>Every now and again (say I enter a house which has a no-shoe rule), someone will spot them and find the concept strange,
I find it more strange that people wear outside shoes inside. The same shoes that go on dirt, mud, who knows what else are used to walk on your floors and carpets.
Taking your shoes off at the door prevents a lot of dirt/who-knows-what from entering the house.
Where I was born in a European country, it was positively unthinkable. Nobody ever wore outside shoes inside. In fact, my grandma would be upset if I set in my daily jeans upon my bed - jeans that set in school seat, street car seat, benches, dirt, etc, should not be in contact with where I'll sleep.
In USA and Canada, it seems to largely be an instinct to say "Don't take off your shoes, please!" out of politeness.
I think there are other aspects too, though they get fuzzier.
In my country/childhood, kids were discouraged from playing on the floor in unfamiliar places. I observe less of that in Canada. Most dogs were "outdoor animals", whereas here dogs are pervasively inside. Many people sleep with dogs in their bed!! Completely crazy to me and completely normal to my Canadian wife :-)
> Experience limited to Ontario and every province east of it.
In that case I'll chip in with my experience with every province west of it: it's the same. No shoes inside - ffs the prairies have snow on the ground half the year.
Most American houses where I live have mud rooms. I think you may be generalizing based on house design. New Englanders certainly do; Ranches do not. Split-Levels have a landing that are used as a mud room.
I think they are common in the midwest? Wherever it snows a lot, you'll have a mud room to change from outside to inside clothes. If you are somewhere that doesn't snow, you might not ever realize those kinds of rooms exist.
> In fact, my grandma would be upset if I set in my daily jeans upon my bed - jeans that set in school seat, street car seat, benches, dirt, etc, should not be in contact with where I'll sleep.
This. And not only where you sleep.
Public transport seats or even chairs that were used by many, many people over the years are just yuck.
Same with door handles (i so hate the Americanbones - you can't use your elbow or wrist to push them!), public transport, handrails, ATM pinpads...
> Public transport seats or even chairs that were used by many, many people over the years are just yuck. Same with door handles (i so hate the Americanbones - you can't use your elbow or wrist to push them!), public transport, handrails, ATM pinpads...
At what point do you come to the terms with our inability to eliminate all germs and get on with life? I apologize if it's a condition and not just a preference.
Lmao agreed. Some people are grossed out by the thought of an object being used by other people and not because of any scientific concern about disease. It’s a psychosomatic condition
I opted specifically for a fixed office desk as i don't share my keyboard / mouse with others, and it grosses me out if people use mine or i have to use theirs.
Laugh all you want, just observe the typical shiny keycaps of most people's keyboards. You won't find those on mine, i wash hands frequently.
Btw: i bet quite some of you who are laughing about my 'regulations' just started to wash hands and wear masks because the CDC etc. told you so, and saw no issues with it.
I'm sorry but if you set foot in my clean house you clean your hands and keep your shoes away from my clean floor. God knows where you've been and what you've touched before
I eat unwashed roadside fruits, stuff from fields, etc. am not too picky re: freshness of foods etc., use public pools (...just hope people really shower before they dive in) or the office / restaurant restroom, etc.
Just don't have an desire to sit in seats where bums and people with god-knows-what conditions have been, or hold onto rails touched by people scratching their butt. Washing hands frequently, espeially after handling cash + followed by having a snack. Didn't your parents teach you that?
Not having issues with dirt etc., if it is MY dirt. How many strangers to you willingly exchange frsh or dried bodily fluids with?
Also a reason i have absolutely no intention to ever visit India, if i don't have to for business reasons. And i've walked Ethopian streets.
I've seen people work themselves into knots trying to figure out how a house could possibly be clean enough to walk around in one's socks. That indoor floors are somehow so intrinsically dirty that one simply must keep one's shoes on to avoid contamination. And I always wanted to ask: How else would we keep our floors clean?
Ha, I used to live in a condo with all hardwood floors, and we only ever wore shoes in the entryway by the front door (to take them on and off).
