Do you wear shoes inside

I'm curious: Do you and your family wear shoes inside?

I'm German. No idea if that has anything to do with it. We never wore shoes in the house. For us, jackets and shoes are for outside, we take them off on the doorstep. If we go to someone we know well (friends, family), we take our shoes off there, too. If it is a more formal occasion or a party, we leave them on.
My in-laws never take their shoes off inside. I actually had to have a talk to them as when DD started rolling around on the floor, I really didn't want people walking around with shoes on. FIL actually kept walking right over her playrug with his shoes (eeek) when she was only a tiny baby. I said to him: You wouldn't want her to lick the soles of your shoes, would you?
They always used to drag dirt inside (he didn't even take them off after mowing the lawn one time. I had grass clippings through the whole living area. :rolleyes:

They treat me as if I've lost my marbles. I always take my shoes off at their place, too. I just don't feel comfortable with my shoes on. DD does the same and they actually said: "she's already copying your habit" well, i want her to. I hate housework. I do it, but I don't enjoy it. So I am trying to minimise it.
Shoes are dirty. You walk on the road, maybe through remnants of dog poo and pee, you might walk where someone spat on the street, you walk into public toilets,...
gee, I sound like a germaphobe. I am not.

The funny thing is, FIL used to travel to Japan a lot for work and I am sure he used to take his shoes off there...

Anyway, let's have a vote. Who takes their shoes off inside? I wanna know whether i really am that curious...

ETA: I don't know how to add a poll. so just send me your answer via a reply.

Sasa
xx

I don't unless I'm running in to grab something quickly. Got into the habit of taking them off out west coz you didn't want to walk a cat head into the house! (Nasty nasty burr!)
I feel rude going into someone elses house with shoes on & never do if I can help it. But I'm not too fussed on it.

We wear our shoes inside our house because it's all wood flooring and no matter how many times I mop our socks always get dirty. Growing up we always took our shoes off inside. I always ask when I go to someones house whether they want me to take my shoes off.

I don't wear shoes inside, either. Except for my thongs when I'm cleaning and don't want my feet getting all slippery on the wet floors.
And yes, it bugs me that nobody else takes their shoes off when they come inside, even DH tromps around in his Chuck Taylors or *eeek!* work boots all day and it's like, 'Umm, the baby is crawling through that big pile of dried mud you just tracked indoors... thanks!'.

I don't wear shoes inside, never have.

Nope no shoes inside out house :lol: most people take their shoes off at the door too, we dont ask them to they just do it..

i ALWAYS wear shoes inside . then again i always wear thongs in other peoples showers too lol !!

i wear them as walking on hard floors hurts my back nad makes the back pain worse . I have 3 pairs of shoes called fit flops . they are great for my back pain , so i wear them inside all day . I never wear them on carpet though . i take them off before i enter one of the bedrooms .

my mum does it too , so i guess i copied her . i also hate dirty feet , i have shiny tiles but DS spilt a silicone ceramic stove top protecter on the tiles and now they get grubby really quickly as i cant get rid of the waxy film , i hate seeing the soles of my feet dirty from the tiles so i wear the thongs inside . very rarely do i wear my inside thongs out side or to the shops , so i know my fit flops are clean . no one else wears shoes inside . but i hate the feeling of particles of food or dirt on bare skin. DH thinks its strange . but then he has strange habits too , so i guess were even .

I don't wear shoes inside - my feet like to be free! Dh says its 'cause I'm a Queenslander, he's been up here 10 years, he should adapt to the custom if that's the case.

Ammaki, I don't usually ask people either. Most people do it automatically. Maybe because they see us do it or because they do it themselves. I did ask my in-laws as they come over regularly and we're family. I would not ask someone I didn't know too well. Even with my in-laws it took me 8 years. Basically, walking over the baby playrug with outside shoes was the last straw. I mean, why do you reckon I bother with the rug, not to protect the carpet, but to give my baby a clean surface.

Charmalea, house-shoes (slippers) are different. So if you have a pair for indoors, I would not classify that as wearing your shoes indoors iykwim. I have carpet in the loungeroom (one of these days I will have enough money to get floorboards).

I also don't like the feeling of thigs sticking to my bare feet. hence why I don't like people dragging in dirt from outside. I vaccum the loungeroom and kitchen and around the dining table at least every 2 days, the rest of the house a little bit less. This way I keep crumbs and other bits to a minimum.

Sasa

Snowylove, it has nothing to do with being a queenslander. As I said, I'm German and still don't feel like I'm at home until I have kicked off my shoes.

For me there is an added thing: My dermatologist actually ordered me to go barefoot as much as possible as I have pustular psoriasis on the soles of my feet. During a flare-up and when it's cold she wants me to wear socks to keep my feet clean, but not shoes.
I was doing the flylady thing for a very short time a while ago and the shoe mantra really bugged me.

