AIBU to refuse to view a house if I have to remove my shoes?

[iliketea]

I'm happy to be told IABU....

We are currently house hunting. A few of the houses we've requested to view have asked us to remove our shoes at the door. At that point, I've said I'm not viewing a house in my socks and stopped the viewin before it's even started if the shoe thing is non-negotiable.

AIBU? it's not that i mind taking my shoes off when I'm visiting a friend - and generally do take my shoes in friends homes, but I find it weird that if you are trying to sell your house that you expect viewers to take their shoes off.

Or am I likely to miss a really great house and just suck it up / make sure i've got non-holey, matching socks wheb we go to view a house?

Yes, valiumredhead, that is a good idea! Like lots of other new things, it would only seem odd the first few times and then rapidly become accepted as normal practice.

I always feel slightly embarrassed when car mechanics put those plastic covers on my car seats to avoid getting them dirty. It makes me think that I am Hyacinth Bouquet in their minds. Either that or they don't want to get dog hair and old chewing gum all over their nice oily overalls.

Of course YABU. I wouldn't wait to be asked to remove them - I always take them off and feel really weird about it if I am walking around a house with them on.

It is the only polite to do and besides, I have a horror of accidentally walking mud or worse into somebody's house.

I am sure the vendors do want to sell their homes too but chances are, if you have had multiple viewings anyway, it wouldn't have been you that bought it. No skin off their nose and their house hasn't been trampled on by somebody who has no respect for another person's home.

Yabu.
We always take our shoes off at the door. We sold and moved last year and always asked the vendor if they wanted us to remove our shoes. I kind of preferred it if they did want shoes off indoors as I think it shows they are house proud and more likely to maintain their house nicely.

On the other hand, if viewers came to view and didn't offer to remove shoes I would probably feel rude asking them to do so but they all did.

Do you people with the shoe covers actually hand them out at the door to guests?

No, we ask visitors (politely) to please remove their shoes!

My mother doesn't hand out shoe covers to guests but she does give them out to the carers who come to look after my father. There are 4 lots a day. That is a lot of cleaning if they don't cover their shoes and they make a mess. Plus for them, it saves time. They are only there 10 minutes or so. They don't have to faff about taking their shoes on and off (they don't often wear slip-ons) and there is nowhere in the hall to sit and do up shoe laces. None of them care - their job is help and making more cleaning for my mum isn't helping much.

YABU

a) it's someone else's house so you should do as they ask. It's no biggie.
b) what if one of the houses you stomped away from is The One?

I will add that I find people who freak out about shoes being worn in their house to be utterly bizarre. Also for all those who say it's the 'polite' thing to always take your shoes off when going into someone's house. Not in my house pal! Keep your shoes on, I don't want people padding around in their sweaty socks. Thank you!

I wouldn't occur to me in a month of Sundays to take my shoes off when entering someone else's home (although would do it if requested), I know no one who does this. No one.

You'd be doing them a favour - you sound awkward to deal with from the outset!

I don't know anyone who does it, either, squoosh. I'm always astonished at how widespread it seems to be on MN.

Everyone apart from my dad offers to take their shoes off and he only doesn't as he's a cantankerous old goat

I can't remember the last time a child didn't take their shoes off at the door.

Well, MN is a special and enlightened place.

I always take my shoes off. It was the rule when I was young and I've never known anyone who left their shoes on past the front door.

agree that shoes-off-in-all-circumstances is considerably more prevalent on MN than I've experienced in real life.

my job takes my into people's homes very frequently. In 10 years I've been asked to remove my shoes in only two households, both families being from the middle east.

My carpets are not nothing special but I am on the floor a lot playing with my DC.

I don't want to lie/sit on a floor that people has walked on with their shoes.

Exactly, Forty!

I am always astonished at the number of people who have a problem with taking their shoes off in other people's houses. Why? You walk on the dirty streets picking up who knows what and then tread it into someone else's (or your own) carpet? Why would you want to do that?

We have wooden floors but when DD was a baby we bought a rug for our living room. As it was new and clean I thought it was an ideal opportunity to keep a nice clean area for her to crawl around on and, of course, we could wash the wooden floors as necessary. So I started asking visitors to remove their shoes when I hadn't before, always with an explanation about why. I was astonished at how much of an issue this was for people, even some close friends and family. In the end, I gave up as it was just too hard and people kept complaining.

I am still about their attitude though.

Every house we viewed here in Sweden had two little bags of shoe covers at the door - one for the clean ones and one to return once you'd finished viewing. To be fair, it is the done thing to take your shoes off inside here (kids even have inside shoes for school, so you go in your boots/whatever and change into birkenstocks or crocs or slippers once inside). The guys who delivered our new lounges managed to put on shoe covers at the door while bringing the lounge in - I felt bad because I was walking round our house in trainers, because I wa going to steam clean all the floors the next day having just moved in.

For visitors I do have a small collection of slippers in the entrance hall, sat by the shoe storage seat.

I just know I'd have nothing in common with someone who insisted on shoes off all the times. It all seems a bit highly strung.

p.s. my home is immaculate, I don't have carpets, I have wooden floors. Very easy to clean.

Don't visit Japan or Korea then

Wooden floors puts you in a slightly different position, squoosh as you could clean them properly every day if you wanted to. With carpets and rugs, daily hovering would not remove ingrained dirt from people's shoes.

If you mean by "highly strung" over-fussy or pernickety, I don't agree - I think that standards of health and hygiene have simply risen, to the extent that most people now prefer not to have outdoor shoes inside.

'to the extent that most people now prefer not to have outdoor shoes inside.'

And yet I know not of a single solitary person who asks people to take their shoes off when entering their house.

It must be regional.

I have wooden floors and tiles downstairs,I don't want to be cleaning them every time someone comes in.

squoosh - It is lower middle class actually