At those parties, we usually keep our shoes on, but then again most people spend most of the time in the backyard. It’s a special dispensation, so to speak.
We don’t have a formal “no shoes” policy… well, I don’t anyway. Mr. Armadillo likes to ask people to remove their shoes, I think it’s rude. We always remove our shoes when entering the house, for him it’s the cleanliness thing, for me its because I’m just more comfy in bare feet. The guests we tend to have are close, dear friends. They see our shoes by the door, and are welcome to remove or not remove as per their comfort level. We prefer no shoes, but I’m not comfortable asking people directly to take them off, I guess it’s that whole thing about the comfort of my guests. They see we’re barefoot, and most will take their shoes off. If they don’t though, I’d never call attention to the fact that they didn’t. They might have a personal or medical reason for keeping them on that would be rude to question them about. They might be embarrassed that they just didn’t notice and calling attention to this, causing my guests discomfort is rude. Furthermore, as someone else has said, I expect to clean up more after a party than usual.
Mr. Armadillo feels all twitchy about shoes in the house, but after the experience detailed here I will never remove my shoes at a stranger’s house again. Intimate friends? Certainly–I’ll watch you for cues if following you in, or ask “shoes off?” at the door.
After the landlord experience, though, I’m very reluctant to walk in a stranger’s house completely barefoot, and as far as wearing someone else’s slippers, I agree with the person early on who compared it to used underwear. I don’t mind used clothing at all, but I’ll sure as hell wash the clothes before wearing them, especially if I didn’t know the person who was wearing them before. Perhaps I should take to keeping a pair of slippers in the car, just in case?
What she said 
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This surprises me. It’s not so much a shoes-on policy, as a lack of policy.
I was talking about running out to your car, taking the trash to the shed, whatever. Provided I have shoes on all I need to do is throw on my shell. Even if it’s 10f below. For myself, at home, once I have my shoes on, It’s a lot easier to just leave them on.
I live in snow 6 months out of the year. Like I said, I don’t believe a dollop of snow (we don’t spread salt) on my boots will hurt my carpet. It hasn’t so far. It’s water.
Interesting. In my 44 years, I’ve found one house where we were asked to remove our shoes.
I’d respect their culture and their house. No prob. I do think it’s a bit silly though, but the respect of the house, cultural thing is easier to accept than removing shoes to protect carpet. Carpet is ment to be walked on. Even in shoes.
Not at all. Whatever floats your boat. I might be a bit surprised if you took off your pants. 
masonite I understand why you find the Vietnamese custom charming, what I don’t understand is why my Yankee custom is
They serve the same ends through different means.
You see, I was raised to believe that the most honored position a guest can hold is to be welcomed into the home as a member of the family. In my world, offering special treatment to someone entering your home carries the implication that they are not invited into the inner circle and would be reserved for only the most formal of social situations. In fact, I’m having a hard time imagining a social gathering in my home in which such formalities would be appropriate. We aren’t the type to have cocktails with acquaintances. We have drinks with friends. The boss doesn’t come over for dinner like he always seems to in sitcoms, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a front room audience with the Parson.
The highest praise I have received as a hostess is the declaration that my home is inviting and comforting. It’s no accident. I go out of my way to treat guests as honored family members not as mere visitors in my home and this treatment starts at the threshhold when guests are invited to remove their shoes.
So again, why is one form of hospitality more charming than another?
You seriously want me to answer a request to take off my shoes with a description of my foot problems? Seriously? You think that would be appropriate?
I live in Ohio. It snows here. There’s snow on the ground right now. We deal.
Because the point of being a good host is in making guests feel welcome. It isn’t in isolating them, or demanding they make excuses for not wanting to do things.
Since I am not the one who would ever EVER ask someone to take off or put on shoes, how can you say that I care more than you do? I care about my guests’ comfort and their sense of feeling welcome in my home. Drawing attention to them? Making demands of them? Embarrassing them? Pointing out that they are not fitting in? Asking for a medical excuse before I allow them to do what they prefer?
If you said, “Many people here are more comfortable if they take their shoes off. You’re welcome to join in, if you’d like,” I wouldn’t feel rude in not joining in. Apparently you would still consider it rude because I wouldn’t dream of explaining what’s wrong with my feet and would simply keep them on.
