If you are a 'shoes off' household, do you/how do you get guests to comply without being rude?

[Gemzooks]

We always take our shoes off and wear slippers at home. lived in Russia and Kazakhstan where that is the norm and got used to it, now it seems gross to come in and tread in all the dirt from outside.

However, how do we manage with guests? As most people aren't used to it? Do you just bite your lip and ignore it, or just provide slippers in a rather obvious way?/ have loads of outdoor shoes in the hall (the passive-aggressive approach)

any tips appreciated!

i wear my house crocs.

but folks, it is cold up here. if you went shoeless, your feet would get cold, even with wooly socks on.

really, really cold.

I wear slippers. Or sheepskin boot things. In which my toes can wiggle, ungagged.

We are shoe free house (Scandinavian mother so passed on really), I don't ask guests to take off their shoes but equally I don't think it's rude either. We have a large pile of shoes in the hall and various slippers too.
We have a cleaner at the mo who leaves her shoes/boots on while cleaning the house, even the bedrooms/bathrooms, which I find quite revolting. Have asked her to take them off but she seems to forget this every week. Now that is yuck!

Oh, is it a Scandinavian thing too? No wonder I do it, then, it's probably hard-wired into my Indian/Scandinavian genes, with the Brit quarter squashed firmly under their well-shaped bare feet.

Just say - if they don't remove shoes when they see you in socks - the baby is learning to crawl/only just walking etc ( as long as you have a baby)

i do sometimes wax nostalgic for my barefooted upbringing on Mexican tile floors in a warm climate, however.

prefer my house crocs, however, because they take spills well.

Well, this has opened my eyes. I don't think I'm ever going to wear shoes again, inside or out, for fear of offending someone by my "yuck" and "revolting" behaviour.

It's never been the custom in our house, or my parents, or DH's parents, to routinely take shoes off. I'd never heard of such a thing until very recently, and until tonight thought it was confined to a few clean-freak friends.

There are people out there, like me, who'd no more think of taking off their shoes than taking off their trousers, unless they were specifically asked or unless it was literally a case of muddy wellies or something. Spare a thought for them and make your intentions clear rather than sneering at them behind their backs, please.

My house is quite clean enough, BTW, we have doormats and my children hardly ever get ill either!

The main problem I have when visiting my 'no shoes in the house' friends is in the summer rather than the winter.

If we are sitting inside but say with with patio doors open, I am left stick inside or having to go into the garden with bare feet which then get dirty and as I come back inside dirty the floors.

My friends deal with this by having flip flops etc for outdoor use by the patio door but there are never any for guests. I find the whole thing a real pain especially if children are running in and out etc. All 'that take your shoes off', 'put your shoes on' - it's exhasting when all I want to do is sit and drink my pimms

Other than that I have ne real problem with it and always remove my shoes if I see a pile of shoes by the door. I never mind being asked either.

I am with Riven and MI. We are city dwellers - not in a 'bad' area, but there's still more than enough dog shit, mud, spit, chewing gum, fag ends etc. etc. to be trodden in. I don't know about people not wanting their feet touching other people's floors - I don't want my floors covered with other people's street grime, tbh. We live in a flat and have no upstairs (obviously) and no second loo, so if someone comes in without shoes they are treading that dirt literally all around our living space. No thank you.

I have no idea what is rude about saying 'please could you take your shoes off?' We offer crocs or thick socks for guests to wear if they want.

dh's parents are East German and shoes-off is normal there (IME markedly more so than in the west) - they actually bring their own slippers when they come to ours.

We have wooden floors in our hall and one of the mums of dds friends walked in wearing stilletoes and covered it in small dents!

I would not ask an adult to take their shoes off but I do ask the dds friends to remove their shoes (actually most of them seem to do this anyway.)

i shall now make guests carve crocs from vegetables (which they shall provide themselves of course) or they will be turned away from my front door.

any suggestions on which are the cleanest vegestables?

would organic be best?

shoes are outside-wear. I don't see the problem.
I don't want outside dirt where my dd lies on the floor.
It has taken years to train my in-laws to remove their shoes, even after they tramped dog shit through my house. yuck.

