Oh, but I DO wipe my feet before entering my home or somebody else’s. Very carefully. Probably to the point of being obsessive sometimes, but that’s another thread. 
I also wipe my feet before I enter a business establishment, if there is a mat. So there are other ways to address the cleanliness issue… I have a couple really cool doormats…
I can’t believe I just wrote that.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that anyone other than Asians would take their shoes off when visiting someone’s home. If I were invited to visit someone and they didn’t have shoes on and it was obvious that I was expected to take mine off I would say “it’s been nice seeing you” and turn around and leave.
My feet get cold and I’m uncomfortable not wearing shoes. Life’s too short to be uncomfortable and most people aren’t all that interesting anyway.
I have a question for those who wear their shoes all day. Don’t you think your feet feel so much nicer when you take your shoes off before going to bed? I mean, I love how it feels when I can flex and wiggle my toes around 
I’m just curious, because most people I know take their shoes off as soon as they enter a house, so I don’t really have anyone around me that I can ask.
LOL… yes, I must admit I often remove my shoes before going to bed.
Seriously though, if you’re wearing the right shoes, you should be able to flex and wiggle your toes around with them on.
It’s absolutely amazing that Americans and some others don’t take their shoes off when entering someone’s home. I would consider anyone stomping onto my hoovered and mopped floors with shoes on a really arrogant person who thinks of no-one but him/herself, or has some strange foot deformity she’s embarassed of. Most of my Northern-European friends feel excactly the way I do.
I never wear shoes even outdoors unless there’s snow on the ground or when walking on very hot ground, or when attending a wedding or a funeral. I never wear even socks indoors, since I feel my feet suffocate when they’re wrapped in an artificial cocoon. Mankind lived barefoot for some 2000 000+ years - I don’t see a reason to start wearing shoes now. My feet are never cold, but they’re invariably uncomfortably hot and steamy when I’m forced to use shoes. Shoe-wearing has actually atrophied modern people’s foot muscles and tendons, as well as given rise to such ailments as flat feet and athlete’s foot. YucH!
Don’t you think that’s a little close-minded? Just because people have different customs than yours doesn’t mean they are arrogant or self-centered. Uh, or deformed. A lot of people would consider it extremely unsanitary to go barefooted or to run around in socks. Are you saying that your bare feet are cleaner than someone’s shoes after you’ve been walking around outside all day? Some places have health codes about bare feet and that sort of thing.
You should also consider geographic differences. I bet that if you lived in New York City, you’d wear shoes outdoors. And I’m pretty sure that hominids sometimes fashioned coverings for their feet, especially during those pesky ice ages.
It is true that wearing the WRONG shoes can screw up your feet. That’s something people need to be educated about more. However, wearing shoes doesn’t cause fungal infections. That’s the sort of thing that you pick up when you are bare footed.
I am perfectly aware that people in different parts of the world have different customs. I simply reflected the feelings of the people here where I live, not any fact about what’s arrogant or not.
Of course a lot of people would consider going barefoot extremely unsanitary, since they’ve been brought up to think it is.
My feet are often dirty if it has been raining or if I’ve taken a stroll through the woods, and that’s why I never enter the living quarters without wiping my feet with a coarse brush and a towel.
The health codes concerning bare feet have no basis on fact.
I live in a place where it rains 200 days/year and the mean temperature is around 10 degrees Celsius. A lot colder than in NY. In freezing weather I do wear lightweight shoes to protect my feet from frostbite. There are many instances when it’s good to wear shoes for a limited period of time to protect the feet. Walking into someone’s house is not one of them.
No fungi can live on skin that is exposed to air and sunlight. You must have shoes (or plastic bags) on your feet for a fungal infection to happen. Bare feet+ fungi is just the sort of myth people have about bare feet. Another is :" You will get broken glass, rusty nails, poo-poo etc. onto/into your feet and die of lockjaw and bloodpoisoning real fast. " I have never injured or soiled my feet while barefoot, since I instinctively watch where I step, tread softly and my feet are so toughened from natural excercise that if I did step on broken glass nothing much would happen.
I find this very interesting, indeed. In New York I’ve never known anyone to require shoe removal inside the house, except for a couple of Japanese friends I had when I was a kid. If it was muddy or slushy outside, you were certainly expected to wipe off your shoes on the doormatt as best as possible.
I agree that it seems to me that one would only remove shoes if asked or if in an intimate friend’s company.
I can’t believe how many people DON’T remove their shoes! That makes no sense to me - you’re going to bring in all the dirt and crap thats on them and smudge it around in the carpet. I don’t understand the logic. And shoes leave my feet feeling hot and heavy!
I live in Canada, and if you don’t take off your shoes, you WILL be asked to do so.
“Why are you wearing shoes indoors?? You’re tracking all the dirt in!”
— makes sense to me.
Ruby
Speaking as a no-shoe person, I can tell you that I always mix up a jug of lemonade or set up a cooler of beer before going outside to work in the yard or the garage. The time I save by not scrubbing the freakin’ floors all the time is more than enough time to make preperations for spending a few hours outside. (There’s a phone in the garage, which would be helpful if I ever bothered to answer my phone.)
When I am running around barefoot outside, which is often, I wipe my feet very well before coming into the house.
Okay. It’s just that you said that you would consider those people arrogant and self-centered…
And if you can clean your feet with a coarse brush and towel, surely a visitor could do the same to his or her shoes, correct? Or, wipe the shoes on a mat…?