When I'd mop the rest of the condo with those disposable Swiffer mop pads, the mop pads would only get a little dingy, but when I'd mop the one specific part of the entryway where we wore shoes, the mop pads would instantly turn dark grey, almost black.
I believe it largely what climat you are living in and also you grew up. Places where snow and rain is common pretty much always expect you to take shoes off. Places where weather is dry are more likely to accept shoes on.
Also people who come from wet places to dry places will still not want anyone wearing shoes at their homes.
Canadian here - every household I've been in is take shoes off at the door. I think it's culturally built in most places that experience a lot of snow. If for half the year your taking off your boots you get in the habbit of taking off your shoes too.
Canadian here, from the warm part, where we only see snow a few days a year. We're still all taking our shoes off, except degenerate college students and recent American immigrants.
> In USA and Canada, it seems to largely be an instinct to say "Don't take off your shoes, please!" out of politeness.
I'm in Canada and this is true, but I've found that this is usually said when I'm already far enough into taking my shoes off that it would be too weird to go "alright then" and put them back on. I also find it awkward to keep my shoes on in someone else's house. As if I'm some sort of special guest with special privileges that allow me to bring dirt into their house, while the owner of the house clearly isn't wearing outside shoes. I would actually much prefer someone saying "please take your shoes off", and avoid the whole awkward and illogical politeness ritual.
edit: I forgot to say, I am in Canada (Quebec), but not Canadian, so it's probably also a cultural difference that makes me feel this way. I am from the Netherlands, where wearing your outside shoes in the house is very unusual. Someone telling me to keep my shoes on in the house is almost like someone telling me "please don't wash your hands" after going to their bathroom.
Canadian culture is indeed structured around awkward and illogical politeness rituals which can make you crazy. And for the most part they are more like "politeness signalling", just a façade of niceties without any actual kindness or consideration behind them. In the end I had to leave because it amounts to a kind of omnipresent cultural gaslighting.
I once triggered a pretty severe allergic reaction from my partner because of the pollen and dust I unintentionally brought inside after working out in the yard all day.
I believe this question extends to any claim of what didn't happen.
We make an educated guess, try to collect data in a study that is hopefully a bit controlled, then paint a picture of what we think it means and why things happened (or didn't happen).
I immigrated to SE Asia, certainly it was very different.
99% of indoor surfaces (and some outdoor areas too) are tile floors, or polished concrete/granite/terrazio. These are really easy to keep clean by just sweeping for 5 minutes. The few carpets I've seen were always really gross. No way I'm taking off my shoes to walk on that!
We don't wear shoes/sandals or socks indoors overall. It's normal to walk barefoot, even at many workplaces.
Socks are a weird thing that we wear to travel somewhere cold, or if we have to wear shoes for some reason (very formal events or workplaces, or for safety). Some people wear socks to sleep.
Sometimes we have a separate set of sandals to wear in the bathroom. You take those off before entering the rest of the house.
The other use of sandals is a form of low-damage ammunition for parental authorities to launch at you. We have a lot of memes about this.
well, you take them off because usually "don't take off your shoes" is itself only said out of politeness, and they really would rather you take your shoes off — Canadian logic.
I think I'm surrounded with absolutely deranged dog people. I think every person in my friend and work group with a dog sleeps with them in their bed. It's totally insane to me. I am not exactly a fan of most pets in general, but if I owned a pet, they definitely wouldn't be allowed in my bedroom. When I tell this to my friends they always say, "Oh, just you wait, you won't be able to resist." I'm certain that I would prefer to have my own space, thank you very much.
This may raise a lot of hackles (pun unintended but retained), but IMO, that practice, and the one just above (the mom/dad and bed points) may be being done (grammar?) as a substitute to having good human relationships, due the somewhat common phenomenon of alienation that seems to exist for some people nowadays (anecdotal, just observed by me, but also heard others talking about it, including with me). And by relationships, I don't mean just a male-female or other intimate relationship.
I'm not sure, that kind of alienation is common in younger people in the Western world, whereas the dog mommy/daddy seems to be an English-speaking (if not American) phenomenon, and used by adults.
