulties from viruses. It's absolutely terrifying and of course you want to do everything you can to lessen the chance of it happening again, even if just in the short term to give DC a bit of time to recover.

You're not being pedantic. Your ILs are being rude and arrogant. Of course your child could pick up germs from whatever they have walked through on the pavements or grass outside.

On MN you'd think everyone was at one extreme or the other on this subject. In my experience most people are somewhere in between. For example, we generally take shoes off when we come in our house but if I'm bringing in shopping I don't worry about walking through the hall to the kitchen with them on, or even walking over a carpet if I've forgotten to get something from a room just before I go out. If out somewhere muddy then obviously they all get left by the door when we come back in. When going round the house generally we'd have a mixture of bare feet / socks / slippers but sometimes shoes might not come off immediately at the door for whatever reason. I wouldn't sit around with them still on - mainly because it's more comfy to not have them on. I might also go out in garden or on drive with bare feet and not think twice about walking back in without washing my feet (how do 100% shoe off houses feel about this?) We also have pets so it would be silly to stress much about our feet when their feet are never in shoes.

If I go to someone's house I'll generally take them off, unless I notice everyone else has them on. I don't know anyone who thinks much about this issue in real life tbh. I don't get the stress. But then I do think life is easier if you're not stressing about germs and dirt too much.