To think some people are a bit precious about shoes in house

[VikkiStMichael1]

I visit someone weekly with work and use a room which is literally 6 foot steps from the front door yet I have to take my shoes off.

AIBU to feel this is a tad annoying?

CaptainsYuleLog have socks (not to mention slippers etc etc) not made it to your part of the world? Do you a d your friends and acquaintances go barefoot in your boots? If so then yes, you probably have disgusting feet!

Well, blueskies. Funnily enough in summer people wear sandals without socks in these parts. How odd that they do wear socks in your part of the world.

Very rude to expect visitors to bring slippers with them. If I have a dinner party and people have chosen their outfits with care I'm not going to be rude enough to tell them to bring slippers with them. That's plain ridiculous. We have a hoover and a cleaner.

If people arrive in muddy boots they don't need to be asked to remove them, they just do, although that rarely happens here. Muddy boots stay in the car and shoes are put on.

blueskiesandforests
You misunderstood me 😁 No excess dog hair or cat shit here. There is a well used hoover and mop though.

Yes, quite, you take your cue from your hosts.
Then choose whether you want to go back and feel as though you are on the back foot all the time.

CaptainsYuleLog why the athletes foot and dead skin over the house comment if people who have muddy bots manage to change their shoes without spreading fungal infections and skin flakes around your house?

In countries where people always remove shoes in houses the same way they remove coats and other outerwear these problems dont happen.

It seems people upset by shoe removal all have fungal infections, no way of covering feet except their street shoes, and are constantly attending an endless round of dinner parties involving a focus on outfits and coordinated outdoor footwear...

As for just wiping shoes on door rug being enough - boots and shoes with 'treads' on them to stop slipping hold the dirt in the treads - then when they dry out the dirt falls off in clumps. So one door map wipe doesn't work.

I don’t know anyone with a shoes on house who would keep shoes on with mud between the treads. You’re imagining things that don’t happen (in the same way as all the fungal infections perhaps)

I'm "shoes" off in the living room but the hall and dining room are hard floor - I let folk walk to the dining room if they can't just kick them off. It's not just "older people" who can struggle getting shoes on and off.

Plenty of young folk have autoimmune diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis or collagen based disorders such as EDS. These examples can mean a teenager could be just as unable to get their boots off stood in a hall than an elderly person.

OMG StonesofDestiny and others.
There is a middle road.
People, generally, in their own houses and other people’s do remove their mud and shite clarted footwear.......without being asked......as basic manners ......so not causing extra work for your hosts etc.

why the athletes foot and dead skin over the house comment if people who have muddy bots manage to change their shoes without spreading fungal infections and skin flakes around your house?

Because it's your house where it's being spread. Shoes on in our house. Shoes off and manky feet out in yours.

CaptainsYuleLog are you being deliberately obtuse? It's you who apparently knows exclusively people with manky feet and no socks! Yet you say that those wearing muddy boots change their shoes - somehow you can't make the cognitive leap to anyone else doing so and pretend to think everyone but the subset who you want to change their footwear has athletes foot and goes barefoot.

Shoes off in my house. I make an exception for my elderly grandparents.

Oh dear, blueskies, not feeling too bright today?

I do know a lot of feet are manky. I taught for 40 years and saw some sights. Those are not the feet I want on my furniture or floors. I have no idea if my guests have manky feet. This is a civilised home where we keep our shoes on.

People wearing muddy boots change into shoes. Proper shoes. Not slippers or socks. Shoes. Sorry if that's too hard for you to grasp.

Basically it's a class thing. Upper and middle class shoes on. Lower middle and working class shoes off.

CaptainsYuleLog if in doubt wave a class card hey? Do you think entire countries with shoes off in the home cultures are "lower middle and working class"? You do don't you? Leave voter by any chance? Looking forward to your blue passport?

I taught too - didn't involve looking at anyone's feet.

Yes I am not keen on going barefoot in other people's houses. And of course during the summer when you wear sandals you don't wear socks. This is really really common.

Come on. Discussions about class always refer only to the UK (or England often). You don’t have to be a leave voter to know that class exists. When people talk about shoes on/off being cultural then a cultural thing like class will have an impact in parts of the UK, because it exists as a social structure - it is daft, but it does. And what other cultures do may or may not influence people who live in the UK, who after all will also have heritages from far and wide. It says nothing about the rightness or wrongness of shoes on/off - we all think our own practice is right! And that’s fine. But throwing around disparaging remarks about voting for brexit doesn’t help and just makes you sound silly.

YANBU.

I declined an invitation to a party after the fourth email which had in bold at the very top:

Just a reminder that no shoes are permitted indoors

Sounds like a fun, relaxed evening I thought. Not.

🤣🤣🤣 touched a nerve did I? Remain all the way for me, blue skies, not your day for being perceptive.

In Japan we carried house shoes. We do what is the cultural norm. Here the norm among our friends and families is shoes on. I don't know a single shoes off person in real life.

I would be happy to wear house shoes in peoples houses. In reality I have smart shoes that only go from car to house/restaurant anyway. But shoes off houses in Britain means all shoes IME. Even if you said they were house shoes.

I lived in Japan for a few years. The slipper culture there is incredible. Shoes off at the front door and into a pair of slippers. Indoor slippers off if you go to the bathroom and put on your toilet slippers, then slippers off altogether if you go into a sleeping area.

I sent a dentist surgery into meltdown when I forgot to remove my shoes before approaching the reception desk. Yes, shoes off for doctors, schools etc, etc.

I got used to it, and it now feels very strange and uncomfortable for me to wear shoes indoors, despite growing up in a shoes-on house.

Now living in a different shoes-off part of the world, I always think about how easily I can get out of and into footwear when I am buying. No knee-high Dr Martins for me.

So in reality it is not a shoes off culture where you have to wander around in barefeet in someone's house, but an indoors shoes/slippers culture.

Bloody Hell blueskiesandforests - bit of a leap from ‘please don’t bother to remove your shoes’ to ‘you are a rabid Brexiteer’ 😂
No, this, as a class issue, is applicable to this country only. Other places have their own class systems and customs, as well you know 🙄.
FWIW, I would never ask someone to remove their shoes, unless I could smell dog shit, and I think Brexit is madness.
I think you are being a trifle obtuse.

I don't think its weird or "precious"

why would you want your flooring ruined by peoples dirty feet?

ruined??

I love how terrible some people are at seeing things from other people's perspective. Of course if shoes are kept on the carpets are going to get much dirty, it's not at all unusual to be asked to take your shoes off. You can therefore plan to accommodate them and just take off your shoes.
It's not uncivilised to ask - it's totally normal.

Likewise most people's shoes are dirty but not regularly covered in dog shit. Their floors will need cleaning more but won't regularly be smeered in shit or completely unhygienic to walk across.

If you do it one way and someone else does it a different way you really need to just get over it.

why wouldn't they get ruined? wet dirty feet all over carpets is gross and light colours are easily ruined. even if you carpet cleaned it after every inconsiderate person walked on it it would be knackered!