I am a Millennial from Europe, and I am well acquainted with the alienation of my generation, but the dog mommy thing doesn't exist in the country I'm from, and sounds something a suburban mom in her 40s would say. It makes me cringe.
I had dogs and cats growing up, and I considered my "mates" or friends rather than my children. They lived in the house, able to come and go outside, but were absolutely forbidden from sleeping on beds (except cats when the beds are empty because they don't care) or from soliciting food at the table while we were eating.
I’m not saying you can’t treat your pet well, or even spoil them sometimes. They are friends, they may even be “family”. They are complete individuals in their own right. But they aren’t human. Lately I’ve been wondering if treating them as children is bordering on animal abuse.
I’m Canadian and have lived in the Atlantic provinces as well as Ontario. I have never seen anyone wear shoes inside aside from workers who are required to have steel toed boots on.
Working from home has only increased the distinction for me: Not only do the shoes come off (like always) but unless I anticipate going back out soon, I'll switch from denim jeans to lounge/sleepwear, jacket to hoodie.
So today I identify a lot with Mister Rogers' opening show routine, despite how elaborate it seemed to my younger-self.
This is probably the main reason I look forward to empty nesting. If I'm in my bedroom, I'm nude. I am thrilled with the prospects of expanding that boundary.
It's so annoying to "suit up" for the sake of my innocent and unsuspecting children just so I can grab a glass of water and avoid assaulting them with my hideous form.
The missus on the other hand, well she's on her own.
> It's so annoying to "suit up" for the sake of my innocent and unsuspecting children just so I can grab a glass of water and avoid assaulting them with my hideous form.
This seems to be a very cultural thing too... growing up in Europe I saw my parents/grandparents/aunt/uncle naked plenty of times while I was at home or staying over with my cousins. Nudity around family was normal and expected.
This led to being more accepting of ones own body as well and not necessarily seeing nudity as intrinsically linked to "bad".
I would definitely agree. There is a good amount of puritanical shame when it comes to nudity in the U.S. which I don't identify with.
I don't really have an issue with my own body and do everything I can to instill body positivity within my kids. On the other hand, I think it's important to be considerate of their wishes, and recognize while it's perfectly natural (i.e. not "bad"), that doesn't mean it's pleasant. I'm American after all... lots of lumps, loose skin, and hair where it doesn't make much sense :)
I am slightly scarred by memories of the sudden and unexpected emergence of a nude parent.
I often stayed overnight at the home of an uncle who slept in either standard issue whitey tighties, or just nude.
On more than one late night, he was forced to come and whisper yell at me and my cousins along with whatever friends happened to be there as well to quiet down. Anyone who didn't live there found it hilarious to no end. It only served to energize us, rather than the intended calming effect.
At 10 it was pretty difficult to take seriously anyone with wild bed hair and a bare ass, or cartoonish underwear for that matter.
I still giggle 25 years later picturing his angry silhouette sauntering away mumbling under his breath.
I do find pets amusing. If you have a dog, all of the concerns most people voice about shoes applies to the dog. And they often seem to seek out poop to step in. We've been forced to bath our dog because he found coyote scat and thought that was good to wear.
All the while they ignore the litter box... And flush their human toilets with the lid open...
The world's a gross place. I know it's unavoidable for some (e.g. OCD) but by and large, I tend to think people spend an inordinate amount of time pursuing an unreasonable level of cleanliness.
Counterpoint: I have indoor-only shoes, and I feel a lot like Mr. Rogers when I put them on. I put them on while working from home because it dramatically increases the likelihood that I will take a break and walk on the treadmill during work.
Not at all, the treadmill is pretty grippy. I'd do it barefoot but the rough treadmill surface actually gave me friction burns the few times I tried it.
I’ve found myself doing the opposite when working from home, but I have a backyard office that doesn’t have a bathroom. I make a number of trips inside each day and taking shoes off each time can be a pain. Having a puppy who will steal my shoes also adds to the annoyance.
Some shoes are easy to put on in a moments notice - and doing so will just become habit. If you want some shoes in the office, invest in a pair of decent slippers or some shoes just worn inside.
