What does 'wear slippers in the house' mean to you?

[BurpeesAreTheWorkOfTheDevil]

I've had the carpets professionally cleaned and bought everyone new slippers so they don't get dirty as quickly.

Would you think that means.

1. walk into porch, change into slippers and go into house
2. walk through porch, into house, into living room and put slippers on sitting on settee

There's a disagreement in my house atm

Isn't lack of exposure to bacteria supposed to hamper the immune system? Isn't the theory that this is what is behind the increase in allergies?

There is a limit of course - dog mess throughout the house is unsafe, but a bit of dust and dirt won't harm your health and might help.

He's being deliberately stupid because he doesn't like the rule. He's probably fine about it applying to everyone else, just not him.

The thing is you have done everything - you;ve had the carpets cleaned, you've bought the slippers, you explained your desire for people to wear slippers, you;ve put a shoe rack in place.

All he has to do is take off his shoes and put on his slippers - something a four year old can do with ease. But he has chosen not to - it must be because he doesn't want to, it is impossible that it is because he can't. So total lack of respect for the effort you have put into getting your carpet cleaned. If it doesn't matter to him, it doesn;t matter full stop.

Hope he dealt with the dog mess (I means seriously, whether you have a slippers in house rule or not - who doesn't check small kids for dog's mess before they come in - dog's mess and kid's = magnet and iron filings.)

Is there a 1.5?

I'm going against the grain and saying I think YABU to ask people to change on the porch, while essentially outside.

I think people should change in the front hall (1.5). If your house opens straight onto the living room, then change at the door (have a welcome mat there), rather than walking across the room to the sofa.

euro my kids spend most of their time outdoors, no need for the bacteria from dog faeces on the bottom of shoes to transfer itself to their hands if they sit or lie on the floor. Even if people pick up after their dogs you walk in the remnants of dog shit when you walk down most streets.

Is it an enclosed indoor porch, or an open-fronted storm porch?

I would say shoes off just inside the front door, so in the hallway or in the porch if it’s an indoor one.

Hope your husband is currently cleaning up the dogshit and disinfecting the carpets.

According to my DH it means do some gardening, water the lawn, walk through the mud picking up bits of grass, then come in, walk through every room in the house looking for his slippers, realise they're by the back door, walk back to the back door then change into slippers.

Why walk all that dirt and worse through your house when you can leave it at the door?

Don't you have doormats and then rugs in the hall to absorb the dirt?

I don't have a porch, or slippers. I brought a pair of flip flops into hospital (not great though as I had TED stockings on which more or less covered my toes.)

Sometimes we take our shoes off, sometimes we don't. There's no rule. I've very rarely been asked to when visiting others TBH.

I have the immune system of an ox.I haven't had a cold or bug for over three years, bar a UTI following a hysterectomy, which is par for the course after a hysterectomy.

LTB -Locked in the porch until slippers are on feet and shoes on rack!

Obviously out of the 2 it would be No 1. But personally I would not be putting on any slippers 'provided for me,' I would just walk about in my socks. No way am I wearing someone else's manky slippers that many other people have worn.

I always find people asking you to remove your shoes quite hilarious, because the of the 4 people I know who insist on it, 2 of them have really manky, dirty, grotty houses. The carpets are filthy. After the first 2 times of going, my feet and socks felt so grubby that I refused to go again. Each time I got home, I had to wash my socks and have a shower, as their house was so grubby.

I think some people think it makes them middle class if they insist people remove their shoes. It doesn't. And it's a bit weird to ask people to remove their shoes when your house is a filthy shit-tip anyway.

I rarely ask people to remove their shoes, and will only ask them if it's extremely wet and their shoes are muddy. Most of the time they have only come in from the car, 10 feet away from our front door, and the vast majority of people don't have dirty, muddy shoes,covered in dog shit! As some of the histrionic posts on here are suggesting!

I like people to be comfortable in my house, and not feel that the first thing I am going to do when they turn up at my house, is jump on them and demand they take their shoes off! I am sure the 'remove your shoes' brigade will insist they don't do that. I can assure you that your guests will feel like that way though.

