Mostly no shoes - 'cause I'm lazy and it's more comfortable.
Guests can do as they please. No rules.
Guests can do as they please. No rules.
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In your home: Shoes or no shoes?
- Thread starter Abstract
- Start date
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We wear shoes around my house, its mostly hard wood floors now so they're easily cleaned, plus we have a dog and cat so even if we always took our shoes off the pets would still traipse in dirt.
When I go to someone else's house I immediately take my shoes off, unless I'm told not to bother or they're walking round in shoes themselves.
When I go to someone else's house I immediately take my shoes off, unless I'm told not to bother or they're walking round in shoes themselves.
Actually, that tends to be exactly what people do with expensive sports cars. Only a masochist would use a high end sports car as a daily driver.
I don't mean as a daily driver, but too often I see people with rapidly depreciating sports cars not enjoy it because they want to keep it in good shape. Ferrari, Porsche, Lambo, Aston Martin, all are meant to be driven and enjoyed, not just look good in a garage.
Nothing will depreciate your flooring faster than tracking dirt all over it with outdoor shoes. You can use a floor just as well in socks/slippers/bare feet. I don't think that the car analogy works well in this regard.
My carpets and floors are pretty much spotless. Of course, I live in Southern California where I rarely, if ever, have dirt or mud on my shoes. If I lived in a climate where that was more common I would take my shoes off.
This thread is reborn...
No shoes in the house. I usually politely request that guests remove their shoes.
As others have pointed out, I don't want dirt, dog poo, mud, bacteria, germs, etc. to be planted on my floor for me to walk on if I'm barefoot.
I just think about how disgusting public bathroom floors are. You walk through that with your shoes (unless you're Britney), and then if you go home and don't take your shoes off, you drag that disgustingness all through your house.
As Abstract pointed out in his OP, I think there is some truth to it being a Canadian thing- my Canadian friends just know to take their shoes off. I usually have to ask my American friends (unless they notice others taking their shoes off first).
This thread is actually quite timely for me:
I just had a problem with someone not taking her shoes off when she came over, and she even used one of our bathrooms and walked all over the bathroom rugs with her shoes (when I went in there, I could see the shoe prints). I couldn't say anything to that person....... because that person is my visiting mother-in-law. I sure as hell told my wife though. The funny/weird/annoying part is that she stayed with us for the past week while she was visiting, and knew to take her shoes off while she was staying with us (my wife told her on her first day). But she stayed at a hotel for the last couple of days of her trip, and for some reason while she was over for a visit, I guess she must have assumed that the rules had changed for her now that she isn't actually staying with us.
Before she came over, she was at a restaurant. The last thing she always does before leaving a restaurant is to spend around 10 minutes in the restaurant's bathroom.
Ah, mother-in-laws........ aren't they a blast?
No shoes in the house. I usually politely request that guests remove their shoes.
As others have pointed out, I don't want dirt, dog poo, mud, bacteria, germs, etc. to be planted on my floor for me to walk on if I'm barefoot.
I just think about how disgusting public bathroom floors are. You walk through that with your shoes (unless you're Britney), and then if you go home and don't take your shoes off, you drag that disgustingness all through your house.
As Abstract pointed out in his OP, I think there is some truth to it being a Canadian thing- my Canadian friends just know to take their shoes off. I usually have to ask my American friends (unless they notice others taking their shoes off first).
This thread is actually quite timely for me:
I just had a problem with someone not taking her shoes off when she came over, and she even used one of our bathrooms and walked all over the bathroom rugs with her shoes (when I went in there, I could see the shoe prints). I couldn't say anything to that person....... because that person is my visiting mother-in-law. I sure as hell told my wife though. The funny/weird/annoying part is that she stayed with us for the past week while she was visiting, and knew to take her shoes off while she was staying with us (my wife told her on her first day). But she stayed at a hotel for the last couple of days of her trip, and for some reason while she was over for a visit, I guess she must have assumed that the rules had changed for her now that she isn't actually staying with us.
Before she came over, she was at a restaurant. The last thing she always does before leaving a restaurant is to spend around 10 minutes in the restaurant's bathroom.
Ah, mother-in-laws........ aren't they a blast?
agree on the Canadian thing...
Shoes off, because it seems to make sense especially in winter. You don't want to come in from 6 inches of snow, or from shoveling the driveway, or from walking on the sidewalk where they've dumped salt and sand, and then track that through the house. No matter how much you try to wipe your feet on the mat, you never get it all out.
I do know many people (especially of Italian and Portuguese descent) who wear slippers in the house all the time. I am Italian and normally don't though, unless it's cold.
I think exceptions are made when you're hosting people, especially at a 'dress' event, such as a small funeral, engagement or wedding reception in the home... then I don't ask people to take off their shoes...
Shoes off, because it seems to make sense especially in winter. You don't want to come in from 6 inches of snow, or from shoveling the driveway, or from walking on the sidewalk where they've dumped salt and sand, and then track that through the house. No matter how much you try to wipe your feet on the mat, you never get it all out.
I do know many people (especially of Italian and Portuguese descent) who wear slippers in the house all the time. I am Italian and normally don't though, unless it's cold.
I think exceptions are made when you're hosting people, especially at a 'dress' event, such as a small funeral, engagement or wedding reception in the home... then I don't ask people to take off their shoes...
I leave a few pairs of shoes that I wear often at the door, the rest in my closet. At the front door we have a formal entryway with a coat closet where you can leave your shoes, at the back we have an enclosed porch where I usually slip them off. If I want them inside I'll stick them just inside the door to the (unused) servant stairs in the kitchen, or just inside the basement door.
No shoes in my apartment. But slippers are fine.
At my parents house my dad wears shoes but they are indoor only. Otherwise no shoes there either.
Yeah.... slippers or indoor-only shoes are just fine.