It still hasn't been explained why it's rude to ask your guests to take their shoes off.

Have we even mentioned toilet floors from children in schools to people who work outside the home, office toilets or public toilets and what they may have trodden in?

We are a shoes off household, I have had workmen don those shoe covers (their own) before they came into my lounge.

We used to have to wear shoe covers in the nursery my son attended or take our shoes off.

I don't ever ask but people generally take them off. Laminate is being laid this week though so the carpet will be gone, maybe people won't take their shoes off then

we're going to have laminate everywhere except the living room. dd rolls around the floor so it needs to be soft.
One day that is.

Libra, IMHO it is rude to ask guests to take their shoes off as: (presuming they don't know about your shoes-off regime in advance):

• they might have big holes in the toes of their tights,
• threadbare socks
• smelly feet
• athlete's foot
• bunions
• squashed toes
• or any manner of personal foot issues which as a HOST one would not want to embarass one's guests by making them expose unexpectedly.

A true and good host wants their guests to feel comfortable in their home and so what if a person wears shoes in the lounge for an evening very occasionally? Unless they are actually treading in Dog Poo or Mud, then in terms of hygiene it's not that different to being covered with the gazillions of bacteria that surround us all the time, shoes on or not!!!

As a good host, all you can do it indicate you have a shoes-off policy (by piles of shoes in the porch/hall, slippers by the foot of the stairs etc) and also leading by example, and hope your guests follow suit. If not, well, then the world won't end!!!

The exception is say, Pannacotta's example of her cleaner, because: 1) the cleaner is not a guest 2) the cleaner knows about the shoes-off policy in advance (so she could bring slippers instead if she wanted) and 3) she is regularly in the bedrooms which is totally different to guests being mainly in the downstairs area.

Also workmen, because they are not allowed to remove their safety footwear (and if you made them you may be liable).

I'm with Gettingbiggernow.

I lived in Prague in 1991-1993, also a shoes-off zone. "It's like Japan!" said my mum when she visited and learnt of the shoes-off habit. We thought it a quaint and amusing habit. They thought the English were odd. In Prague, you would always always always be offered slippers. Plus people usually lived in flats with relatively warm floors.

I think it is the height of rudeness in England to ask an adult guest to remove their shoes and freeze their feet on your cold stone floor. It is completely inappropriate in the climate and housing stock of northern England. It is most inappropriate to ask a well-dressed woman whose confidence may stem from her sense of being well-dressed to spoil an outfit which is complemented by particular shoes (I'm not that woman, btw! I just have holes in my socks, but clothes really matter to some people). It is also most inappropriate to ask a stiff or shy young man who may worry that his feet smell.

As gettingbigger says, the absolute definition of good manners is to make your guests comfortable. Remember the story abotu the guest at the banquet who drank from the finger-bowl? The king drank from it too. Taking your shoes off makes many people feel uncomfortable (some feel more comfortable removing their shoes so let them). So you should never ask.

Have some slippers or big socks for guests in proper out door shoes - if they're wearing shoes from just car to door then this is ok.

Oh & - what if a guest has verrucas? They are fairly common.

Given a choice of bare feet with verrucas tramping around your house OR shoes kept on - what would be preferable? Or should the guest be banished?!

Then, is it likely a guest would say "I have no problem removing my shoes but I have verrucas at the moment!" OR is it more likely said guest would keep quiet and hope nobody notices?

To some people being asked to remove shoes is akin to being asked to remove their top and sit there in their bra . It is very exposing unless of course you have perfectly pretty, fragranced, moisturised, disease-free feet. Or at least are wearing perfectly acceptable socks/tights.

Ds tells everyone the second they come in. Somehow it has never seemed to rude coming from a 5 year old!

we're a no shoes household but I never ever ask guests to remove their shoes, I consider that to be rude. If they make a mess with their shoes I just clean it up afterwards.

Some people offer to take off their shoes and mostly I tell them there's no need.

Agree Belgo! We share the same stance exactly.