To think wearing shoes indoors is disgusting?

[CJ2010]

I have a 'No shoes worn in the home' rule at my own house but I have noticed that a lot of people are not fussed if peps walk into their houses with their shoes on. Why do they allow this?

Last night when I arrived at my mum's, she ordered me not to enter the living room, as she had accidentially trod dog poo through the room and was busy scrubbing the floor. All because she bizzrely wears her shoes in her home. How hard is it to take your shoes off in the hallway, once you get home?

I tried to hide my annoyance as it is her home, but I wouldn't allow DD to crawl about on the floor. The room stunk of poo and i felt sick.

AIBU?

If any of my friends made me take my shoes off I would avoid ever going to their house.
If my shoes were covered in mud / dog poo / engine oil, I'd take them off without being asked.

Re wiping...slight digression but I remember on the House of Tiny Tearaways a seven year old who wouldn't eat soup or anything which might splash and make a mess, apparently as the parents had been so fastidious about not ever letting them get messy face or hands as a toddler when eating. He did get over it, but the poor thing was literally terrified of soup!

Since then it has stuck in my mind never to go OTT with cleanliness. Getting messy is good.

ohgod MrsH - DS2 went through a phase of wanting to be clean all the time and be utterly distraught if he got mucky - DS3 (3) still insists on going and washing his hands mid meal if he's got stuff on them sometimes.

It's rather alarming - I'm a slattern at the best of times (thankfully DS2 grew out of it and is quite happy to covered himself from head to toe in muck now given the chance and as DS3 is only funny over greasy hands in the middle of the meal I'm hping he'll grow out of it too)

YANBU - and plenty of other cultures would agree with you. in the UK we wear shoes because we come from a spit and sawdust culture where the floor was basically a sort of rubbish dump and food would be eaten from a table - with scraps etc discarded on the floor.

other cultures eat sat on the floor and tend to have a more hygenic outlook on the need to keep shoes that have walked outdoors away from floors.

YANBU but I suspect I have a bit of a problem with this issue. I much, much prefer it if people take their shoes off in my house. It's not the state of the carpets (although not having to clean mud off them is a bonus) so much as the thought of the dc and I playing on a floor that's had oil, dog shite and goodness-only-knows trailed into it.

As for the poster who said people like me had better have dettol ready for when the dc get older and have stomach bugs due to their weak immune systems... what rot! My dc play out in the mud. Neither of them are averse to eating food that's fallen on the floor. They roll around the playground and school field - they are really not lacking in their exposure to dirt and that's the way it should be. I just don't see why, in our own home, we should regularly have to sit on/crawl round in a soup of pavement pollutants.

MIL sometimes doesn't take her shoes off but she's kind of like the queen, so I let her off. She says it's because her feet hurt if not in heels. I see this as a salient reminder about the perils of only ever wearing heels, but there we are. Funnily enough, we all have to take our shoes off in her house.

I went to party recently where we were all asked to remove our shoes at the door. LOL.So we all mingled in our socks, tights, barefeet...everyone was laughing at the hosts behind their backs.

And they have cats!!!!

So we all mingled in our socks, tights, barefeet...'

I'd have left.

DH was mortified.

I almost pissed myself laughing...it was surreal.

I had to toss up between showing my flesh coloured pop socks (which I had under boots) or barefeet. At least I have regular pedis so I wnet that way...fucking cold mind you and my feet were on that cat-licked-arse-then-paws-walked-on-wood floor.

Friend kept her pink socks on...which looked pretty funky with a Maxmara tunic and leggings.

I did take my shoes off at a friends house over Christmas (where shoes are sometimes, and sometimes not taken off)..............but that was because we were playing on the Wii and I kept stumbling in my heels

I always have rather lurid coloured socks on in my boots no matter how dressed up I look at first glance

No shoes in my house it's dirty.

The streets are covered in puke, gob, dog shit and god knows what else in West London and I doubt the rest of the country is any different.

Not in my house, I sit on the floor.

At one point I was trying to have a conversation with a historian about whether historical fiction promotes interest in the subject or panders to modern tastes for everything to be stimulating...and I couldn't take my eyes off the spuds in his socks.

