Wearing Shoes in the House

[yelnad]

We wear shoes in the house and would never consider asking anyone to take theirs off unless they were REALLY muddy. We are in and out too much and so are our dogs.

[Calgary_Girl]

How do you cope with stinky feet people? *

That's funny because I would always get asked by Americans "What if they have holes in their socks"; "What if they have stinky feet"? This is never a problem because Canadians know if they are going to someone's house they are expected to take their shoes off. Therefore, they plan not to wear socks with holes in them or to have stinky feet.

Hey Calgary_Girl............Are you kidding? I am super
fussy about cleanliness and the like and I would never
ask someone to take their shoes off, unless they were
covered with 4 lbs. of dog poo. If you were not kidding,
this is just another odd fact about my friends to the north of which I was unaware.

John Galt

[Martha]

Martha, I grew up with one of those too! I can recall standing in line with my brothers, father, and neighbors. It strikes me as very gross now. We had a hydrant there too - to hose off the 5 buckle overshoes (remember those?). Then we'd all troop in and eat. On the farm we had 5 meals per day in this order:

6:00 AM "breakfast" (large meal with bacon eggs, etc.)
9:00 AM "coffee" (coffee, sandwiches, cake, etc.)
12:00 "dinner" (roasts, potatoes, gravy, hot veg.)
3:00 PM "lunch" (sandwiches, cookies, lemonade, etc.)
7:00 PM "supper" (same fare as dinner)

And I was never overweight! Anyway, getting back to the topic, coming from a background with a manure scraper at the back door, we never wear shoes in the house now. I think someone who experienced a manure scraper just views shoes differently.

Off the topic I know, but we too had the same meals. I forgot about the noon meal being called "dinner." I remember well going inside in the afternoon for a "little lunch."

[Hyperborea]

So, just how serious is this "no shoes in the house" thing? *Are you guys storing all your shoes in a closet by the entry door

Shoes off at the door and into the closet. You don't keep your coat and hat on while in the house do you?

[Martha]

Shoes off at the door and into the closet. You don't keep your coat and hat on while in the house do you?

I know plenty of men who wear baseball hats (or those weird foam and plastic fascimilles that say "John Deere") everwhere, even inside the house. Church (if they go) is probably the only exception. My husband often wears a baseball hat inside and it drives me nuts. I ask, are you just visiting or going to stay awhile? I have no idea why he does this.

When I was a bankruptcy trustee and conducted formal, under oath, meetings of creditors, many guys would wear their baseball hats even in the courtroom. Judges would always admonish them, and some trustees would too. I decided it wasn't worth the embassment to them so I never said anything.

[Calgary_Girl]

Hey Calgary_Girl............Are you kidding? *I am super
fussy about cleanliness and the like and I would never
ask someone to take their shoes off, unless they were
covered with 4 lbs. of dog poo. *If you were not kidding,
this is just another odd fact about my friends to the north of which I was unaware.

John Galt

Nope, not kidding. Canadians don't ask you to take your shoes off because it's EXPECTED that you are going to. Yes, Canadians are different than Americans.

[sgeeeee]

Shoes off at the door and into the closet. *You don't keep your coat and hat on while in the house do you?

This is funny. I suppose the shoe-in-the-house people would say. "Walk in and keep your shoes on. You don't take your shirt and pants off in the house do you?"

People are certainly welcome to take off their shoes and leave them at the door in our house. Of course we do get the occasional scorpion and an empty shoe at the door is just the kind of place they love to crawl, so be sure and shake them out well before you put them on to leave.

Over the years I have known "no shoe in the house" families, but I've gotta believe they make up a few percent (if that much) of the people I've known over the years. It's interesting that so many of the ERs on this board seem to have that practice. I wonder if there's some kind of significant correlation between stocking homes and ER personality?

[Nords]

So, just how serious is this "no shoes in the house" thing? *Are you guys storing all your shoes in a closet by the entry door, or do you allow yourselves to wear your shoes to the bedroom closet when you come in? * *Or do you store them outside in an autoclave and don tyvek booties as you pass through the airlock?

As JohnBlake said, you kick 'em off at the front entry (if you're company) or in the garage door to the house (if you're family/neighbor). That's if you bothered to put any on in the first place.

When you go to a local Hawaii activity like a martial arts studio or a gymnastics clinic, you'll see dozens of slippers stacked around the entry. If you wear plain black it can be tough to find your pair in the pile, but it's considered a serious "etiquette breach" to upgrade on your way out...

[ESRBob]

The dilemma for us is always with guests and workmen/repairmen etc.

