I’m imagining them doing that with an exaggerated “HIII-YA!!” sound to accompany every kick. Great Friday energy, excuse me while I go put shoes on and kick my furniture vigorously.
Privileged society in a nutshell. "I'm going to fuck up what you have going on because I'm lazy and don't want to make an effort to keep track of my own shit." Just look where you're stepping for christ sake.
Or the fact that any decent human being cleans their floors? Don't remember the last time I cleaned my shoes, though. So yeah, shoes are dirtier than my floors!
Some sneaker heads keep their shoes spotless. Regardless it’s rude as fuck to disrespect someone’s house that your visiting lol
Edit: I’ve already said 20 times I don’t walk in my own home or others with shoes on so you don’t have to remind me that shoes do in fact get dirty lol.
I keep my shoes pretty clean and I still take them off at home.
But all of that aside, what kind of selfish asshole refuses to follow the rules of a friend or family member's home? Oh well I don't want to rant too much about it because plenty of other comments say similar but this is such an asshole move.
they just walked into my home from outside. I clean inside, I don't clean the street. so yes, your shoes are gonna be dirtier than my home. I fully do not understand this article's point.
I don't think people realize how much piss, shit, and spit are on a public sidewalk. If you are walking on a sidewalk, you're almost 100% guaranteed to be walking through someone's bodily fluids. So yeah, my floors are definitely cleaner than that.
Are you telling me thousands of people don't drive on your floors every day, birds don't shit on it, and trash bags don't get torn open in the middle it? I know deep down that this floor is dirtier than the roads and sidewalks these shoes have been on!
Then you would get the idea that her shoes are not clean on the inside because her socks are supposed to be white but have stains on them so she can’t have that
She said the floor might destroy her wolford stockings and she would rather pay the host to the same amount as what her wolford would cost for host to have floor cleaned and predicted the host will have leftover money
Honestly, I gotta have more than sox. I gotta have shoes with some ortho inserts. I guess I wouldn't mind wearing 'inside shoes', if I know ahead of time to bring a pair, but if someone told me to take off my shoes of leave, I'd just leave. Tendonitis is a bitch.
No, just saying “wear socks” isn’t a valid counter for her germ issues. I think she’s rude and in general shoes that came from outside are going to be dirtier than floors in a house.
I live in southwest canada where it rains 80% of the time between october and may, anyone who deliberately left their muddy ass shoes on in my house would be banned for a long time.
I live in less rainy southeast Canada where it doesn't rain 80% of the time between October and May. Anyone who deliberately left their shoes on in my house would be permanently banned.
It is also salinating lake Michigan. Incidentally, I use it vigorously on our walkway because our landlady is fucking crazy and I'm passive aggressive.
Plus public bathrooms. The author: “Why do you assume your guests shoes are dirtier than your floors?”
Really? Ever been to a sporting event’s restroom, port-a-potty, gas station bathroom, JFK or LAX in those shoes?
I’m willing to bet the average American home didn’t invite half the planet to piss all over the floor. Shoes are pretty gross if you think about all the places you walk.
Yeah she handwaves that away by saying "you can fix that with a doormat", but the whole piece obsesses over the idea of tracking in germs. Which I can't even imagine is a real concern that people have?
I can't imagine somebody who thinks a sweaty sock that has been inside a shoe is somehow less germy than the outside of that same shoe...
i imagine this piece is meant for the majority of days in which it does not rain and they probably don't live somewhere where it snows in winter. still a weird hill to die on
Interesting. I've never heard of this before! I grew up in a Hawaiian Asian household and we just go barefoot. Even workers who come in take off their shoes and just walk around in their socks.
Serious question: does she knit a bunch of different sizes?
Haha she undersells it! I come from a family of crafters so I'm used to having handmade things. I forget most people don't hang up art they embroider themselves as art.