A cabinet is often enough to keep the shoes from the puppy - just borrow it from somewhere else. The puppy won't be a puppy forever.
There are comfy clothes for collecting pet hair while at home, and nicer, less comfy clothes that are kept as far away from pet hair as possible for wearing outside the home.
Do you have a standing desk? I find that standing in socks, barefoot, or even in indoor slippers is very fatiguing for my feet when standing for hours--so fatiguing in fact that I have a pair of indoor-only new balances, and only use them for standing at my desk inside my "home office". I wonder if there are any alternatives that are even healthier for my feet while avoiding foot/standing fatigue.
It sounds odd - and you’ll still want shoes - but having a walking treadmill under there might be your best bet. I find that just standing hurts my feet but I can walk practically all day without them hurting.
Yep, those are called anti-fatigue mats. They are inexpensive and make a huge difference for your feet/knees/back anywhere you stand for long periods. I have one at my standing desk, one in front of the sink in the kitchen, and at my workbench in the garage.
I won't say I'm utterly rigorous about it but, yah, I increasingly transitioned to bare feet or indoor crocs with socks depending on the season. And, if I'm not going out (and even sometimes then), sweats or something along those lines.
AFAIK wearing outdoor shoes indoors is mostly an American thing, especially within big cities/on the coasts. As a midwesterner, shoes always come off at the door, who knows what you stepped in.
Interesting, I don’t think I’ve ever visited a “shoes on” household in my whole life in Czechia. Some households offer slippers to guests (in houses with cold floors), but you obviously don’t wear those anywhere else.
> It's ultra common in many european countries. I've got one friend where the rule at his house his "shoes off" but most others keep their shoes inside.
IME it's not common in european countries but guests tend to not be required (though it's usually appreciated), hosts usually won't provide slippers, it's not standard to bring your own (though it's often appreciated), and you won't be required to walk in socks.
It mostly depends on the country. Northern countries tend to have wooden floors and no indoors shoes, southern countries are generally shoes-on and hard floors.
Born and grew up in the PNW, never took shoes off inside until I married a Chinese. You might be walking in with wet shoes, assuming you aren’t just walking from the drive way to your door. Actually, I bet if you walk more than drive it is more important to (a) have rain boots at all and (b) take them off when you come inside.
Agreed with the general sentiment. I just don't think that wearing or not wearing shoes in a house is best described as an attribute of culture. I'd bet it's more often a personal decision. I grant that there may be some groups for whom it's more common, or even named as part of a cultural tradition, but in any case those groups would be doing the same thing no matter what country they were in, so America has nothing to do with it.
This is my view as well after reading through this whole thread. Tons of “I’m X culture and we do Y with our shoes” followed by a reply along the lines of “well I’m X culture too and in my experience we never do Y, we actually do Z.” It seems like it really just comes down to individual choice and how your family or close relatives did it when you grew up.
(FWIW: midwestern American, I take my shoes off at the door usually but have no problem walking through the house with them if I’m e.g. grabbing something I need or going from the back yard to the basement. We have three dogs who are much dirtier than my shoes are going to be.)
Sure, but I think the lines are pretty blurry in modern day America. Furthermore, I certainly don’t think those blurry cultural lines in the Midwest are drawn neatly around the boundaries of whether one takes their shoes off indoors.
I was visiting a friend once who happily wore the same shoes inside and outside his house, but was uncomfortable with me being barefoot inside and outside his house. Apparently my bare feet would track dirt into his house, but his shoes wouldn't? Eh, people are strange.
I've met people who have feet so nasty that I do wonder if the germs they hide under their socks aren't actually worse than random germs found in dirt. Those folks are welcome to wear their shoes in my house.
I recall a Reddit thread on this where many people chimed in with their experiences, which seemed to have a distinctly climate-driven element:
* Shoes off = don't track mud and dirt inside
* Shoes on = don't expose yourself to insects
And then depending on cultural background they would tend to keep one or the other habit after moving to a different climate norm. The shoe habits predate modern construction, so they may not matter like they used to.
My dogs go out and roll around in whatever the heck on the ground. And then come inside. Someone wearing their shoes isn't going to make much difference unless they've stepped in something particularly gross.
