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!

shoes indoors make me feel sick to be honest. I don't want dirty shoes where dd lies.
( as for the in-laws. no worries if they never come again )
So, rspite carers, social workers etc etc will all be asked to remove outside shoes.

At the end of my life I would rather look back and think that I had had a wonderful time with friends and my house had been a happy meeting place. I wouldn't look back and think that I wished I had kept my carpets in pristine condition! You can get them professionally cleaned.

Children usually take off their shoes in our house. So do DH and I when we come in. Adult guests? No way.

Working class and lower-middle class women are, in my experience, much more anxious about clean houses than are the professional middle and upper classes. I used to do a lot of au-pairing and child-minding in my younger days and Oxford dons' families had a remarkable tolerance to dirt. The families of hairdressers and builders were pristine.

I think we will all happily remove our shoes if we come to Riven's house for the sake of her DD.as there is a good reason for the house rule in that particular house.

If there was a specific reason of course I would take them off. As a family we all take our shoes off at the door but I think it would be rude to ask people to do the same.

and I think it would be rude for guests to wear shoes.
Don't think we're going to meet on this abbey

I don't think we are going to meet. You can go to people's houses and they think you are distinctly odd if you offer to take your shoes off!

Well I think you two will have to meet - in a DMZ! Cos looks like you won't be going round for tea chez nous.

We take off our shoes indoors.
People take off their shoes for religious reasons, and this is one of the reasons why i take off my shoes whne inside.
Now I don't mind mud, but for hygine reasons my DH takes his off (we live in a city where there are a lot of body fluids spewed by hep infected drug addicts on our street) and my DD just loves loves loves lying on the floor (as do I), which makes me insist everyone else who visits takes theirs off.

I think there is an assumption to be a good guest one must be formal, and that to be a good host one must be formal. But really a good guest 'obeys' the house rules and tries not to be a precious fly in the ointment, and the good host tries to put the guest at ease (drink helps), whilst the rules are obeyed (otherwise why not meet somewhere neutral)!

Visiting is meant to be fun after all, for everyone.

God all this stuff about class and carpets - sounds rather pop-sociology to me!

I was brought up by middle-class African parents; we never wore shoes at home. I then lived abroad during my 20s, where people never wear shoes in other people's houses. We don't have white carpets - one brownish colour carpet and then wooden floors everywhere else. But we do apply the no shoe rule - cheerfully (I think that 'no shoes' sign is horrific!).

I just think it's good manners not to bring your dirt into a home via your shoes. I also think it's good manners not to talk with a mouthful of food so that people don't get spattered/ see the mashed-up food you're munching on. I also think it's good manners not to (and yes, I saw a foul maggot of a man doing this just yesterday) blow your nose into the air so that all the snot sprays all over the place (yum)!

Everyone has different expectations of what is good and bad-mannered behaviour; it just astonishes me how het-up people get about the shoe thing. For crying out loud, get a life, eat some chocolate and enjoy yourselves!

I don't get het up about it. If people ask me to take off my shoes I take them off, I leave people free to do whatever they like in my house. It isn't something I would lose friends over!

I wear my paws indoors and out - they are not removable

just take off your own shoes on the way in - they'll follow suit, wont they?

People always seem to take their shoes off when they come into our house - probably they come from a house with nice soft pile carpets - but ours has cold stone and wood floors. I feel sorry for them and feel I should provide slippers.

I make kids take shoes off before they go upstairs. Only so don't have to spend half an hour searching for their shoes.

I have really manky feet. Stinky in winter, unmanicured and terrible cracked heels in the summer. Also often have one big toe poking out of foot of tights.

God I'm sexy.

I do have a couple of friends who have a no shoe policy and I have to say it makes me feel really uncomfortable to be shoeless at their houses.

Also, when you're trying to corral various children from playing, you get your stuff packed, you say goodbye, you suddenly realise you're all shoeless and have to stop and re-shoe. Whereupon at least one child escapes and you find yourself stomping up stairs to grab them IN YOUR SHOES!

My DSs hav picked up the no shoe habit from their grandparents (inlaws) and i find it weird because instead of just dashing out of doors when they want to get some fresh air, there's a whole "now, where are your shoes" business which makes it double faffy. We now have a bucket of crocs (well, mocs) at the back door so that it's a bit less dull, but still. Gah!

The only shoe rule we had growing up was that you MUST wear shoes at mealtimes. It always seemed to me that not wearing shoes during the day was a sign of enormous slovenliness. Slippers okay in the evening when you come in from work, otherwise shoes and wiping your feet.

I do draw the line at shoes on the sofa, tho.

God, that was an essay wasn't it?

By the way, I was brought up in scotland. Waaaaay too cold to go shoeless!

By the way, I was brought up in scotland. Waaaaay too cold to go shoeless!

I think you are more likely to feel strongly about removing shoes if you live in urban areas where streets are filthy than if you live in nice clean suburbia. When we lived in london I did not want my baby crawling around in the filth that people could bring in on their shoes - and did not consider it rude to ask for shoes off - baby came first!

i couldnt really give a monkeys either way tbh

lol at its class thing - um noo don;t think so.. the poshest people I knwo trial through their house in muddy wellies wihtout a care wehre my working class family would all take their muddy work boots off at the door.

not wearing shoes inside is for many differnt reasons - cultural (eg japan) religious, practical (one pair of shoes only and wlaking to owrk on untarmacked roads means you'd have to clean them everytime you cam ein or wash your floors every tiem you came in), climate - we NEVER wore shoes in africa it was too bloody hot!

We are a shoes off family. Many of my guests will notice and take their own shoes off, if they don't, I don't make a big deal of it. I don't supply slippers (maybe I should) but I equally don't care if anyone has a hole in thier socks.

That's what I was getting at, Kewcumber - the posher you are, the less you care about dirt (because you have cleaners to worry about that sort of thing) and so the less likely you are to take off your shoes.

Bridie3 has it exactly: 'Working class and lower-middle class women are, in my experience, much more anxious about clean houses than are the professional middle and upper classes. I used to do a lot of au-pairing and child-minding in my younger days and Oxford dons' families had a remarkable tolerance to dirt. The families of hairdressers and builders were pristine.'

sorry I misunderstood!

I feel really uncomfortable in someone else's house with my shoes off unless I'm staying overnight. Even worse being offered slippers. i do it with out being asked though as it is their house so their rules.

My SIL with a shoes off policy had a BBQ for her 2 year old's birthdya. What a frigging nightmare that was trying to chase toddlers around and take their shoes on and off every two seconds.

I agree with AbbeyA. It's not hygiene. It's more that you take your shoes off in your own home. So at someone else's I would expect to keep my shoes on, if someone asked me to take them off that would be fine possibly even quite flattering, as I'd be considered 'family'. But I wouldn't offer (even though sometimes I'd prefer to) as that is a bit presumptious. Similarly if someone came to mine and wanted to take their shoes off that is fine, but I certainly wouldn't expect them too or ask them to if they didn't want to.

For one thing it is jolly cold! My brother has a shoes off rule and unfortunately you have to them walk over cold tiles before you get to the carpet. I am then most uncomfortable because my feet are freezing-even in summer.They wear slippers and I don't think they realise. (I don't arrive at people's houses with slippers-I just don't have that level of organisation!)