To think workmen should always carry overshoes

[Pissedoff1234]

I know that people keeping their shoes on or taking them off inside is a contentious issue on MN but surely workmen should carry them regardless. That way, if someone wants you to take your shoes off but you can't for health and safety purposes then you can put those on. If they don't care, they keep their shoes on.

I don't care which one individuals prefer but I'm very much a shoes off person and we've just got new carpets upstairs so when the workman came in, I asked if he would take his shoes off. He said that he couldn't. I asked if he had overshoes and he said he didn't.

Disaster averted as I had some that I gave him but surely it should be something all should carry with them.

Not just overshoes. You could install a clean room style change barrier complete with with tacky mats and air shower at the entrance to your home and get people to wear sterile coveralls as well as their overshoes to avoid any danger of tradesperson contamination.

@Imust - no we dont have lots of money - but we do have something called a hoover - its great

@barbaraofSeville

Do the people that not mind dirty shoes on carpets have lots of money?

I don't want dirty shoes on my carpets, but I've never had anyone tramp mud into my house. They wipe their feet on the mat.

I was taught that it was incredibly bad manners to take your shoes off in someone else's house. I assume everyone else I know is the same as I've never had someone else come into my house and take their shoes off.

What would you do if you called paramedics in an emergency?

Surely you wouldn't expect then to wear over-shoes when they came in to save someone's life?

I'm in Ireland and Sky engineers here always have them too.

I wouldn’t expect anyone to wear those blue plastic bag things over their shoes. Especially if they were going upstairs as I think they could easily slip. We had lots of people last year coming in and out of the house. They all either took their shoes off - without me asking - or put down dust sheets if they were going to be there all day.
It was actually quite embarrassing as the last job we were having done was replacement flooring as our existing ones were so bad.

If someone is coming in to save my life they are exempt. If they are coming in to read the meter they aren't! I have an outside door mat & a runner indoors & still get idiots trailing mud. Now we have new carpets it is no shoes

This attitude is part and parcel of calling people "Workmen", who are almost certainly "Tradesmen", and proud of it.

I love that there is always one poster who will be offended about absolutely anything on any given post

Those bag things look like very dangerous trip hazards to me. I'd rather someone can do their job properly and safely. If it's a dirty job such as involving plaster dust, there would be groundsheets out anyway.

Our swimming pool has a shoes off policy that does a good job of keeping the changing areas and poolsides clean. I just made a mental note not to wear tights to work on swimming day so I could take my shoes off. Wearing plastic bags over shoes looks like a recipe for disaster with hard, wet, tiled floors.

Wearing plastic bags over shoes looks like a recipe for disaster with hard, wet, tiled floors

The same on carpeted stairs too.

@outreach29. Thanks for that clever insight, but to my
Knowledge, hoovers do not clean dirt out of carpets. Carpet cleaners do but they aren’t great either.
I’d rather have no visitors than visitors that make my carpets dirty. Thankfully I’ve mostly done away woth carpets in favour of laminate now.

I never understand why people chose to have carpets when it makes their life so complicated and harder than it needs to be.

however, Those bag things look like very dangerous trip hazards to me. my swimming pool makes you wear them, and so do the nurseries around here. no more dangerous than wearing socks

We don't have a choice. First floor flat, it's in my agreement that all floors are carpeted bar bathroom & kitchen (for obvious reasons). I would much rather have laminate!!

When i had dogs even the dogs didn't get any further than the mat without having their feet wiped.

most tradespeople are wearing steel capped boots to protect toes if anything drops and also good grips so won't slip
no-one lifting anything ie furniture etc should do so without PPE on feet, a carer would not be allowed to lift someone without wearing shoes
on hard floors plastic overshoes are a serious slip risk
if a tradesperson is in all day I would expect them to lay covers over the carpet, if they are delivering a sofa they can't take shoes off in case of slips, a meter reader could take shoes off but it takes time if you have 100 houses to do you can't lace and unlace your boots a 100 times a day,
Occasionally as a dentist I would do domestic visits to the housebound I would never take my shoes off for a few reasons

