To expect people to take there shoes off? Sorry rant ahead!

[Damash12]

We've recently had a new carpet and it's not f@@;ing rocket science to see we have added a shoe rack near the back door but why do people look at you with a put out expression when they ask the question "do I need to take my shoes off?" and you reply "yes". And what's worse is those that know but still choose to walk in and just not bother or the best one, those that keep their shoes on and bloody tip toe around the place, like that makes it ok. I've actually had 1 visitor roll there eyes when I've asked them to come round the back, it's about 5 yards FFS!! Rant over!

This is why I do not invite people into my house!

mrs rajesh why stop at covers on shoes and ask for a full nuclear suit|? maybe even wash down lab too.

people with small dc -= crawling etc, fine, i usually go to take my shoes off.

i dont like people going on about it to me though in that horrid neurotic way. sometimes if its really raining i make us all take shoes off - sometimes i dont.

i wouldnt force others to take thiers off even if we had a strict shoe policy, primarliy because they are our guests and i trust they would remove thier shoes should they have walked in dog shit.

it reminds me of people who have plastic over their sofas and carpets

I've not heard of this! Tell me more!! I love hearing stories of such bonkersness.

I'm 40+. Amongst my friends it's common that our mothers chided their carpets.

They were a MAJOR £££ outlay. As kids we had to hover in our own homes.

No way you walked on the carpet of your mum, granny, auntys or your mums friends with shoes on. Well, not unless you fancied early, painful death.

And you know what. They weren't BU. Just do it.

what about people who have resonable size houses but force lots of people into one small room because they refuse to accomodate them in thier one larger special room that gets used a few times a year?

Fecking IPAD.

Chided = cherished

Mydarling are you my best friend? We have our sitting room upstairs from our front door. Most times guests congregate in our kitchen or family room downstairs.

My friends tease that they are not allowed "above stairs"

I'm 40 plus too. My grandmother, mother and aunts would no sooner have removed their shoes in public than they'd have run round the yard in their underwear.

same here schnitzel, no way my DM would be happy taking shoes off or her sisters.
unbeliveble the status that a peice of crappy carpet has got in our society these days, and often they arnt even bloody great.

a peice of art - a silk persion rug, or hand woven shiraze rug....works of art you may not want someone stepping on, but your crappy oat meal shite from carpet right?????

Shoes in the home are just so disgusting, I am genuinely shocked and people who think it's not.

My grandmother, mother, aunts etc wouldn't have been stupid enough to buy a cream carpet either

One of my friends has laminate flooring throughout her house and she asks all visitors to remove their shoes. WHY?????

because you have fecking pebbles attached to your soles from the pavement and stilettos and make nasty marks on my kitchen floor that's why

no schnitzel, one of my aunts still has the same carpet from about 25 years ago, it looks as good as new, really fab quailty wool, deep, has seen 5 dc - 4 boys one girl and numerous GC over it. not a pattern i would choose but certainly for its age not a bad pattern either.
wise lady.

i have pine floor boards - old victorian house, little marks in them is something that has never ever crossed my mind. i dont think the marks detract away from them in any way shape or form?

i have however been educated in just how unsuitable laminate is as a floor meant to be walked on by my MIL who has spent and caused many tense uptight anxious moments over the potential damager to her floor, from heels, water marks etc. what fun it was to be there.

I'm a shoes off person and always ask when I first visit. Since my standard daytime footwear is a pair of filthy Calgary Yard Boots, a lot of people do say please take them off...

I don't expect my own visitors to take shoes off though. Carpet is thoroughly trashed by dogs, children and aforementioned Calgary Yard Boots, when I've been in a hurry and failed to change into slippers when unloading six tons of shopping or similar.