If they're notably gross, yes. But not if they were just outside and came in normal. Which is my point. If someone's shoes are notably gross, that's also a different story.
Ha! My 65 pound dog still thinks she's a puppy (and she's 8 years old, dammit), the idea of trying to slow her down long enough to clean her feet just makes me smile. The blasts past me at a hundred miles an hour and then tears up the stairs so fast that I think one of these days she may actually tear the carpet.
And anyway, have you ever tried to get a dog's paws clean? Like, meaningfully clean?
I have Roombas and I hire a housecleaner once a week. Our house is actually pretty clean in spite of the silly dog.
I grew up in a family of neatniks, and yet, the very concept of taking your shoes off when going inside perplexed me, on the rare occasion where I found a "no shoes" house. (Northwest USA).
Living the SF Bay Area now, I'd say it's slightly more common to take one's shoes off indoors, but certainly not the rule.
I just generally don't step in disgusting stuff. I don't want it on my shoes, whether or not I'm wearing them indoors. I don't live on a farm. I don't regularly walk across fields or on dirt roads. My shoes are relatively clean, and I don't have wall-to-wall carpet so I don't have to worry about dirtying the carpet so much.
Reminds me of an old joke, retold to fit many ethnicities.
Three men take advantage of a break in a diplomatic council to visit the bathroom. After they are done relieving themselves, the Japanese man fair blasts his hands with water, soaping and rinsing several times. He explains, "In my country, we hold ourselves to high hygenic standards. I try to remain as clean as possible." The Iranian man soaps and rinses quickly, using a minimal amount. He says, "In my country, we are taught to conserve our resources. We must not waste the blessing we have been given." The American does not even look at the line of faucets, casually saying over his shoulder as he leaves the room, "My dad taught me not to piss on my hands."
Although I'm never offended or anything when someone asks me to take my shoes off, I'm always uncomfortable doing it. It makes me feel exposed and vulnerable. As a result, I'd never ask guests to remove their shoes (even though I wear slippers in my place).
It's an oddly sensitive topic, though. I've seen people get offended at being asked, and I've seen people get offended because guests didn't automatically take their shoes off without being asked.
The lease for my current rental asks us not to wear shoes indoors. This is due to the wood flooring and how small rocks can get stuck to the underside of one's shoe and scratch up the floor
I would like to make that rule but could never look myself in the mirror after doing it. I have apartments with fresh maple floors from a forest that I got after running out of reclaimed maple floors from schools.
My in-laws are immigrants from Europe, and they have a no-shoe policy. They also have a German Shepherd and a Lab who go out for three walks a day and traipse around in the backyard in between. Makes the lack of shoes seem sort of pointless to me.
I've known people who trained their dogs to stamp/pat their feet on an old folded up towel laid by the door. Seemed pretty ingenious given how wet and slushy the climate is half the year.
For me the shoes thing isn’t about dirt. It’s about public bathrooms. If a shoe has stepped in a public bathroom. Especially those in bars or gas stations I don’t want that shit (literally) being spread al over my house.
My dogs step in their own shit sometimes. They're idiots, but I still generally wouldn't assume a dog hasn't stepped on a surface worse than a public bathroom.
Leaving shoes outside doesn't work unless the outside portion of the entrance is well sheltered. I've definitely seen it before in condo buildings where there will be a mat and boots neatly lined up in the hallway. Seemed strange though.
Takes their shoes off in the "entrance" (or mud room maybe, though I've never known anyone who calls it that) of the house, which is generally a small tiled area immediately inside any doors that lead to the outside. Shoes are left on the tile (or a mat / plastic shoe thing) and then folks walk without shoes from the entrance area into the rest of the house.
Widely used term in New England in the US as well. For me, it's not a literal room but a tiled extension to the kitchen where I take off dirty shoes and so forth.
I tried to take the "shoes off in the house" thing seriously for a while but I'm back to just letting the floor be dirty.
