Not at all. Really. I touch the fixtures in public bathrooms, I eat things that have fallen on the floor, I use the railings in public places…etc. And I’m strongly against using antibacterial soaps in environments that don’t need to be sterile.
I don’t actually give a shit one way or the other about vacuuming in shoes. I was just sort of following a train of thought that ended up being a bit inaccurate.
You know, it feels that way to me…though I’m going to have to admit there’s no real basis for that thought. Got me there. It made sense to me at the time… It does seem like shoes are better at grinding in dirt and crud, but I have no way of backing myself up.
I don’t think it’s at all disgusting or unclean to wear shoes in the house, BTW. It’s something I choose not to do because I’m far more comfortable without. shrug
[QUOTE=FarmwomanI don’t think it ever really existed either. Most of the suburban housewives I encountered in real life growing up wore housedresses and house shoes or slippers as they went about their daily business. My statement was in response to masonite’s post #110.[/QUOTE]
At home, probably no one, but at someone elses house? I am entirely uncomfortable being asked to walk around in socks. Again, the shoes are part of the outfit! Why else would I be wearing four inch heels? Not so I can drop them at the door.
Also this is all reminding me of that Sex and the City episode where Carrie was asked to take her shoes off at someone’s house and her Manolo’s got stolen. Heh, she invoiced for them. Granted, my heels don’t cost as much as those, but I felt her pain.
Bolding mine. Umm… You’re going a little over the top with this. Makes me think that you are, perhaps a bit of a germophobe. There are LOTS of worse things. I know about this. My Mom vacuums her garage.
I just don’t feel that ‘filth’ attaches itself to your shoes to be transported where ever you go. Sure, if your shoes are dirty, take them off. If not, it’s not an issue.
I live in the mountains. I have no problems going outside and sitting down in my ‘yard’ and coming in and sitting on my couch. If I have dirt or twigs on me or something, I’ll brush them off first. Same with my shoes.
I don’t mean to be snarky, and I think that a little dirt on your shoe is not as bad as stepping in a puddle of piss. But, is NYC really that filthy?
Is ‘natural’ dirt OK? If you sat down on a big rock, or a gravel driveway or a lawn or just the side of a hill, would you consider it filthy? Would you need to change when you got home?
That just wouldn’t be practical. There would be “issues” at work for one thing, also, there would be a risk of stepping on something sharp outdoors. Tetanus is worse than stink foot.
Ahh, I think I see now…(I’m not being snarky, I just didn’t realize where you live exactly.)
Speaking for Boston, Chicago, and Baltimore, city streets and sidewalks really are that filthy. I try not to think about it.
If my reason for not wearing shoes inside was cleanliness rather than comfort: walking in my parent’s house in the suburbs in shoes and walking in my city apartment in shoes are two completely different things…in the former the issue is actual dirt, not such a big deal except that you can’t always get all of it off your shoes and inevitably some gets tracked over the floors and ground into the rugs and carpets. Frankly, cleaning is a pain.
In the latter it’s pure ick factor. Not like it keeps me from tromping around the place in my shoes if I’ve forgotten something or I’m going out again in a few minutes, but I do try not to think about it.
Yep, I see better too. The only thing I may drag into my house 6 months out of the year is a dolup of clean snow. In summer, maybe a bit of dust from the driveway.
Hmm. I was in Chicago 3 years ago (Wife ran the marathon). DC (the mall, my Wife and I walked about 20 miles in 3 days) last summer. I did not see the filth people are talking about. It’s been 20 years since I’ve been in NYC. Spent a week there with a native NYC’er. Subways, and walking. Lots and lots of walking.
Let’s see. Oh yeah. Two years ago. San Diego. Back and forth to the convention center every day for a week. 8 blocks each way. My shoes stayed clean. No piss, no shit, no gum.
Ehhh… for the city folks doing it every day, it may be a bit different. But having to take your shoes off before coming into the house is just plain silly to me.
Yes, it is. Or at least, was. I worked in NYC between '92-'95. The walk to/from the Port Authority was always an adventure; if it wasn’t the urine (ugh, the stench!) on various street corners, it was the roaches scurrying across the road or the crack vials littering 40th street or the nondescript puddles of garbage-ooze. Perhaps it’s been cleaned up some in the Age of Giuliani/Bloomberg and the Disneyification of 42nd Street. Of course, it wasn’t a constant state of nastiness; say, twice weekly I’d get that type of thing.
And that doesn’t even take into account the dead guy on the steps of the library at lunch one day. Or the bum I noticed taking a dump on a subway platform downtown. Ah, fond remembrances…
On preview, I note that you’ve been there. Yes, I think it’s different for visitors, who can be identified because they’re always looking up. Makes quite a difference.
Also, visitors generally stay in the cleaner/better maintained parts of town. Even middle-of-the-line residential areas are apt to not be as clean. There’s just a certain amount of grime that can’t be gotten rid of, especially in the winter when there’s no rain to wash things off.
Taking the shoes off before coming in may be a little much, but definitely once I’m in the door and everything’s put down.
Which reminds me of another thing I’ve noticed–even after walking around on the carpet a bit, the soles of my shoes are still wet…good way to track grey silty water all over the place.
As a slight hijack, city life is dirtier in general–dustier, grimier, smellier…so I’m willing to bet people living in the city adopt more measures like this just to cut down on the amount of yuck in their lives. (I know I would, even if I weren’t already a shoes-off person.)