Agree with Schnitz and Clem My parents / Grandparents / older relatives have never taken shoes off as they walked in, unless coming off the farm, and generally, they walked a lot more than this generation do, as we tend to use cars a lot more.
Once me Dad's carer had tied his shoes in the morning, he wouldn't be able to bend to undo them / put them on again afterwards either - would you still make him take his shoes off OP ? What about my lovely neighbour, who has MS, and needs special supports in her shoe ? Or the Mum at school who has one leg shorter than the other and has a built up shoe ? Or someone who is heavily pregnant ?
At what point did carpets (which used to be designed to be floor coverings - ie, surfaces specifically designed to be walked upon) become more precious than family and friends ?

When I was little it was always the richer kids in the new build houses (but not the actually properly posh ones) that took shoes off. They all had cream carpets and leather suites and pebbles in dishes on their mantelpiece. They had people round for dinner parties and kept the tv in a little special cupboard, and went on holiday to centre parks...

Those objecting because a baby might crawl where a shoe has been that has been outside... What do you do when your baby crawls when it is outside? Or is it only allowed to crawl on middle class carpet?

I'm another that would make a note not to return to a house where they insisted I went shoeless. I can see the idea with children, who clamber on stuff and so on, but grownups should be able to decide what clothes they wear.

Besides, I often don't bother with leg shaving or matching socks when I wear my boots, so it would rather spoil my outfit :-)

In the summer, if it is too hot for boots or clarks, I break out the birkenstocks, which are practically slippers anyway, so removing them would be ok, because they fall off anyway.

What do you do about pets? Remove their paws?

Ha MrsRajesh when i grew up in the 80's, people in my family who were very 'new money' (my nan and aunties who grew up in slum housing but had 'made something of themselves' ie married someone with a job, used to put on posh voices like hyacinth bucket and now thought they were better than everyone etc) would buy cream carpet and sofas but then have them covered in plastic covers. They would hover over you at gatherings in a joyless way. They also had posh dining rooms for 'special' occasions. It all just smacked of trying too hard to be posh. Real posh people wouldn't give a shit.

Maybe humans will evolve to have furry hobbit/rabbit feet which don't require shoes as a direct result of the shoes on/shoes off debate...

:)

People who ask visitors to remove their shoes before entering their home are imo just fucking weird. I can't even comprehend being that anal.

'form follows function' people. what things look like should come secondary to its purpose. the purpose of floor is to be walked one. total madness. have a practical floor that you can afford to maintain.

Historically, houses in many parts of the UK would have had compressed dirt floors and presumably that's behind the cultural lack of shoe removal compared to the likes of Japan (with their nice reed matting).

An old guy my Dad knew still lived in a croft with dirt floors in the 1970s-blew my mind as a 5 year old when we went to visit.

My grandmother, great aunts and aunts would take their shoes off in the house of a close family member. But they would have brought their slippers with them. Family don't judge your bunions. Well, only in a lighthearted, teasing way!

Go to someone's house for a party / dinner and take their shoes off? Not in a million - those heels were part of the outfit and mattered .

I learnt from the best, most glamorous women I've ever had the privilege to know.

These threads always end up coming down to supposed class issues. :) It will now deteriorate into how posh/MC/working class we all are, and IIRC it doesn't make a whit of difference. People with dogs tend to not be as bothered by the shoe thing, as the dogs aren't exactly checking their paws at the door. Someone will mention Hyacinth Bucket if they haven't already. etc.

I can easily say I have friends from various walks of life and the majority, if not all of them, prefer shoes off. Almost none of them would dream of asking someone to do so; most just do so automatically from my experience. They certainly wouldn't ask a guest to come around to the back door for the special shoe removal ceremony, which the OP is saying she does.

I love shoe threads!

personally i just dont want to waste my time getting worked up over a carpet.

i have enough things to worry about - people to worry about I mean etc, i just wouldnt want the extra stress.

i do love the feel of persian rugs under foot, and i would love one one day, so if i took shoes off it would be so i could feel it, but i wouldnt get one if it meant sweating over its preservation.

i also dont get people with clumsy childrne who fill home with cream carpets etc.