You need a pair of shoes at every exit and you need to enter the way you last exited and you need to set whatever you're carrying down to put your shoes on and take them off all the time. Plus your guests who don't have a shoe at every doorway end up cold inside or walking around in their socks outside, and it's not like I can get the dog to wash her feet at the door... It's just too much.
Four: two to the front patio, one to the back, one to the garage. It's kind of a dumb layout.
Maybe I'd feel differently if it were barefoot temp year-round, but that's pretty much just a summer thing here. Plus it's kind of irresponsible to heat you house to barefoot-friendly temps so now you've gotta have slippers for everyone...
I grew up in a house that had 3 back doors, a front and a garage door. Turns out that multiple remodels really messes with layouts. Where to put your shoes was a big issue
I think it's an artifact of this whole "your home is an investment" thing we do. It's like if you're not planning upgrades that make it look better on zillow (upgrades that potentially invalidate initial design considerations) then you're being financially irresponsible.
Sounds like the kind of insufferable person that will also argue about the food they're served, the music they hear, and even the way you decorated your home.
> cultural reasons for removing shoes are respected though
"I will show no respect for your decisions regarding your personal space, but only if that doesn't make me look bad"
...And of course, when you read a bit further, you realize that this kind of person doesn't understand the decision because there ought to be some kind of domestic fixing their mess.
> Why don’t I just leave my shoes on and give you the amount of money [...] You can use it to hire a housecleaner to mop up after my shoe detritus.
Indeed. And it's just plain being a bad guest. When you're a guest at someone's house, honoring their wishes about things like this is a duty. It's showing them respect.
This is not the meeting of equals on neutral ground though.
One party is entering another party's home. If you're not comfortable with rules inside that home, then don't enter that home.
100% agree that whether your own home is shoeless or not is a personal and cultural preference and decision. More power to you. But if I am entering your home, then your rules prevail.
Agreed. This is so obvious that I don’t know why it even makes sense to discuss, unless the person entering has some health issue. Even in that case, they have to ask the house owner or renter whether they can keep their shoes on inside.
Since it is their house, they, and only they, get to decide the rules about shoes allowed inside or not.
> that go on dirt, mud, who knows what else are used to walk on your floors and carpets...prevents a lot of dirt/who-knows-what from entering the house.
so you think people should just never walk barefoot outside on unpaved surfaces, the way our ancestors evolved to, where nature exists in every state between birth and death?
(you don't need to repeat any part of your argument, trust me, I get it, just pointing out the obvious problem with it)
Hookworms (and sharp rocks with a bone to pick with humanity) love appeals to nature. Also, I’ll do you one better than some unspecified ancestors: we have evolved to wear shoes.
Growing up in Australia in my house growing up we never took our shoes off at the door unless they were unnecessarily muddy. All of our shoes were in our rooms or in our wardrobes.
I suppose the thought process is yes those shoes that have been in dirt and who knows what else are being walked through the house, so what? The house gets vacuumed and mopped regularly.
I like wearing shoes inside your house for the same reason I like wearing shoes outside: I don't know what might be on the floor and I don't want certain things that might be on the floor on my socks or skin. But of course, as a house guest I will respect the host's norms.
Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace) Any argument about how shoes are unsanitary (not that we live in a time where the streets are covered in horseshit anymore) should apply equally to the workplace as in the home, no?
> Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace)
In India, when the dust kills computers by clogging fans, you'll see workplaces with computers have a "leave your shoes outside" board. I'm not sure what happens today, but this was true when I lived there.
That's mostly because everyone coming in is usually spent the last half mile on foot and the shoes will basically flake-off indoors in the lowered humidity.
Also, for some reason my dentist's office has a "employees must change into shoes" notice, suspiciously in the bay area.
Maybe they had some contamination issues ("work shoes" that could be santized properly?) or maybe they had employees wear sandals into the office & they had to enforce the rule after someone dropped a sharp on a toe?
Uhm no? Unlike in my home the work environment have professionals washing regularly, no food is prepared, no kids play at the floor and the floors and furniture is made to be easily cleaned. So no. Not at all. (But I wear birkenstocks at work, so nice taking off my shoes that are made to be used outside and rather use footwear that are more fit for the inside).