Basically I've won the battle on this front over my asian wife: we don't ask guests to take shoes off any more. (maybe we need to invite over more Canadians?). Workmen seem to work better if you let them wear their shoes -- and if you're paying by the hour, all those laces... don't want to think about it. Workmen in Japan used to have this amazing ability to be carrying in a heavy load, pause at the front door, shuffle of their shoes and keep going, never missing a beat. They all wore around tennis shoes with the heels mashed down.

Guests who come over in fancy clothes and matching heels today really don't want to switch to shuffling around in our brown plastic 'guest slippers'. So we suspend the rules for dinner parties, though our best friends 'get it' and do the shoe drop at the front door.

Jane, funny that you got the same asian training on outside-clothes-on-the-bed -- took years to housebreak me on that one.

Bob Smith -- I remember visiting family who were midwestern farmers as a kid and being blown away by all the meals. Not only were they frequent, but I don't recall anything remotely low-fat or low-calorie -- it was meat and gravy and potatoes and fat all the way! But if you work that hard, I guess you burn it off.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I think those of us in ER (at a minimum) would all agree we've got a lot to be thankful for.

ESRBob

[FlowGirl]

Over the years I have known "no shoe in the house" families, but I've gotta believe they make up a few percent (if that much) of the people I've known over the years. *It's interesting that so many of the ERs on this board seem to have that practice. *I wonder if there's some kind of significant correlation between stocking homes and ER personality? *

I too have only known a few families that have this practice as a rule, and excepting those of Asian background they seemed to be the fussy type. Requiring shoes off always seemed equivalent to putting plastic over the furniture in my mind (maybe because I had an elderly aunt who did both?) But then I'm a fan of hardwood floors - and at my mother-in-laws house her floors are so polished that they require the traction of shoes to keep from slipping on the stairs.

[indymom]

[quote]

*Requiring shoes off always seemed equivalent to putting plastic over the furniture in my mind (maybe because I had an elderly aunt who did both?) *

We used to think that, also, but the annoyance of traffic land dirt and the expense of carpet cleaning (which often doesn't clean very well) has made us go with the no shoe trend. Also, in Indiana it can get nasty in the winter.

I think that living with 4 dogs has softened my
aversion to shoes in the house. If you own a bunch of
dogs, you can't live in a band box. I hate the mess they make, and I hate the mess visitors might make.
However, I can forgive the dogs a lot easier than I
can forgive the visitors.

John Galt

I have a Granddog that is trained to get his feet wiped by a towel, before entering our home. He actually looks forward to it, because he knows the Dog Biscuit follows.

We do the same with our hound. He goes swimming at the beach regularly, and gets hosed down and toweled off before entering our home. He doesn't like the hose, but loves the towel. I think it gets at all his itches.

[SDY888]

We fall into the "No Shoes" camp, but have latitude to walk through to the bed rooms if the shoes are from the bedroom cupboard, otherwise off at the door and into the adjacent shoe rack.

As for our guest, it is almost automatic to remove shoes so "advising" visitors is never an issue.

The reasons?? Aside from plain old habit, the hardwood floors are the main reason along with a US$3000 Persian Silk rug!!!

It can become quite an obstacle course at times. If at Festival Times our neighbours and ourselves have family and friends over to our apartments, there can be a 100 pairs of shoes between the door and the elevator!! I have often thought of accelerating FIRE by simply cruising apartment buildings at Christmas, New Year, LNY etc and liberating all the shoes for a stall on the fly market!!!!!

Simon888

[farmerEd]

No shoes here too. Although I keep a pair of "indoor shoes" right next to the door because I hate walking around in bare-feet or socks. Kids are all trained to (8/6/4/1). Except for the 1 year old its automatic.

Not allowing shoes in the house has a whole different meaning when you live on a farm and are constantly in and out of the barn...visitors we will sometimes cut slack on if the come from their car directly to the house, over the paved walk...but once they have been on the pasture, or in the barn, off they go.

With babies crawling around, you defintely don't need chunks of *that* being left on the floor.

[yelnad]

So my guess is, if you can't wear "outside" clothes on the bed, then you probably can't let the dogs on the bed either?? What a boring life

I draw the line at dogs on the bed. However, after
returning from a trip, I have suspected that perhaps
one of our canine friends has been using my space.
Either that, or my spouse has a close friend with very course hair

John Galt

[Jane]

Growing up we had a dog, a cat and a bunny. They were allowed on the sofas & chairs but not on beds. The whole second floor (where the bedrooms were) of my childhood house was forbidden to animals, although as kids, my bros and I did sneak them into our bedrooms at night (not everyday though - that would be pushing our luck).

Jane