To think there's never an excuse for not offering to take your shoes off in someone's home?

[CheerUpFFS]

If you're a guest ( not working, I.e in a profession where you go into someone's house ) aibu to think there is never, ever an excuse to not at least offer to take your shoes off in someone's home? My mind is always blown when someone comes to mine and leaves them on,

Yabu - I keep my shoes on
Yanbu - I take them off

Thanks for replying, @CheerUpFFS.

Perhaps the difference is in our climates - wet and muddy or slushy really aren't a frequent feature of most Australian cities. Anyone coming to my houses has only been walking on concrete. (And I would never have pale carpet.)

Quite. Unless it’s a silk Persian rug carpets are actually designed and made to be walked on with shoes.

Wouldn't occur to me to take my shoes off unless the host asked. I also hate feet so would avoid going if I know it's a 'shoes off' house.

FWIW I've never known a house with multiple pets to be spotlessly clean & I'd hate for my feet to pick up pet hair etc. Feels all very grim.

My pet hate is being asked to take my shoes off when I've been invited to someone's house!! I understand if my shoes were caked in mud or wet but otherwise it just boils my piss!

If you insist on shoes off, please tell your guests in advance to bring their slippers for their comfort.

You think it's rude/ there's no excuse for leaving your shoes on. I think the opposite, it's incredibly rude to invite someone to your house and then make it clear that the lines in your sterilised carpet are more important to you than them feeling comfortable and welcome there. Personally my friends and family are more important than inanimate objects but we are all different, aren't we.

I have a long history of plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendonitis, both of which are very painful.

I avoid triggering it by mainly wearing shoes that have soft soles and a slight heel, or using gel heel inserts. Walking or standing in bare feet or dead flat shoes for more than a few minutes leads to pain and inflammation that takes days to subside.

I'm not taking my shoes off in anyone's house, thanks, but I take care to wipe my feet on arriving and would happily wipe the soles with an anti-bac wipe on request.

I'm inwardly laughing at the thought of how some MN germaphobes would react if they saw my cats happily sitting on my kitchen counter or, in times past, on the dining table, since shoes on floors is too much to handle.

Have you ever tried orthotics, @LakieLady ? I had plantar fasciitis years back - nasty combination of extremely flat, pronated feet and one leg shorter than the other - and orthotics (custom made in my case) fixed it.

Finally, the last time there was a debate about this on MN someone linked a study showing the amount of e-coli and other nasties on the bottoms of shoes. Why would you want to bring that into your home?

I don't routinely go around licking the floor, so it's really not an issue. And I've only had 2 stomach bugs in my entire 68 years.

I'd not expect them or anyone working like an estate agent or anything to take them off

We recently viewed a house, shown by the estate agent. He removed his shoes and asked that we did likewise, which we were happy to do.

YANBU I hate it so much when people come in my house with shoes on.

This is like a parallel universe. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone come into my house, kids included, who hasn’t kicked their shoes off in the hall…

I can’t get over someone with two cats and a puppy worrying about shoes on their floors. The double standards and lack of logic are incredible.

I can't believe the number of people that don't take shoes off, yuk!!

Same here, I'm always surprised by the hatred of no shoe households on mumsnet because it would be totally weird in my part of the world to keep your shoes on. I also find the class references odd too as it doesn't track to the country ime!

IME round here, the well-to-do folk are always no shoe households - it's usually the poshest folk that schlep around in muddy boots and wellies so they most certainly take them off in their own and others' houses!

My uncle had a family party at his house. He made everyone take their shoes off, including the special needs teen who has balance issues and special shoes to keep him from falling. He rightly annoyed everyone.

Some of us have crawling babies... and in my case a toddler who thinks eating bits of debris he may find on the floor is great fun 🤢🤢🤢

Same here.

I think it's a bit OCD, tbh. Floors are for walking on, not eating off or admiring.

Japan is one of the most civilised and respectful societies. There, you can’t even step over the doorstep in your shoes. Why would we not want to do as they do?

Never let him anywhere near a sandpit or soft play then.

@blossomtoes never seen a sandpit in my parenting career thus far, and soft plays are usually fine because he's too distracted!

"it's pretty gross to not have clean carpets"
Unless you have your carpets professionally deep cleaned at least twice a year they are gross regardless.

"According to estimates, carpets are 4,000 times dirtier than toilet bowls.
There are over 200,000 bacteria in every square inch of carpet, including some truly sickening germs, such as MERSA, campylobacter and norovirus. And that’s not even counting the insects such as dust mites or allergens such as pollen, pet dander and mold that collect in your carpet’s fibers.
Carpets are so bad that the United States National Institute of Health advises against them. A 2018 study concluded, “…continued caution should still be exercised when considering the use of wall-to-wall carpeted floors in schools, kindergartens and offices, as well as in children’s bedrooms unless special needs indicate that carpets are preferable.”
one square yard of carpet can contain up to 1 lb. of dirt and still appear to be clean. That’s because most dirt falls to the base of the carpet, where the fibers are glued and/or sewn into the matting. Looks clean and is clean are two different things.
To make matters even worse, most vacuums lack the power necessary to remove any more than a small fraction of the dirt, dust, germs and grime trapped in carpets. The only way to truly clean your carpets is with expensive, professional carpet cleaning. Carpet cleaning professionals recommend cleaning lightly used carpets at least twice per year, and heavily trafficked areas such as entryways and first-floor hallways 12 to 24 times per year."

I have trousers that I wear with heels and trousers that I wear with flats. They are different lengths. The ones that I wear with heels would indeed be too long if I took my shoes off, but that's because they were chosen to wear with heels.

I don't see what's weird about that?

This is a mindset thing, a cultural thing.

I don't know the ins and outs of the northern European/Japanese attitude to shoes indoors, but I suspect here in the UK it's not actually about cleanliness, it's about social class. (Objectively, people who leave their shoes on indoors aren't stricken with disease from all the nasty "outside" that they "bring indoors". People have doormats and hoovers to deal with dust and dirt.)

In my mind, this is an aspirational working class/lower-middle class suburban mindset: bungalows, 70s estates with wall-to-wall carpets and cans of air freshener in the toilet. If you cycle back from your job lecturing at the university and wheel you bike through your 2-up, 2-down terrace to hang it on a rack in the kitchen, you're not worrying about shoes-in-house.

I imagine it in from people who are more likely to eat their lunch in a garden centre than that super-nice new Korean small plate place that the Observer was raving about.

I think it's indicative of people who think that "outside" is generally dangerous, alien and scary.

I bet it's a near-perfect parallel with voting for Brexit, where we know that income or geography weren't the most consistent drivers, but:

What united Leave voters in focus groups in the run-up to the referendum, he says, was support for a whole set of "traditional" values.

"They tended to value things like order, stability and safety against things like openness, modernity and other social-liberal values that were more popular among Remain voters. Often it's about harking back to the past - sometimes a feeling that they don't belong to the present."

I certainly think it's rude to keep your shoes on in a house where they don't want you to, and it's up to guests to spot these class- and mindset-markers that will tell you that this is that kind of place.

But it's perfectly reasonable to not offer to take your shoes off when you arrive at someone's house where that rule is clearly not in place. In the complex social dance of the English class system, you could be accusing your host of being petty/suburban/Hyacinth Bouquet.