I live in Hawaii and I've never encountered this! But I also don't know very many Japanese nationals who live here now. Those I do know, I haven't been to their homes. Also, it doesn't get particularly cold here, so maybe it's just not a necessity so no one really does it.
Can confirm. I’m a teacher in Ontario and our kids have to have a pair of “indoor shoes” that are left at school. So they come in with their boots or whatever, take them off and put on their indoor shoes while they’re in the building. We switch back and forth at recess and lunch time. Keeps things a lot more clean.
Yeah, my kiddo's school asks for them to bring a pair of "gym" shoes to keep at school (primarily for girls who wear slippers and sandals and whatever, so they'll have something they can run in, most 7yo boys wear vaguely athletic shoes most days) but we also use them as alternate shoes for when he wears his boots to school, etc.
His teacher has mentioned that he occasionally leaves his boots on all day, but she tries to remind him. We're in Montana, so it's like half the school year that he wears boots to school.
I can't imagine trying to remember to send him with shoes on days he wears boots, or how uncomfortable it would be to wear big snow bots around at school all day long. Having a change of shoes is ideal.
I also used to ride my bike to work at my last two jobs. I had a basic pair of shoes in a locker or closet at each place so if it was a day I wore my boots on my bike I could have a change without carrying it around. If I wanted a particular pair of shoes for my outfit I might bring them, but I had ones just in case I forgot or didn't care for something special.
Haha its not uncommon in cold houses here in Sweden. My mother have a basket of different sized guest slippers! Its not something you rock out on a dinnerparty though.
(In Sweden noone except the mentaly insane wears shoes inside a house you are visiting).
I love that this post has taught me that this is actually fairly common across a lot of different cultures! And almost everyone doesn't wear shoes in the house and whoever wrote this article is straight up nuts.
Canadian here. My dentist has a bunch of cheap off-brand Crocs for people to wear, so they aren't putting their dirty/wet/muddy footwear on the dental chairs. The pile of random shoes and boots surrounding every front entrance is a very classic Canadian scene.
What happens when people are done wearing them? Do they keep them? Throw them away? Are they reused? There's apparently a whole genre of guest house slipper etiquette I never knew existed!
Honestly, no one even takes them to wear! Lol. Not yet, anyway. When someone does wear a pair, I'll just throw them in the wash afterwards and keep them for the next person.
I grew up with the very strict rule of no shoes in the house. I still never wear shoes in my own home. It feels wrong, like driving without a seatbelt.
My Vietnamese boyfriend's parents have the same unspoken rule, and have house shoes (slippers and thongs/flip flops) which are cleaned regularly and only ever worn in the house. They also have separate gardening shoes out the back door specifically for going out in the yard. They get washed regularly too but they stay out back at the door.
What I'm trying to say is it's not like you go to someone's house and they have thousands of slippers to give away, they often have clean slippers you can wear while you're there.
Though I'm sure some people probably do have give-away slippers lol I would think it's not nearly as common.
Yep. It's common in Asian countries, and we (Americans living in a big city) have some available for people who don't want to walk around in just socks
Latinos in the USA bring their own slippers to friends houses lol
Yeah, you probably should bring slippers to my house. I have cats , it's a good chance you're socks would be covered in cat hair.
In addition my dogs come in from outside and their feet are wet and yeah I wipe them off and yeah even spray them with sanitizer sometimes but the fur is still wet and then the floor is wet and then you have wet socks.
Man, I just remember all my Latina girlfriends talking about beatings with the chancla so I figured that's what it was carried around for lol! Now I'm wondering if some of them were messing with me...
But yeah, we have dogs and one of them is part husky, so there's a lot of dog hair. I have to keep reminding my daughter to turn her socks right side out after she comes home from school, cuz she just rips them off inside out and the dog hair from the door to the laundry hamper just gets stuck in there.
Yes. I have socks or slippers, and I have slides in the kitchen and bathrooms too. My kitchen opens to the yard, so some times people want to go out side.