Sasa

We don't mind if people wear shoes in our uncarpeted areas of the house as we mop the floors every evening, but we don't wear our shoes in the house at all. They're taken off in either the garage or laundry.

I barely wear shoes outside :lol: But if I am at someone elses house I take my shoes off.. If I am wearing mine and have to duck back inside then yes I wear them..

we dont wear shoes in side no.
The kids even take their kids off when they walk in the door and DD is only 2 and she knows by herself!

I dont wear them at other peoples houses either, even if they say dont worry you can wear them, i dont even notice i am taking them off! lol

My BIL has this argument all the time with his INlaws. THey refuse to take off their shoes in his house no matter how many times he asks them too - to me that is just being purposefully rude.

xx

oh and i dont ask people in my house to take them off. NOt even my own parents.
If people see i remove mine and they choose not to that is fine (i just clean up after they go home lol!).

Sunshine I am a non shoes in the house wearer too...
I agree with all your reasons & I certainly find it rude when people don't take off their shoes.
To me it's also about the energy of what is collected on shoes. As you say: dog poo, cat wee, spit, etc etc. You are walking that "crap" into a home & it's actually not a good energy as well as not clean. A home is a santurary and a haven - to bring inside it this type of energy isn't a good thing IMO... I might sound wierd to some...

I have spent a lot of time studying Buddhism & shoes are routinely removed before entering a home or a Gompa. This is because largely of the pathogens that shoes collect - but also out of respect. Respect for the "cleanness" of a home or a place of worship (which a home is).

My (ex) parents in law refused to remove their shoes and I found this confronting... I find it amazing that people can just disrespect a moray in someone's home! If people ask me I say we don't wear our shoes inside. If not I don't say anything unless they are a close friend - and of course they don't wear them inside anyway as they know it's not my thing.

I never wear shoes in the house, it is discusting, all the dirt that people bring in from their shoes is just grose. We have wooden floors throughout the house, and when people walk inside with their shoes on, they seem to make a trail of dirt that I can see! Most people know that we dont like people to have their shoes on when they are in our house, but it does not stop them. I think it is also my FIL that is the worst, he is a council worker and wears bloodstones all the time, he will never take them off and they leave scuff marks all over the floor. arg!! he just doesnt care, but when he is at his home, he will always have them off. I dont get that. Our sign out the front is quite clear, people are just rude imo when they leave them on.

We also don't wear our shoes inside. It really does annoy me and DH if people come here and wear shoes inside especially since we had DS and you can clearly see a pile of shoes near our front and back door.
My mum is a perfect example of someone who disrespects this rule in our home. She walked in just after we moved here and I politely told her we don't wear our shoes inside so would she be able to leave hers at the front door too. She gave me the worst look and took them off but has NEVER taken them off since :wall: She even had the hide to tell me that its better for the carpet if you wear shoes inside than going barefoot due to the oil that comes out of your feet. Um hello who told you this information?? A carpet cleaning company lol. Obviously they want you to wear shoes inside so they have people calling all the time cos their carpet needs cleaning after all the dirt that comes in off the soles of your shoes :shakehead:
Ok I'm finished my rant lol...so NO we don't wear shoes in our home ;)

I don't wear shoes inside the house for no particular reason.
DH puts his shoes on as soon as he gets dressed.
I'm thinking about enforcing a no shoes rule though seeing as we now have DS & new carpet. I too hate people stepping on his blankies with their shoes on, but have no idea how to "tell them off"!!

yeah I don't wear shoes inside, it was the way I was brought up - my Mum was very strict on it and now with my own home I fully understand why. DH will still wear his shoes inside even though I tell him all the time, he takes them off but then gets into bad habits again. DD takes hers off.

People who blatantly turn round and disrespect your house rules - whatever they may be - are in my opinion downright rude and obnoxious....grr to them ....and as for walking on a baby rug - no offence, but puhleese, what are they thinking???

Floors get dirty on their own without having all the crap from outside walked in - and it is a pita to constantly be cleaning it....

Do you have a sign at all on your front door??? Maybe it's time....:)

Good luck with your in-laws.

Laurin x

I NEVER wear shoes inside.. I think of peoples house and clenliness and they wear and tear on their flooring.. i think if everyone didnt wear shoes.. how clean there house would be and floor wise.

I wear shoes inside the house only sometimes, but I don't specifically take them off when I get home. Unless i see lots of shoes near the front door, I don't offer to take them off. If I see a de-shoeing zone, I always offer to take mine off.

This custom is very location dependent. In Darwin it is more usual for people to remove their shoes before entering...most have fairly light footwear so it is easy to slip them off...plus more comfy in the heat. I note most of the replies in this thread hail from more northerly type areas of Australia. Down here in the temperate zones, ppl are more likely to be wearing heavy boots or laceups...they certainly wipe their feet before entering, and would certainly remove work boots or shoes that are muddy, etc. But it is not common at all for people to take their shoes off when they enter someone's home. It took a lot of getting used to after all those years in Darwin!