If you said, “We all take our shoes off. Please remove yours,” I would be put on the spot and expected to comply or to tell you about my falling arches. I would not, under any circumstances, tell you about my falling arches. Trying to get an exception made is an imposition and therefore unacceptable. It puts you on the spot. Notice how everyone is getting put on the spot.
Let me ask this. If you showed up at someone’s house and they said, “Please take the time there in the foyer to donate to my favorite charity,” what would your reaction be? What if you didn’t have any money with you? What if you couldn’t afford it? What if you didn’t believe in the charity? Obviously, making a request can most definitely be rude.
And again, since you have said that everyone in your neck of the woods does this, you’re lucky. This won’t come up. Your carpets with their generous layer of dead skin and other organic matter will look clean for years.
I understand why you’re sensitive about this, but that’s not what he (or any of us no-shoes people) meant.
In my home, the exchange would go something like this:
(Doorbell rings. I answer it. Group of friends is there.)
Q.N.: Hi everyone!
(“Take off shoes” area is prominent at the door. Some people start taking them off automatically.)
Q.N.: Thanks, guys. (To others.) I prefer no shoes in the house, but if you’re not comfortable with that, it’s no big deal.
Conscientious Objector: I’m not comfortable with it.
Q.N.: That’s cool. Come on in!
(alternatively, Conscientious Objector can say nothing, and neither will I)
This is the part I don’t get. Why should anyone feel “isolated” for an entire evening simply because they’re the only one wearing shoes? Do you think the no shoes people will ostracize you? Are you going to spend all your time worrying about the fact that you’re wearing shoes and no one else is? Why? I know I will give the matter no more thought after you come in the door.
I absolutely don’t understand why all the “Anti No Shoes” people insist on believing that the “No Shoes” people are boorish, rude, and demanding about their preference. I’m not. And I strongly suspect that 9 out of 10 “No Shoes” people make the request in a manner similar to mine. I’ve been in a lot of “No Shoes” homes in my lifetime. Everyone was very, very polite and mild about making the request.
I think some of the “Anti No Shoes” people are imagining a problem that doesn’t really exist, except in the homes of jerks (and who wants to visit them anyway?)
When I say “Make yourself at home” I mean it. I don’t ask people to remove shoes or anything else. I encourage them to be as comfortable as possible. I am not comfortable without shoes, and suspect many of my guests feel the same way.
That’s being a host.
While it’s OK to ask guests to conform to your rules, It’s not necessarily hospitable. Smoke outside, fine. Taking off shoes seems silly. What is it, a pajama party?
You nailed it. I happen to have Plantar Faciitis in my right foot. It’s not too bad, but I do sleep with a brace. No actually, it sucks.
Walking more than a couple of miles is a real problem (DC last summer clinched the deal). I limp slightly without shoes, and do OK with proper support. Can’t really ski anymore… Should I wear that statement on my chest? Or am I the asshole that refuses to take off his shoes.
Should we announce “EVERONE WITH FOOT PROBLEMS MAY WEAR SHOES, EVERYONE ELSE MUST TAKE THEM OFF” actually, that would be OK, except I’d have to spend the rest of the evening explaining what Plantar Faciitis is to everyone. Perhaps I should get some cards printed up?
If someone tells me that they prefer something and I don’t comply, I’m a boor.
I’ve read numerous threads, both here and in other forums, with people fuming about how so-and-so didn’t take off his shoes despite requests, or that he never got the hint or how mother-in-law had a stroke and doesn’t want to take off her shoes and isn’t she a bitch? I don’t see much “If someone doesn’t automatically take them off it must be for a good reason.” I do see a lot of “What’s your problem?” and “Your shoes are filthy and I don’t want them in my house.”
What are we who like shoes supposed to think? If someone says, as Farmwoman did earlier in this thread: “Our home is strictly shoeless, and it’s a mistake to think that the only things riding into your home on the bottoms of people’s shoes are dirt and rocks. Saliva, feces, urine, pesticides, salt, gum, discarded food … I think it’s rather rude to assume your host would be delighted to see you bring all this into the house when you come to visit.”