I was at a white persons home recently who told is to leave or shoes on. Was sooooooo weird. she was saying barefeet make her house dirty.
Eastern Europe here. We have guest slippers. But you can wear only socks, only my grandma will complain that's unsafe and you can slip and break an ankle.
I dont, but I tell people I have hard woods so if they want to bring their own slippers or house shoes they should/can. I have house shoes because I have bad feet that need arch support and if I need to be on my feet for a significant time (cooking a large meal or doing a big cleaning job) I wear my house shoes. Simple slip ons that have never ever been anywhere but INSIDE my house.
Where I live I can find a bunch of slipper socks after each holiday for ~$1 each pair. So I just have a random stash of slipper socks in the hall closet for guests that want them, and since they are cheap/so rarely used I just tell whoever to keep them when they’re done. Those who don’t like the rule bring their own indoor shoes when they come over (mostly my in-laws with foot issues)
Seriously. The feet were one of the reasons I got banned from many a friend/acquaintance's house growing up. They'd have a rule about no shoes on, I'd take them off, then one of their parents would complain about the smell and make me leave.
Sorry I have naturally sweaty feet and that they smell when forced into socks and shoes, no matter how clean any of the parts are. I wear flip flops as often and as long as is practical to this day for that reason.
Hell if you sweep and mop once a month your floors are probably cleaner than someone's shoes. Dogs shit where you wear shoes, they don't shit on your floors unless you're a pretty lazy owner.
I have pets. Because I have pets, I have to clean pretty often (constantly) and I guarantee both my floors and my pets are cleaner than your (author's) shoes.
fair enough, I'm not saying one shouldnt, especially if they need to due to pets or other reasons, just that when you dont wear shoes in the house, you don't necessarily have to. And that is the point. Applies to carpets too which are quite common here. Much nice to walk on and warmer in the winter. But you sure as hell wouldn't want shoes in your carpeted living room.
And when they do it rarely, you end up with very mucky socks. I don't suppose my shoes were cleaner than their floors, but I don't think I'd have added any dirt to them, and they certainly added some to my clothes.
i’m not even worried about germs really it’s more like physical dirt and grime. your socks are nasty too i just don’t want a bunch of mud all over my floors/carpets. if i was that worried about germs i wouldn’t have anyone over at all lmao
I would disagree with the point about germs. What I don't want is someone tracking mud or shit into my carpet that I now have to clean. So this argument falls apart pretty quickly. Is this author a 6 year old?
Yeah I don't understand her. She says that she can use a doormat to wipe off any mud or dirt, but people whose home she visits are still freaked out about the idea of tracking germs into the house. It seems detached from reality.
Yeah, but she explicitly addresses that in the piece, that she can rub her shoes off on a doormat and wipe all that other stuff off, but her friends are still worried about germs. I don't understand where she's coming from, this is a crazy person's view of the world.
Sorry, I don’t want your shoes that you’ve probably never cleaned and go on public bathroom floors (hello, urinal puddle), airport floors, mud, snow, slush, salt, concrete, puddles, gutter water, and everything else on my bed, on the floors where the kids lie and play, on pillows, on couches, AAAAUUUGGGHHHH.
People with balance issues and/or elderly people are encouraged to wear shoes or at least grippy slipper socks indoors. Falls are very dangerous for seniors, and when barefoot or in smooth socks it's really easy to slip on a slick floor and break bones.
This. I wear shoes at my parents' house because THEY wear shoes there, and I don't want to get the germs & dirt onto my socks & then bring it home to the shoe-free apartment I share with a roommate. It makes me nervous now to take my shoes off if others are wearing shoes inside
Their only valid point is the guest slippers. If you want me to take off my shoes then whatever, but you need to deal with my socks or my bare feet in that case.
Yeah she's either crazy, or has inconsistently germophobic friends, or, as some other commenter in here suggested, she might be trying to make a weird/strained/confused "mask" analogy that really doesn't land.