I guess it does make it harder MD if it's cold with boots etc... But Sunshine Sieben is German & it is customary over there?

When I lived in Vic I still took them off & expected others to do so... I guess it's personal. :hug:

TBH, I've always had people offer to take their boots off over any other shoes. To everyone I know wearing work boots inside someone's house is very rude.
I wear thongs & nothing else. Occasionally if its freezing, ugg boots, but thats it. I hate shoes & would love to be bare foot all the time.
Shoes that aren't clearly dirty don't bother me. The kids get dressed & put their shoes on before school etc & will walk around with them on.
I do vacuum every day, at least every second day & I clean my carpets with mum's vax every 6 months anyway.
As I said, we are used to it so we don't walk in cat heads. Since they don't grow here I don't care so much. But walking on a baby blanket with shoes on is just nasty! What on earth are these people thinking? Ask them if they would mind if you walked all over their beds with shoes on!

DP and i are very anal about shoes in our house. We have a tiled area at the front door so we have rugs where shoes go and our visitors take their shoes off. I do the same at other peoples houses, something ive always done.

we take our shoes off when we come into our house, and leave them jusd inside our front door under a cupboard. We would never leave them outside due to the risk from funnelwebs.
In the summer i am barefoot inside, and in the winter we both have slippers that are only worn inside.
I take my shoes off when visiting other peoples homes if that is what they do also

We never wear shoes inside, we built our house last year and all the carpet is new etc, I find it really rude when people come over and don't take their shoes off because they will be doing a tour of the house and they will be walking on the carpet. Even if it wasn't new why would they want to dirty our clean tiles and carpet :rolleyes: Soooo I ask them to take them off before they come in!

Nope, no shoes inside. In winter I wear slippers inside to keep my feet warm.

I have a friend who supplies bathroom slippers - there are a couple of pairs of $2 rubber slippers at the bathroom door to wear into the bathroom so that you don't track anything from the floor of the bathroom around the house. I'm not sure why she bothers, you could operate in her bathroom, maybe it's a habit left-over from living in places with grottier bathrooms.

I do wear my shoes inside, and my house isn't disgusting as has been mentioned! I don't have a problem taking my shoes off at others houses if this is what they do themselves, but I do feel underdressed if I go to a party all dressed up and have to take my shoes off.

I feel like such a grub! I take my shoes off but only because I like to be barefoot.. and so I can put my feet on the coffee table without grossing myself out!!! :sick:

TBH our floors are always a mess, we have a tiny narrow terrace, basically straight into the lounge room from the street. As we have no side access we wheel our bicyles in and out through the lounge too. Even the green bin has to go through every now and then. A hardy, antique persian carpet hides the chunks, but I hadn't thought about how it wil be when bub arrives :rolleyes:

Nope, but if I do not have to put on shoes I don't.....:redface:

My neighbour is from Austria and I have noticed she is very particular about not wearing shoes in her house.

I don't really wear them in the house, but sometimes on my way out the door I have them on. I take them off before entering other people's houses, but couldn't care less if people wear them in our house.

Shoes have the same 'germs' on them that the concrete and grass, dirt and tiles have on them and kids and babies play on those surfaces. (obviously not newborns though)

My floors are kept quite clean too.

I wear shoes inside the house and really don't like padding around in bare feet/socks in other people's houses.

My dad had very smelly feet so I'm sure mum preferred he kept his shoes ON, hence we were a shoe-wearing house.

I guess I'm from the germs are good school of thought :p. Works for us - we rarely get sick. I've never had antibiotics in my adult life, DD hasn't had them yet.

I never wear shoes inside...never have. I like being barefoot. And yes, I lived in Melbourne for 7 years...I just wore socks in winter then!

However I wouldn't ask someone to take their shoes off when they come into my house in case for some reason they would be embarrassed (holes in socks, smelly feet, cracked heels). And I would feel rude asking them to do so.

I also feel strange taking my shoes off in someone's house and would prefer not to.

:

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I guess it does make it harder MD if it's cold with boots etc... But Sunshine Sieben is German & it is customary over there?

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I wonder how many of those German homes have underfloor heating :lol:.

Naw, in my earlier post I was making the observation that it seems to be the customary practice in some areas of Oz more than others...I actually wonder if this has more to do with diff standards of dress and ideas about formality/informality - eg the dress standard in general in warmer areas tends to be less formal day-to-day than in the colder climates...taking your shoes off is a more informal act.

