First of all, the OP said it was a house, not an apartment. So it was on the host’s property, not in a communal public area like the hallway of an apartment. Second of all; really? What an incredibly minor thing to get a bug up your ass about. She put the shoes outside the door of her house along with all the others. I wish people (myself included) didn’t use the rolleye smiley as much as they did because it takes the punch out of it in moments when it really needs to be used. Like now.
Like previously posted, most Canadians homes are shoes off. It would be the height of rudeness to treck your Sorrels through someone else’s house. In the morning I might dash in and out of the kitchen a few times getting car started, grabbing lunch, DOH! I forgot to get that magazine with the article I want to share from the livingroom… Sweetie can you grab that for me? The kitchen with boots on is marginally ok in my house, the rest of the house… definitely not. I have hardwood floors FFS, do you think I want them salted, sanded and dripping wet?
Most Canadian kids master the" one foot hop" to get stuff, and only take one boot off. { I remember my brother was a master of this, would take one boot off, hop to the bathroom, stand on one foot and nuke a pizza pop for himself before going back outside.) A lot of us have slip on/off boots, although adult stylish ones might have zippers/laces.
No one ever asks you to take your boots/shoes off. Its just done.
Summer time, that glorious 3 months of the year, all bets are off. We generally ask, “should I take my shoes off?” before going into someone’s house. In the summer, most people are OK with the shoes on, or “Just not on the beige livingroom carpet” or some such. BBQs and stuff IME people leave shoes on and migrate in out pretty seamlessly.
In winter I generally carry a pair of indoor shoes with me to formal gatherings, or places if I know they have cold floors. In summers I like to wear sandals, but I generally have a thin pair of socks with me in case I go in someone’s house, I can take off my shoes. (you will never see me barefoot in someone’s house, although I had one woman that requested that and I complied…she was a kind of weird new agey person with a bunch of odd habits though.)
I also have a big thick mat for wiping shoes if they needed to stay on. I haven’t had her over yet, but I know if I had my boss over, we would have to let her keep her shoes on, but she also has a rag in a ziploc baggie and she wipes it off if she is going to be sitting and trekking wet sand and muck and slush all over.
TL;DR version. Canadians are prepared to take shoes off. Or leave them on. We are NICE, dammit.
Sorry, while I did use the word “house” in the OP, I corrected myself and mentioned that it was actually an apartment in post #21.
Note also that there were shoes both inside and outside the door. This wasn’t just consolidating all the shoes.
On behalf of all of us who can’t readily balance on one foot to unlace our shoes, thank you!
Laces? People still buy shoes with laces? It’s 2011, man, time to throw off the shackles of the laces!
If I’m expecting company, I always leave the door unlocked. Ditto when there’s company in the house. If someone needs to run outside to their car (or to grab a smoke since this is a nonsmoking house), I don’t want them getting locked out.
Those of us south of your border are nice, too. I think most of the posters here have agreed with the point I made back near the beginning of the thread: if you have rules in your household that are different from the rest of the area, please notify us in advance so we can be ready to follow them. If “no shoes” is the norm in your area, that’s fine. But around here, if someone said I had to take my shoes off on their tile or wood floors, and didn’t tell me in advance so I could bring slippers, I’d leave. My feet get cold too easily.
I have no problem with “shoes off” households if the host tells me in advance about it, just as I have no problem with “hats off” or “no white shoes after Labor Day” or “no blue jeans” households. Your house, your rules. If I don’t like the rules, I won’t come to the house.
Well, since ya’ll are twisting my arm.
Those were the only pair left. When you are a size 10, you thank your lucky stars to find the shoes you like.
Laces usually work better with my orthotics. I already have a hard enough time finding shoes that fit!
I did notice that. In fact, I noticed it was an explanation of what he/she would if he/she were helping a friend move (aka “the worst favor in the world”) and the favor-requesting relocating friend hadn’t placed down cardboard.
The correct response to this conundrum is: Oh, shit, friend, you need to decide what you hate more: shoes in yo’ house or moving yo’ assssssss by yo’self.
