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

[moomin35]

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

Where are your visitors coming from if they are turning up at your door in mud and poo stained shoes? Do your visitors have to negotiate a field of cows or the pavements of Paris before they arrive at your allowed portals?

IME most people exit their own house into their cars and then exit the car within a few steps of the door, no schleping through mud and obstacles involved.

If you invite guests to a party at your house do you really expect them to remove their shoes and pad around in stockinged or socked feet? If you provide slippers do you supply a range of sizes, styles and fit? Are the slippers one use only?

I'm more interested in my friends and making them feel comfortable and welcome than in their footwear or my carpets/floors and it's reciprocal.

YANBU
We're a 'shoes- off household' much to my DH's annoyance. I'm indian and grew up in one as well. Don't understand why people want to track the outside in.

My parents used to host big parties and gatherings and as was the cultural norm everyone took off their shoes. I used to love guessing which high heels matched which 'Auntie-ji' . Everyone would be in socked feet with their trousers and sarees.

Chocolate most people who visit me tend to step out of a car walk five or six steps up the path and are at the front door, wipe feet on doormat and enter - hardly tracking the outside in.

If I was walking to a party etc I would probably take party shoes in my bag and change when I got there.I most certainly would not stand there is a posh frock and stocking feet but neither would I tramp mud in .

Can't imagine that if the Queen visits somewhere she takes her shoes off , .Perhaps the father in law higher up the thread has ugly feet, many people of that generation had ill fitting shoes as children and may have bunions , or fungal infections , he may feel deeply self conscious .

emotion - do you not walk anywhere ? I only use my car a couple of times a week (in the city), most houses I will get to on foot or public transport.

how do people who come from countries/cultures deal with pets? I sure as hell am never going to get my cats to wipe their feet, therefore anyone else 'bringing the outside in' is neither here nor there.

Also, if you come from a country that has either decently structured floors or is hot, well, that makes sense. In the dear old UK, it can get cold and any house older than about 1950 will be bloody draughty and a swine to keep draught-free.

Honestly, DD has reached the ripe old age of nearly 5, despite crawling about on floors that shoes and cats have walked on and that don't get washed all that often because what's the point when the damned cats will just bring more muddy footprints in and is as robust as you like.

Very much a MN thing- I don't come across it in RL unless you are muddy when common sense says you take them off.

YADNBU

The streets are filthy, that's one of the reasons we wear shoes outside in the first place. I still can't get over seeing people rub the soles of their shoes when sitting cross legged, and worse yet, people wearing shoes on beds. Gahhh.

We're a shoes off household and thankfully we've never had anyone who objected, though I don't think I'd be able to be friends with people who would be so insensitive to others' standards of hygiene and refuse to remove them.

You could get elasticated plastic shoe covers, like the ones they often have in gyms by the swimming pool areas, for people who prefer not to remove their shoes.

emotions, most visitors to my house have come by foot, public transport or both. And your visitors must walk around outside in their shoes sometimes, surely?

I have never understood why people want my bare feet rather than nice clean shoes.

we are a shoes off house and I started relaxing the rules about a year or so go, mostly due to my (lovely) MIL who is elderly and was clearly uncomfortable with it. The results are awful! We are about to move and I am afraid I shall be re-installing the rules.

NB: I have slippers for each member of the family, though, none shared.

I always take my shoes off in other people's houses as well as my own. Most people do say don't worry about it. I would rather that than be asked to take them off.

Years ago when I first moved in I had cream carpets so used to ask everyone to take there shoes off. My friend did and ran straight upstairs to the loo. What she failed to realise is that she had trodden in ash (burnt out car in her works car park) her trousers were a bit long so I had a trail of it all through the hallway up the stairs on the landing in bathroom then all the way back down again. Was a Assache to get off.

I have dark laminate now and have relaxed a bit, I only ask kids to take there shoes off.

Are you going to move and omit to tell MIL your new address?

Very inhospitable and a bit 'common' I'm afraid.

RiverTam I do walk but watch where I am going and as outtolunch said if I walked to a party at a friends house I wouldn't walk there in party shoes but take them in a bag and put them on when I got there!

I'm sure my visitors do walk around outside in their shoes but they haven't yet turned up at the door in mud or poo caked shoes and they do always wipe their feet!

Blanche, see, I think the opposite because my family are as working-class as they come and were always shoes-on.

I think the sentiment that it looks very untidy to be slopping about in socks or slippers is much more 'common' as in Hyacinth Bucket-bourgeois.

I agree Onlylovers.

I disagree.

I love a good shoes off thread,I do

I only know of two households where they prefer guests to remove shoes. I've visited both once each. Both times we were asked to take our shoes off, which we did. We were them asked into the garden, shoeless. Quite bizarre.

We wouldn't dream of expressing a preference. We joked about telling these people we were a shoes on house, so we'd prefer if they kept their shoes on, but of course we didn't want to humiliate or wrongfoot anyone, so we didn't even make that joke.

We don't care what people do as long as they feel welcome.

I agree with Savignon - it's 'common' to care more about your belongings than your guests comfort. Firstly, that uber-expensive Persian rug that was inherited from Great Great Granny is expensive enough to withstand wear and tear - after all, it's lasted the past 200 years and secondly, if we had to replace it, we could easily afford to...

I always wear shoes round the house, or very occasionally slippers. It's a cold house and we have lots of pets who line to chase bare feet! Therefore I never ask guests to go shoes off.

However, whenever I go to other people's houses I always ask if it's shoes off. Happy to do whatever is the norm in their house.

Ah but given that most of us don't actually have priceless rugs inherited from Great Great Granny is it therefore more "common" to pretend that we are too rich to care and have a spare thousand or so hanging around to replace the library carpet every year

Yanbu. I take my shoes off always at other people's houses, I expect the same at mine.

Library atticusclaw you have a library

Ah, regardless, it's still more common to ca more about a carpet than a guest .