But it is nice to air your toesies out in the tropics :p

Yes, Inanna, you are right, even in Germany we take our shoes off. Especially in winter when we are wearing heavy boots. I don't think people think about the reasons so much but it would be a huge problem if we didn't take our shoes off in winter. when it snows, small stones are being scattered all over the footpaths so people don't slip. These stones stay around for months, even when there is no snow. Of course, they get stuck in your shoes. So if you wore your shoes inside, you would certainly ruin people's floors. Add to that all the snow which would make such a mess.
When I was living in Sydney most people took their shoes off inside, too. So it's definitely not just a warm climate thing.
But I agree, Marydean, it is much easier not to wear your shoes in the house when you only have to slide in and out of thongs. So, when I'm only wearing thongs, I always kick them off, even if I only have to run in quickly to get my wallet. But when I wear lace-ups or somthing a little more difficult, I might be guilty of not always taking the off if I just need to run in quickly.

Talking about under floor heating in Germany: it is very rare. My parents who built their house about 20 years ago had it in one of their bathrooms but nowhere else. It is now broken and they won't bother fixing it. Most modern houses are well insulated and have good centralheating so it never gets as cold as say in Sydney. But we also have lots of buildings that are a few hundred years old with very high ceilings that get freezing cold. some people with colder houses provide washable guest slippers so their guests have toastie feet.

Someone mentioned about feeling underdressed at parties with no shoes. At parties we usually leave them on, just wipe them well when entering the house. I guess you have to clean afterwards anyway. Shoes are only taken off at informal occasions.

By the way, I really am no clean freak. Which is why my IL's seem to think I'm being a big hypocrite. I do believe germs are good and let DD play in the dirt. I have taken antibiotics twice in my whole life and none of my kids ever have. But I do think it's different for a tiny baby, who by the way, I would not lat play on the bare concrete or grass. But that is probably more because I'd be worried about green ants in the grass and abrasions from the concrete.

Someone mentioned that they don't know how to tell people not to walk on the baby rug with shoes on. I'd just be really polite and say something along the lines: "I'd prefer if you didn't walk over the baby rug with your shoes on. I just washed it" or pretend you think it was an accident and say "Ooops, you just stepped on baby's rug"

By the way, My in-laws do now take their shoes off when coming in. But they always make a big fuss over it and have a giggle cause I'm so weird. They almost make it out to be a bad habit. They did however do it without flinching when they were staying at my mum and dad's house. For my house, they now even bought some slippers for winter as they prefer not to be in socks. Which is fine by me.

Most people seem to not wear their shoes inside, judging by all your posts. Those who do would usually take them off at someone else's house if that's what is the done thing. So maybe I'm not so weird after all...

I take my shoes off the minute I get inside a place. I never wear shoes when I am at home. I have a pair of slip-on shoes by the front door to put on when I need to go outside while I am at home.

One of my friends when visiting my place in London had stepped in some dog poo and hadn't noticed, she ignored my no shoe, socks only rule, she traipsed it the whole way through the hallway, up the stairs and onto the carpet in the bathroom. This was not nice to clean and the smell was there for a while as it was winter.

What do you think about this - my brother and his family have a strict no-outside-shoes rule in their house. That's fine with me because I prefer to go barefoot (or socks in winter).

But the anoying bit at my brother's is that they fuss soo much about it! I am happy wih a polite but firm request. But, have a large collection of indoor slippers/thongs/sandal type things for guests and they virtually INSIST that you wear a pair. Sorry, I"m not wearing someone elses shoes! But because they 'offer' multiple times i then wonder if I"m offending them by having bare feet.

[They also have a little bench to sit on to take off/on their shoes - the other day they kept repeating to DP 'sit on the bench!!' even though he was happy to pull his shoes off while standing. So the whole thing becomes SUCH a big deal with lively and repeated nagging! I suppose that's their personality types though].

But back to my point - is it unreasonable to insist that guests take off their shoes, and then also insist that they cover their feet again with your supplied footwear?

dp does this and drives me nuts mum allways had a rule slippers and house shoes in the house only thongs work boots runners ect stay outside on shoe rack

dp allways has metal fileling ect on his boots that he stomps into our carpet grrr and im allways vacuming i allways wear my house socks inside and murray wears slippers my mates no my no shoe rule but u do get some ppl who wont and im pretty sure its cause they dont vacume or dont care about the fact that stuff goes on the carpet or floor and a bub or child could injest it

We are generally a shoes off household. we have stupid white carpet (why would you put white carpet in a place on a dirt road?) that i get drycleaned every year but it doesn't take long for the stains to appear, even with not wearing shoes inside.

At the moment i am struggling to get my shoes on and off easily (i wear runners that lace up) due to the big bump in front and difficulty bending, so i have been a bit slack at my place. At other people s places though i still take my shoes off.

It is just so much more comfy to get the shoes off.

u can get those bonds house socks now lol take a pair with u and say ild rather wear my own lol