Should you take your shoes off at home? - Or at other people's homes?

[Fledermaus]

@ Canada

Must be a very poor country.

Completely snowed in 12 months a year - 31 days per month - 24 hours a day.

You have my deepest sympathy.

Making ignorant assumptions.

 

[Fledermaus]

Whereas the US seems to be a bit more like the Congo.

Muddy roads everywhere.

12 months a year - 31 days per month - 24 hours a day.

And dirt and shit where-ever you go.

I feel great pity for the US.

I understand that it is strictly forbidden to enter any building with shoes on.

More Rumpel nonsense.

Japan is perhaps the cleanest country I have visited as a whole.

They remove their shoes.

 

[JasperL]

though we haven't yet in our own house, it's my opinion that we probably should. carpet is effectively a dirty sweater that you can only dab at with a wet vac every once in a while. i have told my wife that carpet will be a major consideration for me in any new house that we buy. dogs and carpet do not mix, and i'm about done with it. even if you don't have dogs and hit it with the carpet cleaner, it's still dingy and the stains come back eventually. **** that. the best way to clean a carpet is to rip it out, take it to the dump, and replace it with a real floor.

We pulled out all the carpet and have rugs now. Almost all of them we can and do wash outside on the deck with water and mild soap, and then hang on the deck to dry. Even our nicer rugs can be washed that way. We have two nicer 'oriental' rugs we take to a professional cleaner, but the cleaner has images of the classic orientals being washed in a river, so they're made for being exposed to water, and that's how they wash them, full immersion in water and mild cleaner. It started because our old dogs were incontinent, and so peed on the rugs which is impossible to clean. But even when that wasn't a consideration we didn't think about putting carpet back down, and I installed hardwood floors everywhere we used to have carpet, with area rugs.

 

[Rumpel]

LOL, yeah, in this area coming in someone's house for a dinner or for drinks or whatever and then dropping your nice shoes off at the front door would be VERY unexpected. I've pretty much never seen it happen. In the summer we live in shorts, and I don't typically wear socks with shoes, and going into someone's house then going barefoot is just not commonly done, other than a lake house or cabin or something, or with very good friends.

For me it seems that normal human hosts become more and more unknown in the US!
They are replaced by dictators with an un-healty obsession with cleanlyness.
Guests who do not remove their shoes AT ONCE - even if they are perfectly clean - are seen as criminal intruders.

Is that the new US?

 

[Rumpel]

but it's different when I leave my house, walk five steps to the car, drive to someone's house, then 10 steps to their front door. The shoes are clean...

EXACTLY!

That is exactly the way I see it!

 

[Rumpel]

And who seems more ridiculous than people dressed up nice for a dinner party in someone's home standing around socializing with each other in their dirty smelly socks?

Is that the norm now in the US?

Elegant clothes - but no shoes?

For fear of tyrannical hosts?

What has become of the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free?

Fearful slaves, who obey their tyrannical hosts commands!

Hosts, who are obsessed with clinical cleanliness.

*down!*

 

[Court Jester]

For me it seems that normal human hosts become more and more unknown in the US!
They are replaced by dictators with an un-healty obsession with cleanlyness.
Guests who do not remove their shoes AT ONCE - even if they are perfectly clean - are seen as criminal intruders.

Is that the new US?

I believe the fact that hospitals don't require people to remove their shoes before entering examination rooms, patient rooms, or the ER area is a good enough reason why taking your shoes off to enter a residence isn't necessary. Unless an area is a operating room, removing (or covering) shoes is silly.

You mention obsession, and I have observed that with many Asian people on the subject. My wife has a Chinese friend who insists on people removing their shoes in her home. My wife arrived one day for a visit with a brand new pair of causal shoes still in the box and never worn matching the shoes she was wearing at that time. Her intention was to make the woman feel at ease and I guess satisfy the "germ" concerns. And wouldn't you know it, the Asian woman wasn't happy about that, said it was "unlucky" to wear shoes in the house. So clearly some idiotic superstition more than a germ thing because the woman said they were still "outdoor shoes" even if they were brand new. The Chinese woman said if they were "indoor shoes/ slippers" then that would be okay; that isn't unlucky.

Chinese culture is weird. These people eat with two sticks, are afraid of ghosts, hang charms all over the place, and think a pair of shoes will make their house unlucky and then they will lose a few dimes out of their pocket book. For me it is just easier to avoid people like those. Like Democrats, I don't need friends that stupid--- worrying about ghosts and bad luck. People who come to my house should wear shoes. Going barefoot and sitting on the floor is for Chinese people and hippies.

 

[Rumpel]

What has become of the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free?

Or of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave - for that matter.

 

[Rumpel]

Chinese culture is weird. These people eat with two sticks, are afraid of ghosts, hang charms all over the place, and think a pair of shoes will make their house unlucky and then they will lose a few dimes out of their pocket book. For me it is just easier to avoid people like those. Like Democrats, I don't need friends that stupid--- worrying about ghosts and bad luck. People who come to my house should wear shoes. Going barefoot and sitting on the floor is for Chinese people and hippies.

I agree.
Could it be that many Americans long to be Chinese?

 

[Court Jester]

I agree.
Could it be that many Americans long to be Chinese?

Could be. I see lots of white and black folk foolishly trying to eat rice with two sticks at Asian restuarants rather than ask for a damn knifey and forky. Maybe they want to seem culturally sensitive to loony customs as another form of virtue signalling? Eating with two sticks thousands of years after forks and spoons were created seems just as dumb as dragging stuff round on sleds after the wheel was invented. But maybe the chopstick thingy is a superstition too?

 

[Josie]

Has anyone referenced the Sex and the City episode where Carrie's super expensive heels get stolen because she was asked to take them off at the door to a party?

 

[Rumpel]

Could be. I see lots of white and black folk foolishly trying to eat rice with two sticks at Asian restuarants rather than ask for a damn knifey and forky. Maybe they want to seem culturally sensitive to loony customs as another form of virtue signalling? Eating with two sticks thousands of years after forks and spoons were created seems just as dumb as dragging stuff round on sleds after the wheel was invented. But maybe the chopstick thingy is a superstition too?

Hereby and thereby I decree:
Whosoever forces his guests to remove their shoes will have fork and knife removed also - so that he or she will have to use chopsticks for the rest of his life!
That will teach them!

 

[Rumpel]

Here in Germany we have the silly word "Straßenschuhe" = street shoes, as if those shoes could only be worn on streets.

What about offices and banks and churches and shops and cinemas and restaurants etc etc?

Do "polite" folks then have special shoes for those places - or do they walk around in socks or barefoot there?
I think we should be told!

 

[Fledermaus]

Hereby and thereby I decree:
Whosoever forces his guests to remove their shoes will have fork and knife removed also - so that he or she will have to use chopsticks for the rest of his life!
That will teach them!

Wouldn't phase me as I lived in Japan and can eat with chop sticks.

You can't?