To think it's really rude to keep your shoes on when you visit someone's home

[Pavementworrier]

There's so much dog poo about now it's basically a trampling of dog poo

It’s a long running tedious argument on here and I’m not getting into it but the so much dog poo about nowadays comment made me raise my eyebrows. We were talking the other day about common things that were acceptable years ago but aren’t now , and not cleaning up after your dog is one of them. There are the occasional miserable types ( a bit of vigilant snooping went on locally after some git kept deliberately letting his dog do it in front of the entrance to the pre-school ) and there are those who think putting it a bag then hanging the bag on a tree is somehow ok, but by and large there is public shame across a wide demographic range about letting a dog dump anywhere.

No one I know takes their shoes off in other people's houses, and no one has ever walked dog poo into my house, other than my dc occasionally when they were small. I wear orthotics so can't remove my shoes but would wear covers if asked. In my circle it would be considered very rude to ask visitors to remove shoes, especially if they were invited for a meal or party, rather than a casual visit.

Yeah to me it's a bit peculiar to wear random generic slippers that have been used by others. I'd feel a little awkward about that and rather just wear my socks. That hasn't been an issue so far.

So someone comes to your house for say an hour....
Are you telling me you wash those slippers?
How many pairs do you have?

You forgot the class of the people for whom it's always shoes on because you'd likely end up losing your foot from gangrene from their floors. They always reckon they're U in my experience, too.

Yes, it’s rude! Who knows what crap is on your outdoor footwear!

@FunnyOrca We have a selection of hotel slippers for fusspots.
What's a "hotel slipper?" Those white towelling slippers which some hotels provide for the spa? I think there's a certain irony to calling guests who don't want to be barefoot "fusspots". Asking people to take shoes off is not "being a fusspot" at all?

I'm sure Hyacinth Bucket popularised the "shoes off" movement. Before that, TV would be full of house-proud characters screaming "Wipe your feet!!!!!" When Tom Baker was playing Professor Plum in Cluedo (anyone remember that, in 1992?), he was asked if he left a footprint on the floor. He said "I hotly dispute that. I was trained by my mother as a young boy to wipe my feet, and my wife says "I'm jealous of that mat, I wish you would give me the same kind of attention." Mind you, in the seventh Harry Potter book, Kreacher the house-elf tells Harry and the others to take their shoes off, after he has cleaned up. But why is a house-elf giving orders to his master?

I think it’s true that it’s less socially acceptable to leave dog poo, and there are more mechanisms for the public to express disgust about it. I don’t think this negates the observation that there is visibly a lot more of it on streets/beaches/parks, because of a combination of human laziness and the fact that there are many, many more dogs than there used to be - and they are taken to a wider range of places. For example, I can think of two local shops - a large supermarket and a charity shop - who embraced the new trend of “welcoming” dogs, only to put signs out within a few weeks rescinding the invitation because someone’s little darling had shat on the floor.

Pretty sure Hyacinth would put people off having a shoes off house rather than popularising it!
My parents home was shoes off long before Keeping Up Appearances, and pretty much all my friends' homes were also (though that was during the time of Keeping Up Appearances and afterwards but I very much doubt it had an impact)

Don't you know that slippers are dangerous, as shown in this picture?

More seriously, though, aren't the combination of slippers and stairs sometimes the cause of older people falling over at home?

We have actually never been taken up on the offer of the slippers except for by one person who now has her own slippers at ours

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Did Santa remember to take his boots off when he came in?
As he had to do for every house?

Yes, I wear Ugg moccasins or those boot style slippers, properly fitting, both with a proper sole. I injured my foot quite badly coming out of a pair of backless mules so proper fitting non novelty slippers for me

I don’t know why it’s so hard to just look at what your hosts are wearing on their feet and then do likewise. Surely their house their rules? And it’s common sense that if you have muddy shoes (as is common at this time of year) then leaving them on and trampling mud over someone’s clean floors (making them scrub it off later) is just rude. My PIL are shoes-on types and I used to bite my tongue to avoid upsetting them - until the time they trod in fox poo (we lived in London) and spread it the whole way through our home, on carpets. They now take their shoes off when they visit us.

He's the one person who doesn't have to take his boots off when entering a Finnish house! He came yesterday and kept his boots on, but tbf there's no snow this year (sadly) so he didn't leave wet footprints this year.

When I visit a home for the first time, if the hostess is either shoeless or in slippers I immediately take off my shoes. If the weather is nasty I take mine off regardless if the hostess is in shoes. When in doubt I just ask