To ask visitors to take their shoes off before coming into my home?

[moomin35]

Including my MIL who clearly didn't appreciate being asked!

In shoes

Either buy a carpet cleaner or dont have guests! OR buy flooring people can walk on.

Quite happy not to have guests who object.

Thing is for people who rent we don't have much choice. My landlord put down brand new cream carpets before I moved in. Why I have no idea. I hate the damn things.

wow, this has got really silly. Shoe covers?

if you are in party-wear you are unlikely to have muddy shoes, are you? Just check for dog crap/mud before coming in.

if you've been walking you probably want to take your walking shoes off anyway, and you are also probably intelligent enough to know they have mud on and should not be walked through the house.

if you are wearing fugly stilettos then have the brains to take them off before walking on laminate. I think other surfaces should survive.

BTW I'm currently barefoot in my own house. I can do this without frequently shampooing the carpets because, guess what, we take off mucky shoes.

I use medical shoe covers when visiting premises. Sometimes I am not welcome but always offer to put them on when I visit the cream carpet brigade (seriously, who has cream carpets on the ground floor?).

My view is a good host will not inconvenience a visitor and a good guest will not inconvenience a host. It's about considerate behaviour.
I really do not know any friends or family who are particularly forthright on either view.

if you are wearing fugly stilettos then have the brains to take them off before walking on laminate

I have brains but I had never come across laminate before.

The problem is, many people do not take shoes off, unless wet, muddy and so on, and we all have lovely houses and we all....survive.

So it does seem really control freaky to go to other houses, and have this person standing over ensuring shoes off...one even panicked when picking up child, I took shoe off, went to get child, put shoe on, they slipped away and unwittingly I stepped TWO STEPS back int he house with shoes on, and I could see and feel the panic...

wish i feel for you as a renter i would never want cream carpets.

Wish being in a house with carpets that dont belong to you and could lose you ££ in deposits is a different matter. I am talking about people who spend a fortune on carpets but then object to people walking on them!

As I said above, if you wouldnt ask the Queen to take her shoes off why would you ask me?! (Rental issues aside).

Not everyone hovers over guests with panic In their eyes.

Most of us would politely request or say yes please if asked and leave it at that. No one's banned from coming in and comfortably removing shoes. I don't stand with a whip on the front steps.

I once had cream carpets when I rented. Kept them pretty clean till someone spilt a bottle of red wine over it a week before I was due to move out.

Fair enough. I probably wouldn't buy for my owned home flooring that people can't walk on either.

In many societies it is a cultural expectation to take your shoes off when you come in. You just need to train people. Here in New Zealand (not one of the societies/cultures referred to earlier) people always take off their shoes - probably stems from being a pastoral society and not wanting to tread sheep poo into the house.
Just do it, show by example. Leave a box of lovely felted slippers by the door for anyone new and say "would you mind taking your shoes off, there are slippers if you are cold". How could anyone refuse!! So rude to refuse to take your shoes off!

So fucking rude! Especially offering some used slippers.

I'd leave.

In many societies it is a cultural expectation to take your shoes off when you come in. You just need to train people
Just do it, show by example. Leave a box of lovely felted slippers by the door for anyone new and say "would you mind taking your shoes off, there are slippers if you are cold". How could anyone refuse!! So rude to refuse to take your shoes off!

Yes because we are all naughty toddlers who need to be trained!

It may be a cultural expectation in many cultures but it isnt in ours. It is far ruder to put your guests on edge by asking them to do something that they may feel very uncomfortable about than for them to refuse. At best you could say "there are some slippers there if you want to take your shoes off" but to insist is beyond rude.

This is the UK, not other cultures. Vile to suggest a guest put your sket used slippers on their bare feet.

PILs have been asked on a number of occasions to remove shoes when they visit. Completely ignored. And last time my mother visited, she stepped over the front door mat & wiped her feet on the hall carpet, on the basis that "it doesn't matter as you've not vacuumed yet". I honestly didn't know what to say - she has a strict policy of shoes off in her own house...

By the by, we rent - I would never choose to have a carpet in the front hall!

At best you could say "there are some slippers there if you want to take your shoes off" but to insist is beyond rude.

No at best you could say please pop on these medical shoe covers,

If you get hung up on or feel bad about having no shoes on inside a house where normal people don't wear shoes, the problem isn't your host. It's you. You should probably work on being able to deal with removing shoes given its an every day occurrence.

I probably wouldn't ask the queens to take her shoes off because I would be so taken aback that she'd come to visit, I'd ask you though cos your visit would still be within the realms of normality, where doing polite things like removing shoes is encouraged. There's probably lots of things I'd ask my friends/family to do that I wouldn't ask the queen to do, like pick up some loo roll and milk on the way over.

I dont get hung up or feel bad, at least not for me. I feel bad for anyone so lacking in social awareness that they would rather have uncomfortable guests than risk shoes in the house.

Not my problem at all, I would hang around on the doorstep the first time I was asked and not bother visiting again!

But it never used to be an every day occurrence, when i was younger out of all relatives houses ( large catholic family) from tiny terraces to Large Mansions, never ever told to take shoes off. None of my friends houses growing up ever had this policy...again small modest houses, to large ones with tennis court, pools....same with uni friends...after that never ever ever....

It was only at MILS with her laminate and cream I was baptised ( with fire) into the world of the non walkable on floor.

How so? I have not been squirreled away somewhere in a tiny province....I have been all over the country?

Is it a new thing a sort of middle class I am posh I have control, I have carpets YOU CANT WALK ON. Look at me?
I dont get it?

That implies you get rather hung up about it Bogey

Carlson youd be more than welcome to fuck right off if you were so rude to me after being offered a perfectly clean pair of slippers. Which I don't even usually offer just if people want them. Socks are just fine.

And I assume most people wear socks here in the uk ?!? So wouldn't be barefoot at all.