Sorry but insisting everyone removes their shoes (when they are not even dirty) and forcing them to wear slippers is a bit weird, and frankly rude and unwelcoming. Whenever anyone asks me to remove my shoes, (when it isn't even wet or muddy and my shoes are clean,) I think (just for a second or two,) 'you're a bit of an obnoxious, precious twat aren't you?' And it puts me off going to their house again.

Obviously an exception would be made for very muddy shoes, but I'm in London, so that rarely happens.

We have (immaculate) cream carpets. The only time we remove our shoes is when it's wet outside. I consider asking visitors to do so very rude.

Definitely No1 but I am not a fan of shoes being in an outside porch, simply because I hate donning cold damp feeling shoes in the winter, especially wellies.

In my house its shoes off at the shoe rack, slippers, socks or nothing on feet. My parents won't listen though and always wear their shoes and my dad always tramps something revolting through the house. Its like he goes out of his way to find it outside.

If you can't get your DH to conform, thats fine, say its his job to clean the floors. We have a scabby old carpet. DH wanted to tack it to new stairs we've put in for comfort. I said thats fine but he can hoover it. We don't have the scabby carpet anymore .

I think some people think it makes them middle class if they insist people remove their shoes.

I think it is the opposite, the higher the social class the less likely you are to be expected to remove your shoes.

I would have said that removing shoes is a working and lower middle class thing?

It's not uptight to be clean.

We take shoes off in the hall, and our family also have pretty robust constitutions. Dogshit on the floor doesn’t automatically confer some kind of super immune status.

I don't think it's a class thing, I think it's a cleanliness thing. I was educated with incredibly wealthy children. Some had shoes off rules, some didn't. Some of the larger properties provided house shoes or slippers for guests, I assume to preserve expensive rugs.

It's not uptight to be clean

No but it’s trendy on MN to insult people for choices they make in their own home, and wanting to be clean and keep things good.

Doesn’t work the other way around though.

Sorry but insisting everyone removes their shoes (when they are not even dirty) and forcing them to wear slippers is a bit weird, and frankly rude and unwelcoming. Whenever anyone asks me to remove my shoes, (when it isn't even wet or muddy and my shoes are clean,) I think (just for a second or two,) 'you're a bit of an obnoxious, precious twat aren't you?' wink And it puts me off going to their house again.

Comments like these are acceptable, but not wanting to go into a filthy house you’d be accusing of judging

I’m guessing your dh just wants to sit down to change shoes. Can you put a bench or chair in the porch? I have some shoes/boots that don’t come off easily and I’d much rather have deposited my bag and coat and sat down before unlacing/unzipping rather than Hop about in the doorway fully laden.

Nobody takes their shoes off because they "think it makes them middle class"

The fucking snobbery in that sneer!

Everyone knows horseshit covered wellies on in the kitchen and big muddy dogs on the furniture and an unidentified fossilized animal poo on the carpet under the sofa is (upper) middle class. Some people just don't want to live like that.

In that situation it would be 1. But I hate the whole no shoes indoors thing so I would feel very uncomfortable going to someone's house who insisted on no shoes.

We have hard floor in hall and a big basket for removal of shoes. I see my kids looking when we go to other people's houses and if they see shoe racks then they remove their shoes too. We have cream carpets (not my choice) and so began this shoe removal madness

What has DH had to say about the dogshit?

I take it that it's him who will be cleaning it up.

In this case, it very much depends on the porch. If it's glassed and visible from the outdoors, I'd hate to be bending over and taking shoes on and off with the world on view.

We tend not to wear shoes in the house in recent years, since my oldest toddler began a muddy-puddle jumping habit. But We remove them in the hall, or occasionally pad about the house a bit in shoes to do something urgent like answer the phone or put the shopping in the fridge on a hot day. I also would never ask a guest to remove theirs and I think that is hugely unwelcoming and often rude.

For people who claim shoes indoors are "rank" or "grim", please tell me how you cope with office environments or schools or restaurants where everybody is wearing their shoes. What is different about your home flooring that suddenly makes this so disgusting?

In my house we have a porch which is actually more like a first hall then the actual hall. It's all wood floor downstairs except the living room. So everyone takes off their shoes in the first hall and puts on slippers. Then you have to take off your slippers to go in the living room. I'm probably nuts but my carpet is lovely 🤷🏻‍♀️