Since I’ve never lived in a big city, it didn’t occur to me that the dirt would be nastier I accept that my “it’s just dirt” principle doesn’t necessarily apply in that case. Maybe this will be enlightening to those who boggled at the notion of allowing every Tom, Dick & Harry to track filth through the house, too. The absolute worst anyone’s shoes bring into my house is perhaps some dog poo—not human waste! Ick!
I still believe firmly that it’s rude to ask any visitors other than your family and closest friends to take off their shoes, but your dirt-phobia is more justified than I realized before.
Me, at someone else’s house. And I don’t put my shodden feet on someone’s sofa, or tables (and I wouldn’t do it in my stocking feet, either!). I sit and cross my legs.
Farmwoman, if someone DID genuinely have issues with taking off their shoes-for health reasons (bad arches, braces, athlete’s foot or whatever), what WOULD you do? Do you honestly believe there’s THAT much dirt out there?
Hey, when I take my shoes off-I have to TOUCH my germy shoes!!! Do you have handy wipes so I don’t smear my filth all over the place? Do you have plastic all over your furniture?
This is a very much NOT DONE thing here - on a par with unplugging someone’s car on a cold night. We all take our shoes off at the door, and if someone were to steal someone else’s shoes, well, in 38 years, I’ve never heard of it happening. Were you to be caught doing something like that, well, we just wouldn’t understand why you would do something as anti-social as that.
Those of you insisting that asking guests to take off their shoes is rude, well, it may be in your part of the world. It isn’t here. You know, when I think about it, Canadians have a reputation of being cold and stand-offish, but going to a party and sitting around with everyone else in their stocking feet, you develop a sort of intimacy with these people. We stand very far away from each other, but we look at each other’s feet. Funny, no?
I guess the meaning of my earlier response to you was lost in sarcasm. To be clear, what I WOULD do is exactly what I do do (heh, I said doo doo) which is nothing. In theory, no one is required to ditch their shoes in the foyer, but in practice (gracious and hospitipal practice) nearly everyone does. Perhaps you and I run in different circles since no one has ever made an issue out of my polite invitation to “make yourself comfortable in one of these pairs of woolen clogs”. On the contrary. With fewer exceptions than I would need one hand to count, this polite invitation is gratefully accepted. Even the few people who have chosen to wear their street shoes in my home failed to correct my rude behavior or disclose their rationale. Maybe none of my visitors suffer from the above mentioned maladies. Maybe they do, but don’t feel humiliated and oppressed by my hospitality. Perhaps no one on my regular guest list is victim to this odd foot phobia which seems so common in this thread. Hell, it’s even possible that I have offended a great number of guests, and that they only keep coming back to avoid my wrath.
But seriously, why is my distaste for exterior dirt brought into my interior space on your shoes worthy of ridicule while the near phobic aversion to socks expressed by some on this thread is normal?
Umm… cause foot wear is the norm? Cause I really don’t believe that the ‘outside’ is so dirty? I haven’t seen it. It sure isn’t ‘dirty’ where I live, or the cities I visit. I sure as hell don’t track it around on my shoes. If I step In something, I know it.
Sig?
Exterior dirt? Aversion to socks? Phobic?
Nope, its just a pain in the ass. Something that I don’t do to my guests. The no shoes on in my house folks are the phobic ones. In spades.
If your house is so pristine that you don’t wear shoes in it, I’m surprised that you would ever have guests over.
No different in Eastern Canada, evidently; I have never in my 33 years on this earth, in the hundreds of homes I have visited, been in a house where people wore their shoes around. I would simply assume guests would remove their shoes; if someone stomped into my house on their outside shoes I’d be quite surprised, and would think they were appallingly rude.
I am honestly, truly amazed this thread exists. I really did not know Americans did this. I’m just flabbergasted; it’s a remarkable little cultural difference. Quite informative, really.
As to the issue of Miss Manners, I would suggest that taking her word as being gospel on these matters is akin to taking the word of Ann Landers as being gospel on how to run your life. I kind of gather Miss Manners has never lived in a place where it’s physically impossible NOT to track in salt, slush and filth five months a year.
Since this is the second time in this discussion that you’ve opened a response to something I’ve written with an ‘umm’ I feel complelled to let you know how condescending and rude I find this tactic. I probably wouldn’t bother 'cept we are talking about normative politeness and all.
Perhaps you’ve been skimming over the rest of this thread in which we have pretty much established that wearing street shoes in the home is not the norm. Not even in many parts of our own little secluded country.
You may be right then.
Well, there you go. Clearly You are right.
This is where I start wondering if you are really trying to be hurtful or if you are simply being obtuse. Either way, I’m not sure this discussion would benefit from me repeating what I’ve said in earlier posts. Feel free to reread the thread if you have any questions about my philosophy or the way it has affected my social life.
But think about it. If you have to ask people to take off their shoes, that means that it isn’t the cultural norm. Asking people to do something that might make them uncomfortable is rude.
If you have to ask, they aren’t assuming it. If they aren’t assuming it, it isn’t their expectation. If you have to ask people in your neck of the woods to take off their shoes, then it isn’t the default. If you don’t, it is. If people do it automatically, you’re golden. Once you have to ask, it’s rude.
Granted, my heels don’t cost as much as those, but I felt her pain.