OP, imo YANBU.

I guess it depends how you view shoes, though.

I see them as outdoor wear so, they are taken off on arrival home.

Those of you who wear shoes in the house-do you put them on when you get dressed & keep them on all day?

Do you take them off if for example if you put your feet on the sofa?

If you wear shoes at work all day, do you not wantto take them off as soon as you get home to let your feet relax?

I just wouldn´t feel comfortable with shoes on in the house.

Good job I live in Germany!

Not liking people's attitude here. EXPATINSCOTlAND no....not every time...just when we leave.

As for Wordfactory.....being PROUD of sniggering behind her hosts backs! Nice. Classy.

Ryoko and SmashingSM you both put it very well for me.

Yes...as diddl says..."Do you take them off when you putyour feet on the sofa?"

And if you do... do you leave them by the sofa with the filth of the street on them....next to the place where you might be eating and drinking?

Gross.

'being PROUD of sniggering behind her hosts backs! Nice. Classy.'

Forcing your guests to walk round with cold feet, yes, very classy indeed.

Only the British could decide that if one does( or does not) remove shoes denotes class

TOO funny ...this type of thread reminds me why the UK is a very silly/funny place to be sometimes .

There is nothing wrong with guests removing shoes ...it is the sensible and clean option .

I do however ,see that at an evening party for adults ~it would be a kind of difficult and weird rule to enforce .
Most of the women (for sure) will have spent weeks working out what lovely shoes to wear, to top off their outfits !

Well my shoes are all comfortable - so I frequently only realise I still have them on when I want to curl up on the sofa.

Just get yourself a decent door mat and wipe your feet when you go in. Honestly they pick up an enormous amount of crap. Goes without sayinig that muddy, wet or poor smeared shoes get taken off at the door though. Not sure why you think we walk with said shoes on the floor obviously they're going to make a mess.

exH put a strict "no shoes in the house" policy when I moved out..........funnily enough when I viisted to pick the DS's up early one Sunday morning the carpet was just like it had been when we lived there and wore shoes through it. It had been properly cleaned not long before I moved out and we'd lived there for 5yrs previously so I knew what it would have looked like one year later.

"do you leave them by the sofa with the filth of the street on them....next to the place where you might be eating and drinking?"

yep - they usually end up next to the sofa.........but then I often eat and drink at cafe which have tables on the street and I've never yet had any dirt jumping up off the pavement and onto my plate

I generally don't sit on the floor to eat at home either...

If the hosts did not have enough heating on then that's bad...but sniggering about someone who as invited you into their home is dreadful.

Yes doely...class has nothing to do with it. I was called a "chav" earlier for saying that shoes on inside is dirty.

Interesting that it's only lower middle class and working class people who think it's ok to call people names like that ad they're the first to spout about "being common".

In my experience the people with real class would never have the bad manners to notice such things and they would never point the finger and label others.

Bumble -not cream carpets, wooden floors. And as I say, they have cats which as we all know lick the shit off their arses, lick their paws, then walk about.

SJK I'm not remotely classy, I'm afraid. However, I wasn't alone in finding it hilarious, everyone was pissing themselves.

One chap, offered to take off his trousers in case he brought any germs from the street.

Maybe that's the future...naked parties. Or maybe those CSI suits???

I can't speak for all house-shoe wearers but I don't keep mine on all day, I may keep them on after the school run, always take off after work and who would keep their shoes on to put feet up on a sofa? I have wood and ceramic downstairs, mopped reg. My floors are probably cleaner than a lot of carpets that never see a shoe. (I said 'most' and 'probably' before anyone defensive has a pop).

I don't put my shoes on the table either, there are some standards

Before I joined MN I had no idea anyone had a rule about no shoes in house.
Surely we just all follow the way we were brought up?
Best way to keep my house clean would be to keep my toddler outside, actually.

You wouldn't have the sort of formal party where people dress up in someone's home, would you? If I went to someone's house I'd be fully expecting to take my shoes off, I thought this was normal - sometimes people even bring slippers to change into!