Are we who wear shoes supposed to ask her for an exception? She thinks we’ve got poo shoes. Her “gag reflex” is being triggered.
So what could possibly give us the impression that we wouldn’t be welcome in her house in shoes?
If someone comes to dinner, do you make them work? Set the table or chop veg or anything?
IMHO, this is borderline paranoia.
Do your guests regularly go to a land-fill? Do they work there? Maybe they go to the zoo everyday? Do you think that they are so clueless that they don’t know if they stepped in something?
Yep, I set up some straw men. But REALLY - It’s carpet, its a floor. It’s made to be walked on.
Perhaps paranoia is to strong of a word.
Don’t sweat it, we all have our phobias. I’m sorta afraid of heights, surprised the hell out of me. Never used to bother me.
Well, since this is IMHO I thought it would be okay to divulge my HO without people getting so defensive about it.
While I’d never tell someone what they are supposed to think, you have explicitly asked for it, so I will. Perhaps what you should be thinking, in light of the shock expressed by the outside world that some Americans regularly wear street shoes indoors, is something along the lines of: maybe this is a nasty habit that deserves some more introspection and a little less knee-jerk rejection on my part. I, for one, would be grateful if you’d take a moment to consider the possibilty that shoeless homes aren’t necessarily run by neatfreak germophobes with priceless carpets and plastic-covered furniture. It would be nice if you’d step back from the defensive line long enough to realize that my invitation to get comfortable is simply that. Consider the possibility that it’s a tad rude for you to leap to a defensive pose which boils down to: Get over it, it’s just carpeting.
Not in my experience, no. People who wear shoes in the house don’t feel that the floor is particularly dirty, so they have no problem sitting on it. It’s just a little dust from the bottom of shoes, after all, and if your hostess was expecting you the floor’s been swept and mopped or vacuumed very recently. No big deal. Hell, I lay in the floor of my parents’ house quite regularly. I might get some tiny bit of dust here or there if they haven’t vaccuumed in a while (though in that case I’m far more likely to be covered in dog hair), but overall it’s not an issue. Granted, I don’t wear nice clothes when wallowing about in the floor, but I wouldn’t wear nice clothes for wallowing about anywhere because it would get them all rumpled up.
Oh, and as a guest, there’s a world of difference between being invited to do something if I wish and being asked to do something that may or may not make me uncomfortable. “You’re welcome to kick your shoes off and put your feet up if you want,” lets people know they’re free to make themselves at home without putting any burden or expectation on them. It allows people who have medical issues, or foot stink, or hole-filled socks, or who just prefer to wear their shoes for personal reasons to decline your invitation without having to go against your express wishes. “Please take your shoes off,” no matter how many explanations and disclaimers go with it, puts a burden on the guest. Even if you add that it’s fine if someone leaves their shoes on, they’re in the unpleasant situation of having to go against someone’s clearly stated wishes. Putting someone on the spot like that is just plain rude.
Why describe them? What’s wrong with “Oh, I really shouldn’t take them off, actually, doc’s orders” or some similar thing would suffice. I’m not an idiot; I don’t need your charts. And frankly, no other guest is going to notice unless you’re wearing mukluks and training mud and water or something.
If you have some special condition that requires accomodation, it’s your job as an adult to let us all know. I would expect a person invited over for dinner to tell me if he was a vegetarian, or had particular food allergies, or had a religious reason for not eating a certain type of food, or if his guest was in a wheelchair, or (insert whatever else you can think of.) It would be absurd for someone to come over and then, upon being served prime rib, to say I was rude in not accounting for them not wanting beef.
Of course, this time of year, I assume that you wear some kind of overshoes? Because surely you don’t have slush mashed all over your house?
You put so much emphasis and concern on this issue. What’s “demanding” here? I mean, run your household however you want, but it’s silly to tell other how to run theirs.
Just because people do it one way where you live does not make the rest of the world rude. Your neck of the woods does not have a monopoly on the proper manner in which a household should be run. It is perfectly polite to ask small accomodations of people who enter your home, and this is a very, very minor accomodation for 99% of the world. If it’s NOT a small accomodation - for instance, if you have some reason you need to keep shoes on, whatever that might be - well, that’s different, but don’t expect us to read your mind, okay?
