As a child in my parents house the only time we left our shoes at the door was if we were just coming in from playing in the snow.
From the very first apartment of my own, however, I’ve always asked people to leave their shoes at the door when they enter my house; winter and summer; snow, rain or shine.
Friends remember to bring socks if its summer.
Clients get told before hand to bring clean socks to wear.
Walk on my floors with your shoes on and you won’t get invited back.
Period.
I’ve been told my request is unusual here in Chicago.
What’s the custom in your house and is it a considered normal for the area you live?
No shoes in Casa Weekender either. Of course, as the patriarch, I occassionally exercise my prerogative and wear 'em in. BUT, being a middle-age wiseguy, I never step on oil stains in parking lots, nor walk across suburban lawns in the dark. So, I get to. My kids are completely trained.
I don’t care. If I have a guest I don’t expect them to know all my rules. I would never send them an email beforehand saying “Take off your shoes.” That seems absurd to me.
It’s a cultural thing, I think. One of my friends from the Far East takes off her shoes for religious reasons every time she enters a house (or a dorm room!) I’d not be surprised if there are valid cultural, religious, personal, or hygenic reasons for not removing one’s shoes. It’s probably not a deliberate offense at you simply for the sake of it.
I live in The South, specifically in Charlestown, so there’s plenty of people who do the whole “no shoes in the house” thing. I think it’s tyrannical and fascist and any number of negative adjectives, but I’m 19 years old and I’ve never owned a house/apartment/hovel, so what the hell do I know? Maybe one day I’ll have a place of my own with white carpets, and maybe I’ll be so worried about ruining my investment that I won’t even invite people over for fear they’ll spill a glass of merlot, and I’ll sit cross-legged in one corner, afraid to walk to the kitchen because with carpet you only get so many steps over an area until it’s ragged and threadbare. Oh my.
Also, I feel very uncomfortable when I’m without shoes around people I don’t know very well. But I’m probably weird.
“Welcome to my home. Would you kindly wash your hands before you shake hands with me?” To me, personally, there’s just a hint of “I’m afraid you’re going to get my house dirty” about the request to remove your shoes. I’ve only been in a few homes where shoe removal was requested on entering–and the one I remember specifically was in a home where new carpeting had just been installed. I must admit I don’t understand exactly what you’re trying to do: save the carpet? religious reasons? a desire to see someone fall when they slip on your kitchen floor in their socks? Although not unheard of, I’d say it’s uncommon here and I don’t know anyone personally at the moment who has such a requirement.
(Reminds me a little of an overnight stay at my brother’s some years ago. I showered before anyone else in the house was up and used an obviously clean towel hanging on a rack. When my brother got up and realized I’d showered, he said, “What towel did you use?” When I told him he said, “Oh no. Those are the ‘for looks’ towels. Don’t tell my wife you used them.”
Interesting negative responses. I didn’t think it was a big deal but I guess it is.
I would like to yank up all the wall-to-wall carpet and replace it with nice flooring. I think that I would care a lot less then about the shoe thing. But carpets keep a permanent record of what’s on the bottom of your shoes.
I just like keeping the outside outside and I notice that many many people do that nowadays around here, anyway.
While mine is an odd situation, there are other folks in it and/or may have other problems which would cause a similar reaction.
I have psoriasis on my hands and feet. If anyone’s not familiar with it, it’s an auto-immune disease which causes my body to think that my skin is damaged - so my body is trying to fix the problem. It does this by producing skin cells at a extremely accelerated rate.
The skin in the affected areas gets thick, dries out, cracks, bleeds, itches, hurts (not necessarily in that order). I’ve come home to find spots on my socks where a fissure has opened and I’ve been bleeding. I would be absolutely mortified if I went into someone’s home and had to take my shoes off only to find that I have a nice bloody spot on the bottom of my sock.
That said, I spend most of my time at home in just my socks or barefoot.
On the upside, a few months back I was able to get hooked up with a dermatologist in my area who is a psoriasis specialist. I’m in a good long-term treatment program now and responding well. I actually have thumbprints again!
At this point I’d probably be ok with taking my shoes off in someone else’s house - but there’s a lot of folks that don’t have as good luck with their treatments and spend a lot of time in misery.
hyldemoer, Weeks: Y’all don’t live with an indoor dog, do ya.
Our dog has to go outside to do his business, rain or shine. He’s constantly tracking fir needles and mud into the house, no matter how much we try to wipe off his feet before letting him back inside. As a result, our floors are almost always dirty and covered in sharp bits of plant matter; go barefoot at your own risk.
The only reason I can think of for taking one’s shoes off when entering a house is that the flooring is just too precious for mere mortals to use. This seems totally anal to me. Its like the people who wrap their furniture and lamp shades in plastic to ensure it never gets dirty - or used. Talk about materialism!
I hate going shoeless. I am forever smashing my toes into things or stepping on something sharp. Mine is a “shoes as you choose” house.