I do. Company I work for provides space for leaving your outside shoes and keeping your inside shoes or slippers. I wore slippers until few years ago, but now I wear comfy snickers in office. Some of my colleagues still wear slippers.
Where I currently work, you are required to wear shoes (because although I work in an office, the other half of the building is a factory where shoes are a safety issue, and it's easier to have a blanket "shoes required" rule for everybody).
The place I worked at before also had a "shoes required" rule, but I don't know why. My assumption is that someone had stinky feet at some point.
>Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace)
I do, and I switch to to my Birkenstocks at work, as my feet can breathe way better in them and it also gives my sneakers an ~8h rest to stay smell-free and cool until I have to go home and put them back on.
Continuously wearing the same pair of sneakers for about 10h per day is ... not great. My feet would be in a swampy sweat broth.
People who always wear shoes all day every day think tend to think that feet are gross. And that's because their feet are disgusting, and they project that onto everybody else.
I didn't project anything. I said my feet are less sweaty in Birkenstock sandals than in Sneakers as they breathe less and less sweat and more fresh air is always better.
My main reasoning is reducing cleaning effort on my end. If the office were to have a no shoes rule I'd be walking around in socks or barefoot as long as others do.
Sharing foot bacteria with my coworkers is also a different ballgame than sharing it with my wife and kid. The family is already sharing quite a bit of bacteria so what's a bit of foot stuff.
No, because I consider the office to be a shared public space, and none of the people working in the office actually live there. Office is not my personal space, it is a transient area.
I live in Finland, and people take their shoes off in their homes almost universally.
At the office? It's about 50/50. Some people work in their socks, some have indoor-slippers.
In my previous two companies I'd take my shoes off every day when entering the office, leaving them in the handy shoe-racks near the entrance.
In my current job I admit I tend to keep them on, but that's largely because I'm smoking more than usually and putting my boots back on and off multiple times gets annoying in an office environment.
Yeah, I always had a nice pair of "business-appropriate" slippers for any office I worked in. Especially great in the winter, when I can just shuck off my wet winter boots and swap into my comfy office slippers.
I did when when still working in offices, as did almost all colleagues - wearing slippers, not without shoes. Not just because of the dirt but I also can't imagine wearing winter boots in a 23°C office.
Yup! At a big company I am the only one on the floor, but I don’t care. I also don’t care about the dust on my socks. I only care about breathability and freedom of movement.
I do. It's company policy where i work. It's very uncommon in my country though (France) to take off shoes at work, even though it's very common at home.
Yup, different cultures get different things right. Asians and pacific islanders get the "no shoes in the house" thing 100% and it's a rule in my house now, I do not care. Unless youre a contractor working on something in the house, youre taking your shoes off or hanging out outside.
I find this so unthinkable that I think I need to go experience it. Surely the Americans who do this aren’t insane. I mean, Mr Rogers changes his shoes. So maybe that’s it? Wearing slippers inside is normal here.
Or maybe it’s places without winter?
I’m sure if I go and experience it something will click.
If you grow up in a clean country that isn’t very muddy outside, you might not ever notice the need to change shoes in something like a mud room. But spend one winter in Beijing (or Eastern Europe or basically anywhere in the non-fully developed world), and it became really obvious to me why you need indoor and outdoor shoes, and why you have to thoroughly wash your face a few times a day.
That being said, conditions that you are used to will influence whether or not you believe shoes have to be changed between outside and inside.
Shoes at left at the door, you wash your hands whenever you come in from being outside, or somewhere else, and no clothes that have been outside, in or on the beds. That’s what I teach my kids.
At least in my corner of America, it's expected that you buy a house that's too big for you and then spend the rest of your life doing home improvement projects on it. So our shoes are usually tracking sawdust or other such debris from the garage to whichever part of the house we're working on and back.
Reading through the comments, the oddest thing to me is that practically no one talked about the question of comfort. I live and come from northern europe, so like most people and households here we take off our shoes. I guess it's mainly because the weather is shit here half the year but a big part is also that it's just awesome to remove your shoes at home!
I have a labrador retriever. I'm not too worried about my shoes, provided they're not caked with mud or something.