Incidentally, if you asked me to KEEP my shoes on in your home (I realize you’ve said you wouldn’t do that, but I’m making an example) it would not bother me in the slightest.
That’s simply a ridiculous comparison. Asking me to make a donation puts me out money and it’s not normal practice where you live or where I live. Asking people to remove their slush-encrusted shoes IS usual practice here and takes you about three seconds of trouble.
Now, if you lived in Somewhereistan, Central Asia, and it was normal practice to toss a few coins into a charity box upon entering someone’s home, I would do so happily and wouldn’t find it at all rude. Because I don’t happen to think the way it’s done in southern Ontario is the way everyone on earth should have to do it. Adaptation to shifting local customs is part of living outside your own house.
I have to question that ‘some Americans’ in there. I know one person that asks you to take your shoes off before entering their home.
One.
Maybe It’s a Colorado thing?
In my opinion, and experience, it’s rare, and unusual to ask a guest to take off there footwear to enter the house.
And again, it’s about being a good host. I would never ask someone to remove their shoes to come into my house. If the shoes are muddy, they know that they should. Common courtesy covers that.
[quote=masonite]
Here’s another cultural division this thread has turned up: the same people who feel more comfortable shod in public, are probably less likely to sit on the floor.[/quote} ehhh??? Where did you pick up that idea?
Enipla, I’d guess he got that idea from the shoes off people who talked about not wearing shoes because they sit or lie in their floor. The implication being that the floors in shoes on homes are clearly far too filthy for anyone to ever consider sitting on. Since most people who wear shoes indoors never said anything one way or the other, I could see where someone would get that impression from the thread.
(Though I suppose a hard-core shoes off person might shrink from parking their sparkling keister on my repulsive, dog-shit smeared floor. 
)
As I’ve repeatedly said, my feet hurt when they are not in shoes. It feels a little like having a redhot poker jammed into my arch. That isn’t comfortable. And since you’ve repeatedly said that your house is strictly a no shoes house, there is no way I can be comfortable there.
I don’t have any shoes that have never been worn. All of my shoes have been exposed to the contaminants you fear. Therefore I can either be at your house and in pain or I can stay home. As I’ve repeatedly said, if I’m aware of the hosts’ wishes, I’d stay home rather than contaminate their homes, and I’d count myself lucky.
And again, since this point is being missed repeatedly, if this is the normal cultural practice where you are, congratulations! You won’t run into problems. Since it isn’t the norm here, congrats to me! I have never run into problems.
If you’re the host when cultures collide, good luck.
Neither. We have rugs and welcome mats.
If there’s one thing this thread has shown us, it is that there are obviously a lot who do and a lot who don’t. I live in America, and I go shoeless in my house.
Thank you! I was trying for the longest time to think of how to say this. I don’t think having a no shoes policy is rude. I do think it’s a bit rude to ask your guests to remove their shoes.
Honestly, I know very few “no shoes” houses. When I visit the few I know of, I take my shoes off–but no one has ever asked. In all honesty, if I had a medical reason for not wanting to remove my shoes, I’d prefer not to have to say so. The reasons are twofold:
- I prefer not to discuss medical matters unless absolutely neccessary. I don’t want to go into detail about an issue, but if I don’t it often leads to speculation.
- It puts my host in the position of having to make an exemption for me (something I don’t feel polite asking for–especially not once I’m standing in their doorway).
IMHO, the shoes thing differs from a dietary restriction or the case of someone in a wheelchair. For one thing, those issues often do fall into the area of absolutely neccessary. Yes, it would be rude for someone to show up and proclaim they can’t eat shellfish and berate you for serving it, and many homes aren’t set up for wheelchairs. So those are things that need to be brought up ahead of time (e.g. “I’d love to attend your shrimp fry, however, I’m afraid I cannot eat shellfish; can I prepare another dish to bring along?” or “my husband uses a wheelchair; will that be a problem at your house?”). Also, since those things are usually brought up ahead of time, you avoid an awkward moment at the doorway
I guess if I lived in an area where no shoes was the norm, I may say something ahead of time (“Just to let you know, I prefer not to remove my shoes; will that be a problem?”). But, honestly, it’s so rare in my social circle that I would probably never think of it.