It is my greatest pleasure to make sure my feet are unwashed and that I’m wearing the oldest, smelliest shoes I own when I know I’m going to someone’s house that demands I go shoeless. They get that flooring-Nazi look in their eyes when pointing out the pile of shoes by the door, and suggest I should have noticed it without being asked.
The look of incredulous disbelief that comes over their faces when I doff my shoes is almost as precious as the surreptitious glances they make back towards the door, as if my shoes will somehow infect theirs and everybody else’s. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Well, I lived in India for a while and got used to it. I think other Asian countries have the same custom. Deej, you are culturally insensitive and hopelessly provincial Amurican. Nyuk. Fun to send it the other way once in a while, having been so charged in the past.
Most Asians tend to take their shoes off, as do Hawaiians.
It is probably unusual in Chicago and many other cities because of the cold climate. I know many folks that keep the thermostat set low (60 and below) for any number of reasons. In those homes or apartments, taking off shoes is going to be uncomfortable unless the host provides warm slippers.
I’m with Weekenders in that I’m not understanding the hostel judgements.
It was just a question.
It came into my mind this morning when a guy in French class mentioned his Chinese-Vietnamese friends in Quebec observe the custom of leaving their shoes at the door when entering a house.
I’d heard it was a custom in Canada but not as much in the USA.
My husband was raised in up state New York leaving his shoes at the door. I’ve always wondered if that was his French Canadian heritage peeking in.
When people tell me to take my shoes off at their house I’ve never thought it an insult. I’ve always taken it as a way of saying “come on in and get comfortable”.
If I leave my shoes at the door perhaps next I’ll be offered a cup of coffee or a bottle of beer or asked if I’m hungry.
When people have told me they don’t want to leave their shoes at the door at my own house I’ve always taken it as them letting me know they don’t want to get too friendly, that they want keep our relationship on formal terms.
That’s why I don’t ever trouble them to invite them back.
In the beginning I started the custom in my own house because I didn’t have any furniture and usually sat on pillows on the floor.
The custom made sense when my kids were babies and crawling/rolling around on the floor with their toys.
Later, I discovered yoga and was crawling/rolling around on the floor myself.
I’ve mentioned that I tell my clients to bring clean socks to wear. They have to do that anyway because they come to my house for shiatsu
on a futon
on the floor.
An interesting thing happened last year winter.
I’ve mentioned I had new windows installed. The guys who were subcontracted to do it didn’t speak English. They were from Poland.
I didn’t tell them to leave their construction boots at the door to do the inside portion of the job. They were observant and figured it out all on their own.
I fed them home made soup at lunch and yeah, we all had some beer before they left.
I’m always a bit offended at being told to take my shoes off when visiting someone. Seems rude to me. It’s kinda like saying" I don’t know if you have enough sense/manners to remove your shoes IF they are dirty- so I’m going to tell you. I do take mine off if I go somewhere that has carpet and/or I’ve gotten mud on my shoes. I’m not a complete idiot.
Thankfully I can think of only one person who has that “rule”, and I don’t visit much.
jsluder, I’m with you. I live on a farm. NO asphalt drive, odd and various things(some I don’t want to know about really) get tracked into my house. We’ve got three inside dogs- the Skye is long coated. I 've had pretty much everything tracked in. And what they don’t carry in, we do.
I never go without shoes. Ever. It can be dangerous, inspite of my best efforts at keeping a clean floor. We have no carpet but keeping the floor clean is a battle.
Once in a while one of the neighboring farmers will be over and when invited in, will say “Oh no, I don’t want to track up your floor” Then I say look at my shoes, do you really think your’s could be any worse, or worse than these dogs? Get in here!
What a difference a continent makes. My folks are cattle ranchers and the pasture, barn area and very wet much of the year with rain water and various types of manure. Of course everybody takes off their outside boots before coming in. But, they have slippers and such to change to. But dogs aren’t allowed inside the house ever, so…
I always pack some slippers to leave by the back door, right next to the Wellies.
Yep. I agree with this completely. It’s probably because we come from the same general place and the same culture. Asking people to take their shoes off seems offensive to me, too.
I’m finding myself on the side of Cran, Cowtime, and the other naysayers. I don’t mean it in a hostile way though. I can certainly understand someone preferring to keep the debris that shoes often track in off of his/her floors, but I believe it’s a greater courtesy to your guests to let them do what is most comfortable for them rather than assuming that anyone who–for any number of reasons–prefers to keep his shoes on must not want to be your friend. I believe a more diplomatic approach would be to have flooring material that’s easy to clean.
We have a neighbor who holds functions at her house, and rather than worry about the white carpet in her livingroom being dirtied by people’s shoes, she rolls out a clear plastic runner so they can cross to the meeting room without worrying about dirt.
That being said, if Hyldemoer asked me to remove my shoes upon entering her home I would do so.
Get in here!