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

[moomin35]

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

I don't hoover my floor most days ( sometimes not most weeks...)

I always think you'd have to not really like someone anyway, if their indoor footwear desires were enough to out you off visiting, I mean when you love someone, as a friend, family, partner, whatever, surely you don't fixate on something small like that and decide not to visit them again! Not if you love them and. Trust them and enjoy their company and care about them.

Would any of you really drop a friend because of shoes? Honestly?

The only person I know who does (well, used to, they've since married a neat freak ) shoes in the house is my best friend. Used to drive me nuts, but I never made a massive fuss because she's my best friend and it's not worth falling out over something so trivial, FGS!

I expect it evens out as people find similar friends. People on here have said that they wouldn't want me around,which is fine. I wouldn't want to spend much time with people obsessive about carpets and I wouldn't want to spend any time with some one who offers me slippers!

Iwas a,kid at the time and felt so,sorry for hers. Clothes all,folded neatly in drawers, beds with hospital corners. Shoes in shoeboxes, label facing out, on wardrobe shelf etc etc. None of the usual stuffed toys etc. The woman had problems with OCD I would guess.

In my family, it's the norm to bring your own slippers with you when visiting.

Keys? Wallet? Lipstick? Slippers?

Yep, I'm ready to go.

Well, that's a silly rule, Bogey, because you're unlikely to have the Queen "pop in" unless you have paid staff to clean for you! She's not likely to just rock up in her muddy, corgi-poo embellished wellies hoping for a cup of tea and a natter, is she? If she were to visit, it would be pre-arranged, and measures would be taken, surely?

You are missing the point. Grandmas point was that if you wouldnt ask one guest to take their shoes off (for example) because of who they are, why would you ask anyone else? In her eyes, and in mine, all guests are equal. As for the pp who said "well you wouldnt ask the Queen to get you milk or loo roll" no I woulnd tbecause she would be a guest, I wouldnt ask other guests either. I would ask family and my closest friends because I consider my home to be their home in that they can come round when they like, make themselves a drink, have some food if they want. They are not "guests" to me.

foxglove

They didnt keep toys in a suitcase under the bed by any chance did they? If so then I think you know my cousins (and my OCD aunt!).

And I'll say again that I don't think it's a generational thing as in my whole time on the planet I've only been asked to take my shoes off once. No one I know has this rule and I know a lot of people.

Hmmm, there may have been a stash of toys under the beds. We had to stand on the plastic if we had a drink, too, in case we spilt it.

But Giles, most people avoid rubbish and how have we all survived, without taking shoes off?

We are here, well, and just fine in lovely houses, with all those germs..

You can understand why to such people it does seem a little precious...

Keys? Wallet? Lipstick? Slippers?Medical shoe covering

Stilettos will damage real wood floors but won't do a thing to laminate, it's rock hard, that's one of the selling points

I have real wood floors its never ever occurred to me they would be damaged by having siteltos on them. I guess it depends on your look...I like my floors I have never got on bended knee however looking for small holes in them.

It's not precious, it's just different norms and expectations.
Otherwise we could argue that you're being precious to say you are such a delicate flower that been asked to remove your shoes has you fainting in horror. But I'm not saying that, I'm saying what's completely normal and good manners to me is different to what normal and good manners to you...and that's ok.

Almost all my friends where I live now have a shoes-off rule at their houses. I hate it and think it's bad manners. I know someone who had this rule and then developed bunions at which point they kept going on about how rude it was expecting people to take their shoes off which made me laugh (the changing opinions, not the bunions - bunions are no laughing matter).

When I was growing up no one did this. (Though I grew up in a v draughty Victorian house so you'd want to put extra layers on when you entered, not take them off).

PMd you fox!

But Yoni, a shoe wearer in a perfectly lovely house being told to take shoes off, you can see how it can be seen to be precious?

Maybe originally there were only two families, the shoes off and the shoes on, and we are all just descendants of those two families

The great divider, is this the real difference between people? We gravitate to our own kind..shoe on or shoe off...

Is it a neouvo riche thing? SP.

A way to try and assert your superiority over people, not saying people do it now...but maybe this was the origins of how this started ....the cream carpet laminate brigade an ad campaign long forgotten?

Some of my wood floors have stilletto marks. I never realised... I would never wear stilletos on hard floors now but then I don't really wear them very much anyway.

Taking slippers to peoples homes is what you do at christmas in our family. I.e when you will be there all day :)

And no, not everyone wears socks, although I try to remember when visiting a friend where they have a no shoe policy. Generally, I wear uggs or flip flops - without socks..

Like I said, if the person who lives there is someone I'm happy to see, then I really couldn't care less how much care they take looking after their carpets, it's just one of those things.
I think we are definitely two tribes and we can choose to be pitched against each other in an eternal battle, or we can choose to embrace each other regardless of difference in indoor shoe wearing opinion.

I'm not precious about mud. Or dust or a but of dirt. But I don't want to wear my own shoes in the house when I walk through the town became although I can avoid what I can see that doesn't stop me trading in things I can't. Some things splatter so you avoid the big obvious bits but that doesn't mean traces haven't washed a few feet away in the rain. And I sure as he'll can't spot everything in the dark so do you all have night vision goggles or just stay in the house?

Some things splatter

they sure can!

I am getting a medieval picture of the kind of place you live in giles, I know streets are filthy and if I think about it a lot, I become paranoid and in the past I have imposed a shoe off rule, but literally two days later, its forgotten. we take our shoes off when its been wet. That's it.

We are still here. Alive.

I would never wear stilletos on hard floors now But why not? Look at old floors in older houses? Have you ever noticed a stiletto mark?

But then I love antiques, things that look worn and loved, I even love.....books that look read and loved...I don't care about pages turned down ...

I find it rude if someone asks me to take my shoes off but have rarely encountered it. It may stem from my mother in the 70s it was what the working classes did. No idea if that is true.
To me it is like someone asking me to keep my coat on as I enter the house and leave it on throughout dinner.
I don't think I own a pair if slippers but would like to meet the people of have baskets of them for guests. I just can't picture anyone doing that.

I like wooden floors to have some wear and tear. Gives them a bit of character. My floors are over 100 years old, bet they've seen some filthy splatter in their time.

It is normal to me, a house that actually looks lived in.

Yes ago when I was not my own employer I went to a clients house for an appointment. Unfortunately the tax payer ended up replacing her brand new flooring because of the damage my shoes did