Also, hard floors are bad for your feet if you go barefoot. I do have indoor-only shoes that I wear fairly often, though like I said, I don't stress too much about it. Between the dog and the cats with their litter boxes, shoe-borne germs are pretty far down my list.
What do you think that dirt is going to do to you? What about if you have a child who rolls around in the grass and then comes in? Or a baby pram who's wheels go everywhere, or a wheelchair user enters your house, or you have a cat or a dog?
While I do take my shoes off in my hall and wear socks in doors all the time, I think the no shoes thing has entered meme territory.
I don't have any evidence to back that up, nor am I expert on the topic.
But I find that dirt (and outside shoes) is usually fine, you will find more dangerous bacteria in door knobs, coins, etc. Basically everything your hand touches has a higher risk of getting you sick.
That doesn't hide the fact that having a dirty floor looks gross though, from a aesthetic standpoint
I switched to super-light-weight inside shoes and couldn't be happier. They work like slippers in a pinch, or like proper shoes if you pull up the heel.
Who cares if dirt gets in? You have to clean anyways right? Is dirt more powerful outside than inside? Dirt in the air doesn't matter? If your shoe has excessive dirt, you can wipe it on a matt as you ener right?
Also, not changing socks means now random people leave feet sweat and nastiness all over the house floor.
> I find it more strange that people wear outside shoes inside.
Not making excuses but when you have to be in and out your house many times a day, it gets quite annoying having to take your shoes off only to put it back on a few minutes later. The real animals are people who go to bed with their shoes on. Inexcusable that.
Depends on where. When I lived in GA suburbs, it was about 50/50.
After that, I moved to a few large cities on both coasts(and been to plenty others), and I don't remember visiting more than one or two households where wearing shoes inside was ok. The only exception to this was when someone was hosting a large houseparty, in which case wearing shoes inside was expected about half the time (you wouldn't want your feet to make contact with whatever could be on the floor at some of those, such as occasionally spilled liquor).
Things can be judgement calls. It's not like everyone takes a strict always on or always off ruling. If someone is going to track some obvious crap inside that's a different story than if they were walking around in normal conditions.
First shoes in this context is outdoor shoes, that doesn’t mean being barefoot.
Second northern locations tend to have properly insulated and heated indoors, rugs, possibly floor heating, … when the cold is common it’s easier to spend more on heating and comfort. For instance in Japan central heating is only common in Hokkaido, maybe also Aomori.
(My responses are US-centric, since that's where I live)
> that doesn’t mean being barefoot.
It does if you're at someone else's place. or in your socks, which is roughly the same.
> northern locations tend to have properly insulated and heated indoors, rugs, possibly floor heating
That is far from the norm in my part of the US.
Don't get me wrong, if I'm a guest and asked to remove my shoes, of course I do! And without comment. But it does make for uncomfortably cold feet in the winter.
It is one of these cultural things, and will be forever a controversial topic. Personally, I don't think there is a right answer, except to respect your host.
I put it with: airplane seat reclining, casual nudity, hanging clothes from windows, just about anything sexual,...
We remove our shoes inside. But a carpet cleaner told me that being barefoot inside is worse than wearing outside shoes due to the oils in your feet. I looked this up and it seems to bear some weight. So now we have to wear socks.
In the US (and quite possibly all of the Western world), it is unacceptable to wash with water.
1) Wipe hands with paper towels after eating. Hands are still greasy, grease finds its way all over the house, door knobs, tap handles, keyboards, mice.
2) Use toilet paper. Completely unacceptable to use water. It leads to toilet paper shortages and crusty bottoms (less crusty with toilet paper), but nobody has a clue that an alternative is available and works better. [1]
3) Shoes inside, even on bed. You can see this on all the shows/movies. Third world has footwear(shoe/flipflops) outside, wash feet when you come inside. Or indoor slippers.
I find it more strange that people wear outside shoes inside. The same shoes that go on dirt, mud, who knows what else are used to walk on your floors and carpets.
Taking your shoes off at the door prevents a lot of dirt/who-knows-what from entering the house.