Why do you say the health codes concerning bare feet have no basis in fact? If someone has, say, gangrene, or leprosy, or some other contagious infection on his or her feet, would that not be unsanitary? Wouldn’t you prefer them to cover their feet with shoes?
When I mentioned New York, I was actually thinking more of the dangers of trash, human and animal waste, traffic, and toxic substances than the weather.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on the fungal infection thing. Isn’t it true that people often get such infections in public showers, when their feet are bare? And can’t the fungus get slightly under the skin or under the nails and survive there for some time? Or between the toes? Although fungus THRIVES in moist, dark conditions, that doesn’t mean it can’t survive in other environments.
And, no, just walking barefooted doesn’t mean you will immediately get lockjaw and die. I don’t believe I ever said anything like that. However, there are dangers and it can be unsanitary when you take all factors into account. For example, an alcoholic homeless person who can’t even feel his or feet and who has been walking around barefooted for several days may have some pretty nasty things going on down there. If said person has a few open wounds, well… who knows what has creeped into the bloodstream. And so on.
I’m just trying to wrap my head around the number of no-shoe people in this thread. To me, walking around with your shoes off indoors feels like the equivalent of a man walking around with his shirt off. You can do whatever makes you comfortable in the privacy of your own home, but when visiting others it is Simply Not Done. The only exceptions to this would be an extremely informal setting, like a pool party, or visiting people from a culture where it is done. (I had no idea that such subcultures existed in North America until right now.)
I have to admit I don’t really get the cleanliness thing. Floors are dirty. A few particles of outside dirt don’t make that much of a difference, and anyway, that’s what the doormat is for.
I don’t want to SPAM, but I’ve been thinking of something that I haven’t entered into the thread yet. It partly stems from the fact that I’ve noticed a couple of SHOE folks are from the southern states, famous for their “Southern Hospitality”.
Tell me what you think of this - in a way, when you adopt the attitude “What are you doing, wearing your shoes, tracking that dirt in here?”, with visitors, aren’t you being less hospitable than if you adopt the other attitude? That is, come in as you are, it is my responsibility to keep my floors clean, not yours… I’m the host/ess and you are my guest - I deal with the aftereffects of your visit. That’s the way I feel, anyway. Of course, by the same token, if the visitor were to start removing his or her shoes, then the rules of etiquette would dictate that you do the same and then act as if this were your normal routine, no matter how unusual it was to you.
Granted, there are differences depending on the formality of the situation and all, but I just thought this was interesting.
I live in Hawaii. Domestic shoelessness is the norm here, probably because of the large Asian population, and I get the impression that people who come to live here do adapt to the custom. You also take off your shoes when you visit other people’s houses (it might be different among the extremely rich, I’m not sure), so when people have parties there’s often a HUGE carpet of shoes right outside the front door. When repairmen come to my house, they automatically remove their shoes, too. Stores also sell “Please Take Your Shoes Off Before Entering the House” signs for worried kamaaina who are going to move to the mainland or abroad.
It squicks me out when I watch TV and see young characters lounging on the bed with their sneakers on!
I live in southern Illinois. I do computer repairs, so therefore enter a lot of houses in the area, and I can say that around here, most of the time you would not be asked to remove your shoes, unless maybe they were particularly muddy. Even some of the more wealthy people I have worked for that have very nice homes don’t seem to care all that much. However, it is very uncommon to see a home without a doormat in this area, and you would be expected to wipe your feet as you come in, the same also holds true for most businesses.
I had no idea that there was so much variation in this particular custom, especially within the US.
IANA sociologist, but I think that the whole not-wearing-shoes-in-the-house thing for Asians might be more than just a hospitality issue – it’s part of their cultural mores and to break it is to allow uncleanliness, both literal and ritual, inside the house. It’s nowhere near as strong as say, Jews not being able to eat pork, but it is similar. You Do Not Wear Shoes in the House.
Now that I think about it, cultural rules of deference might also play a part. Does PM Koizumi remove his shoes for anybody? Would I ask Cecil Adams to take off his shoes…? 
I wonder how many of the people who don’t ask their visitors to remove their shoes have $10/square foot white berber carpet.
Probably not very many. It’s common courtesy to take off your shoes, if the house is at all nice and/or clean.
Don’t walk around outside and then track shit all over my $600 rug that requires professional cleaning, either.
It’s obvious that opinions differ within the US as well as around the world. It irks me when people here say “all Americans wear shoes in their homes”.
Wow. What’s surprising me more than the differences now is some of the emotion.
I think the point is that there is no such thing as common courtesy in this case.
It seems like a geographic thing, with some idiosyncratic differences, just like a lot of other issues…
For example, I have very expensive wall to wall carpeting. Not that I would have brought that up, but just in reply to the last post, yes it is more expensive than that. And, uh, yes, ouch, I also have some area rugs on top of that I suppose you would have to consider the cost of cleaning if worst came to worst. And, uh, yeah, I do consider my house “at all nice/and or clean”. But, no, I do not expect other people to worry about that when they visit my home. My job is to make them feel welcome and comfortable, not guilty.
Hhhmmmm… is it more important to be “clean” than polite?
No, I would be both both clean and polite by removing my shoes in your house.
It’s never been a problem here. People see me take my shoes off in my own home, and they usually follow suit. If not, I ask politely. If they refused or just laughed it off, I wouldn’t freak. But I’d think they were being a little impolite.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is that I’d probably want to keep my shoes on too if I was walking into a shithole.
Maybe I’m just not too worried about being considered impolite by a guest in my house. My home, my castle, my way or the highway. In someone else’s house, the reverse applies.