1. stepping on something unsavoury
2. we are not supposed to wear sandals or open shoes in case we drop sharp tool instrument it could be cross infection risk
3. Though this never happened to me there is a risk of another member of household being violent or abusive and you might need to leave fast; you can't do that if you have no shoes on or plastic overshoes as you could slip and fall

4 This is personal but I have dodgy ankles and need to wear hard supportive shoes

I wish the workmen that I've had in for various jobs would wear them! I didn't even know it was 'a thing'. I remember a few years back asking a boiler maintenance guy if he'd mind taking his shoes off as it had been raining and I didn't want wet footprints all over my kitchen floor. He looked at me as if I'd lost the plot and said he couldn't take them off because of 'Health and Safety' rules. Personally,I think it was more to do with the fact that because I live in a council property,and don't t have to pay for the boiler to be serviced,they can do what they like. There's a distinct attitude of that I should be grateful. Which I am,but at the end of the day,it's still my home.

RaspberryRipple i'm council too. I found that attitude. The workmen lately have been great with the overshoes tho thank god otherwise they wouldn't get in. I told the housing team they could pay for the carpet clean otherwise

My husband has them in case he needs them, hes a commercial engineer so sometimes he goes in mosque kitchens so thats a compromise that is acceptable. He cant not wear shoes because the equipment he carries is heavy and if it dropped on his feet would cause serious damage

All tradespeople and furniture delivery people here (USA) carry overshoes as a matter of course, never had one that hasn't put them on before entering the house. Real estate agents here also keep a supply with them to provide to people viewing properties they are showing too. I've never been one to insist on visitors removing their shoes in my home or covering them up but I do think it's a courteous thing to do and good business practice, surely, to not be tracking dirt into customers' homes.

I'm in care work and we've been told if service users have carpets and ask us to wear them it is at our discretion but company policy is not to wear them so if we slipped it would be our responsibility not the care agencies. If service users have tiles, hardwood or laminate the answer is absolutely no. We are not allowed to wear them because the risk of slipping is too high. We would be disciplined if we were found to be wearing them on hard floors. Ditto removing shoes, we are absolutely not allowed to remove them and would face disciplinary if we were found to have done so.

We can ask service users if we can keep a pair of plimsoles or similar at their house if they are precious about their carpets but we have the right (and are supposed to) refuse the care call and report to the office if they won't let us in with shoes on.

Yes. It's very well received chez nous when a workman shows respect for your property by taking shoes off. I hadn't thought off overshoes, but that's a great idea.

If it bothers you that much then buy a box of shoe covers and hand them out as you see fit. Seems a little precious to me though if this is the worst thing going on in your life you don't have things that bad.

I don't mind people keeping shoes on in my house unless the shoes are muddy. I expect my children to change out of muddy shoes into other shoes or slippers if they are muddy and to develop the ability to use they common sense and discretion about when they need to change shoes. Not just have a blanket "shoes off " rule in case someone has muddy shoes one day.

We moved into a new build two years ago and we've had workmen finishing stuff off and delivery guys coming and going frequency since- maybe once someone's brought a noticeable amount of mud/dirt in which took two minutes to wipe up. I'm wondering where all these dirty shoed people are coming from tbh.

Personally I'm also starting to think more about the disposable nature of a lot of the stuff we use and trying to cut down on that where I can. Asking tradesmen/delivery drivers to wear single-use overshoes for every job just seems completely wasteful and unnecessary when most people probably wouldn't give a shit.

And as for taking off their shoes- that is an unreasonable suggestion unless it's very light work. The vast majority of tradespeople will have to wear PPE as an non-negotiable part of their job, and often if you're off work you don't get paid. It would be pretty shitty to have someone get hurt in your house because you asked them to take their work shoes off or wear shoe covers with eff all grip. I could just imagine trying to hulk a bed up a set of stairs and those things slipping out under your feet, or dropping a heavy tool on a stockinged foot. Nope.

Frequency ours was the same. Carpet it was our discretion, any other surface they were a hazard.

Where I live there is a very narrow path bordered on both sides by grass. At the minute in this weather it is pretty horrific. It gets traipsed all up the internal block stairs too so even if you avoid the mud on the path you are still gathering it before you get to my door.