to ask people to take their shoes off and how would I do it?

[Pennybubbly]

OK, not a huge one in the grand scale of things, but here goes.
I've lived in Japan for 14 years now and am married to a Japanese bloke. We have 2 young dcs.
We will be moving back to the UK in the future and one of the customs here that has stuck with me is how everyone is expected to remove their shoes before they enter someone's home.
It's principally a matter of cleanliness and if you think about it, when you have small kids rolling around on the floor, it makes sense for it to be on a space where you have not walked in shoes which have in turn walked in cat wee and general dirt outside.
My DH would be horrified if someone came into our house without taking their shoes off (which of course they never do here) and though he accepts it's not the custom in the UK to do so, and would therefore never criticise (of course) friends and relatives who wear shoes in their homes, he would not want people to do so in our house. And neither would I.
So question is: AIBU and how can I ask people in the nicest possible way to respect DH's culture?

Agree about the dog thing..wouldn't inflict my dog hair strewn floors on anybodies bare feet.... in fact you have to wipe your feet on the way out of my house!
LOL@ slippers

God I've never been not offered slippers in shoeless households.

Thinking about it though, they've nearly always been hh's where at least one of the householders were not European - either Japanese, middle eastern, south Asian etc. All of them had slippers, but they weren't nasty old chewed up ones, they were those washable ones and you knew they'd been laundered since last time someone had worn them. Maybe the British just don't do this very well and haven't developed proper slipper-laundering systems?

So if offered a pair of slippers, would it be rude to ask, "Have the slippers been worn by anyone with a fungal foot infection washed recently?"

I don't think it would be rude. Especially if they're being offered in a chewed up manky state!

But if they said "Yes" I still wouldn't want to wear them - it just seems wrong. It's probably best not to ask! And definitely don't mention the dreaded foot lergy.

But if they said "Yes" I still wouldn't want to wear them - it just seems wrong. It's probably best not to ask! And definitely don't mention the dreaded foot lergy.

Just say you're doing the Japanese custom of shoes off and show people where to leave their shoes.

one of my charges had a friend over after school, who politely asked as we came in the front door if this was a "shoes on or a shoes off" house. she's six, so you'd think that us grown-ups could manage it.

i ask people to take shoes off, if they haven't noticed the massive mountain by the front door.

it's for cleanliness and to protect our gorgeous, brand-new, heart-breakingly beautiful wooden floors.

we have underfloor heating so there is no reason to wear manky slippers.

we have a no shoes upstairs rule for us ie me dh and dd but there's no way I would ask guests to remove shoes. I take my shoes off at most peoples houses anyway just out of politeness but have only once been asked, at a party where shoes inquestion were very much part of the outfit was . 30 plus people wandering round with no shoes ffs, don't have a party!!! Only stayed an hour and then left.

As for the slippers thing, washed or not, this is minging and I would never wear slippers that have had someone elses feet in them. As I get reynauds syndrome in winter I often carry a pair of v thinck socks round with me to wear over my normal ones in other peoples houses.

Also hate hate hate my bare feet touching wooden/stone floors or even carpet but this is to do with my ocd esque tendencies

have worked out why this irks me

its the way its kind of an aspirant morality thing.

Also a bit control freaky, trying to control every speck of dirt that comes into the house.

(That said exception for those with good reasons to not want dirt in the house)

OP - for cultural reasons you should obviously ask your guests directly to remove their shoes.. and they should and would respect this.

I have never been asked to remove my shoes and most of my 'proper' mates and family wear shoes in each other houses (Although I go to houses where this obviously is the 'norm' and so I join in, but would be really (offended) peed off if I was actually asked to do it and horrified if I was given a pair of someone elses slippers to wear.ewww! LIke I am too stupid to assess the cleanliness of my shoes. Boost your immune system I say.

I think it is actually all about middle-class aspirations.....working class folk don't take our shoes off and nor do the 'proper' posh people

What I don't get are these people who say they are too lazy to clean therefore they don't want people in shoes walking on their filthy floors .

And protecting your hardwood floors?

WTF.

Seriously.

I don't know about all this class aspirations and class bullshit, not being British by birth and married to a Scottish person and living in the Western Highlands, class doesn't figure into much of anything here.

But just can't imagine asking my guests I invited into my home to share a cuppa or more or a good time to take off their shoes it's so freezing here most of the time.

Or offering them some used slippers. Eeewww.

What if someone pops in for 5 minutes ..do they remove shoes or not? my neighbours always in and out for a gossip chat

random: How long does it take you to take off a pair of shoes? 10 seconds? (assuming you don't have a disability). Even less if you're wearing crocs / flip-flop style shoes.

Expat "..these people who say they are too lazy to clean therefore they don't want people in shoes walking on their filthy floors":
Did anyone actually say that?

I don't actually scrub our floors that often at all although they are hoovered every other day and they aren't filthy precisely because we don't walk in shoes on them.
I think the people who were saying that they have manky floors were of the don't-take-off-your-shoes ilk?

Yes, Penny, a couple of people wrote just that.