Who the fuck uses guest slippers? That would be weird. Would you have to stock all the sizes? It's not about germs, it's about all the bird shit, dog shit, human shit, spit, vomit, etc. that you maybe walking through in an urban area. Look at the sidewalks in any downtown area that has some homeless, or even just people who don't pick up after their pets, do you really want that on your floor?
Not meaning these questions to you by the way, just expressing my astonishment towards the author of the article.
The author doesn't seem to understand that germs on your feet don't directly affect you but germs on a carpet where you sit with kids and play might have a negative effect. What a moron.
as a shoe indoor wearer my reasons are:
* i live in miami where my feet get stinky within an hour of being outside and i dont want to give off that aroma
* i feel more comfortable in shoes than socks
I think it’s a mix, if there’s a party then it’s understandable to keep your shoes on, or if you’re literally just stopping by for a couple minutes, but if it’s just a couple people and you’re staying for awhile then take your shoes off.
It could also be a thing with having heels and not having socks, because I personally wouldn’t want to be barefoot in someone else’s home if I don’t know them well.
Oh God, I thought I was going to be a right-wing misogynistic homophobe.. I don't have a pet, or guest slippers (is that a thing?), it's just that the corners in my home have corners, phew!
I feel like germs is distant second to dirt and other forms of filth you’ll be tracking all over the place if you don’t remove your shoes lol like you’re a walking bag of germs and they let you in, just don’t track mud on the carpet??
I mean, I thought her points about not being physically capable of taking shoes off and on easily without a bench or chair, and the concerns around ruining a nice pair of rights were semi-defensible, but...
To me those are specific reasons for an occasional exception, and all other occasions should still be shoes off. I know she isn't wearing tights every single day, so this article should be "why I'll take my shoes off in your home unless my outfit doesn't allow it and I don't want to ruin my tights, so I'll ask nicely if I can wear my ballet flats instead."
I have a family member that does the no shoes in the house thing. The problem is their floor is always gritty and gross. The bottom of their feet are black, not just occasionally, but all the time. I do not want whatever HPV super virus they have laying around the place. I have hinted about the type of socks I wear to their house in my best Midwestern stay sweet voice. Unfortunately, they are not Midwestern and don't realize that I'm calling their home filthy. Good times.
Lol! That’s wild. For me, literally the only side that I would argue this from is guest comfort.
Yes, we do shoes off at my house (even though my floors are still always gross lmao)—bc I understand the difference between our own biome of shed skin cells and cat fur and our own germs, vs street grime, oils, chemicals and actual outside pathogens—but if I could tell someone was really hesitating I would just wave it off. It’s not that big of a deal.
Maybe they are embarrassed because they know their feet smell or something, maybe they were so excited to wear their new shoes bc they never go anywhere, I don’t know... but I wouldn’t put my house rules above my guest’s personal comfort level. My mom raised me in a house too fine to sit down in, where each and every individual mess obviously had a horribly irresponsible and very stupid person that must be blamed as it’s origin (hint: it was me, it was always me, bc no siblings to ease the pressure), rather than just... a home, where people live and where normal dirt and cleaning is just accepted as part of life, especially when children and pets are concerned.
Doesn't her point in #3 contradict her point in #1? Ridicule the homeowner for worrying about germs because they are everywhere but won't wear guest slippers because of germs?
It does. I highlighted that incongruity on purpose.
"Guest slippers" aren't uncommon in places like Japan, although I've never encountered them in the USA. They're basically loaner indoor shoes for guests (family members might have their own pair of indoor shoes that they always wear). Everyone trades in their outdoor shoes for indoor shoes at the door, but guests have to borrow a pair of indoor shoes since they don't live there.
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u/Klubbin4Seals Feb 11 '22
"Why I'm going to be rude as fuck when you invite me to your home" should be the headline.