Also, making your guests leave the shoes outside while the residents get a fancy shoe rack in the house is kinda bitchy.
I should have put a smiley there. Canadians are NICE, dammit. 
Better?
Agreed. It depends on social norms in your area. If you were visiting me, as an out of towner, I would probably tell you “oh I have hardwood floors which get cold, so feel free to bring slippers or something.” I wouldn’t tell my mother, or my best friend, or even a random local aquaintance, because most people here take their shoes off at the door here, at least in winter. Someone would also be at the door, and say… “oh put your shoes on the rack there, so they can dry.” I don’t have a basket of slippers at my door for company, because a) I don’t entertain much and B) people who like shoes/slippers usually bring their own along. I know many people who have crocheted slippers like this available, and just toss them in the wash after. I’m not that much of a Holly Homemaker.
But again, that is the norm around here. I’ve visited homes in places in the USA (Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi to name some diverse examples… ) and I always took shoes off in MN, and left them on in MS, and MO … I took the cue from everyone else, sometimes on, sometimes off.
I agree people should spell out their expectations. The hostess in the OP should have said something politely, discreetly about shoes off and outside. The outside part would NOT fly here, because your shoes would freeze, blow away, get rain or snow in them, and so forth.
But anyway, my point? Dopers welcome. Bring slippers/indoor shoes, or sock feet, but please do not stain my hardwood with road salt.
Delicious !!! You done good. 
Well here’s my only question: what was this hostess going to do, house or apartment, when it starts to rain and all of her guests shoes get soaked? Or a random passing animal decides to piss all over the shoes because they smell like an intriguing place to leave its mark?
One aspect of being a good hostess is being thoughtful about your guests and their belongings. Putting their belongings where they may be in harm’s way is thoughtless.
Cute!!! My sister’s the shoe person in our family, but I LOVE platform heels!
They are frickin floors people! meant to be stepped on! Respect our floor, please. cmon! I figure the cold does something to your brain. Seriously the purpose of a floor is to get stepped on secondary to look good doing it. Don’t y’all people vacumn. but the slush and our carpet, but the salt and our hardwoods. Hey maybe you shouldn’t get that type of flooring in your area.
This is like trying to build a basement in Houston and complaining it gets flooded. cry me a bayou.
We don’t have a policy in our house, but having grown up in areas with sizeable asian populations, I’m used to both kinds of houses. I find the shock (especially from the shoes-on crowd) to be amusing.
Policy or no, I look forward to ditching my shoes when I get home. It is much more comfortable to me to wear socks, bare feet, or slippers, than to keep wearing the same shoes I’ve been wearing all day. Especially if it was a day at work where I walk several miles.
And they are stepped on.
Just think of Mr Rogers and his inside shoes.
Yeah really. I don’t know what you people do, but I just don’t step in dog shit.
I suppose if you make it a habit to constantly step in piles of poo, then yeah taking off your shoes indoors is a good idea.
It’s not just about the dog shit. (Though I guarantee you’re walking on plenty of things as nasty that you don’t notice.)
Do you wear shoes in bed? No, because it’s not comfortable and you don’t want to bring dirt and grit into the bed. Taking off one’s outside shoes in the mudroom or entrance hall just represents an expansion of that clean/comfortable zone to include most of the house, rather than just the bed.
My house in the UK is shoes-off, but I don’t enforce it rigorously, especially not if I’m having a party and so on. But most people see the shoes stacked up by the door and get the hint. It’s a pain in the ass when a visitor tramps dirt into the carpet, but I get over it.
In southern Thailand pretty much everywhere personally Thai - as in, mom & pop stores and restaurants, as opposed to supermarkets or McDonalds - are shoes-off. Every time I go there I forget for the first few days and embarrass myself, but then it becomes natural to shuck off the shoes as one enters.
In Denmark I’ve seen bags hung up by the front door containing a variety of sizes of loose slippers for guests. Makes sense.