Come into my house with shoes on and you’ll be lucky to leave alive
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Was recently discussing with someone that it’s really weird that, on the internet, Britain is repeatedly labelled a “shoes on indoors” society, because nobody we know has shoes on indoors (in their own home). Britain is a wet and muddy country.
Does anyone here do shoes on indoors? Where are you all from?
I’ve seen both in the UK. Personally, I’m a shoes off guy. Means less cleaning needed.
UK too, shoes off too, have never lived anywhere where shoes on indoors was a common thing
The only reason I can think is that underfloor heating is relatively rare here and if you’ve got hard floors it’ll be cold to walk on, but then slippers exist so idk really
It might be in including having slippers or “indoor shoes”. Nigeria is there as a shoes on, but from my understanding, its only slippers/flip flops specificly for indoors, that are normal.
Edit: Talked to my Nigerian friend, shoes off is expected, and slippers are just a personal preference. The map is just wrong.
No, in “shoes off” countries it is very normal to wear slippers or other kinds of indoor footwear, so it wouldn’t make any sense to count those as “shoes on”. I just think the data used for this map was very faulty.
Same for Japan. No chance they’re wearing full hiking boots or sneakers inside the house in Japan - the shoe cabinet is built in right next to the front door of houses, tiny apartments, temples, many restaurants, etc. I assume the schools still do too.
Canada is labelled as shoes off but we also have slippers.
Although not sure about Nigeria, are slippers and flip flops like expected to be worn or just available?
For me I have slippers which are worn often but it’s not expected that anyone inside wear them. Most people just wear socks if they come to visit. And myself I go barefoot unless my feet get cold then I grab the slippers.
Although not sure about Nigeria, are slippers and flip flops like expected to be worn or just available?
In my (limitted) experience, its expected. When I visited a friend who was Nigerian, they offered me slippers to wear in the house, and they felt uncomfortable going barefoot in my (Canadian) house.
Edit: Talked to my Nigerian friend, shoes off is expected, and slippers are just a personal preference. The map is just wrong.
Yeah that’s probably why it’s labelled as shoes on then I imagine and why Canada is labelled shoes off since any sort of foot covering is expected / not expected.
Correction: asked my friend, and shoes off is the normal expectation in Nigeria. Slippers are just a personal preference, so the chart is just wrong.
I reckon it depends on how warm someone’s home is and how good their circulation is. If I don’t have shoes on indoors, then for half the year it feels like my feet have been stabbed because they get so cold (slippers are not enough), but I don’t wear the same shoes indoors as outdoors. I suspect that if we set the heating higher and the house wasn’t constructed in a way that makes the floor always much colder than a few inches above the floor, this wouldn’t be a problem.
That’s interesting, I hqve a different experience - i used to have horrible foot circulation as a kid but i got into the habit of never wearing socks in my house (don’t like the texture, enjoy feeling air on feet and them being cooler) and i haven’t had the bad foot circulation since then… as far as i can tell. I have been wearing them for this winter though.
half the year it feels like my feet have been stabbed because they get so cold (slippers are not enough)
Get some down booties. It’s like your feet are cocooned in a loving embrace of warmth and comfort.
To me, the big decider is plush carpets. The first level of my house is mostly hardwood and tile. The second floor, and living rooms have plush carpets. So if someone is unloading a car, getting ready to leave, or just general in/out stuff, sure leave the shoes on. Once you’ve decided to stay, get those shoes off and be welcome in the cozy areas of the house.
Which, coincidentally, is also the areas where other warm stuff is.
Grew up in the UK, in a “shoes on” household. We just gave them a good scrape on the doormat when coming inside.
Since then, I’ve lived in a few different countries and am 100% converted to the shoes off way of being. I agree it’s much better.
Weird. I also grew up in the UK, and I’m in my 50s now, it’s always been shoes off in my and my family’s houses. Unless it was a quick visit.
Same goes for my friend’s houses.I’ve worked in the other people’s houses for well over 30 years in different capacities, from ‘clean’ jobs such as surveying to the more physical jobs of handyman, plastering etc. And a high percentage of the time it was shoes off as well.
Or separate clean shoes for inside.
Basically it’s easier to change my shoes than it is to clean a carpet or floor after I have trampled dirt around.Ok, yeah, you’d get people say “don’t bother about your shoes” if I was only doing a survey, but I took them off anyways.
The only time I wouldn’t remove my shoes is if the houses were cleaner outside than inside, but that hardly ever happened.If I had to guess I would say that in all the thousands and thousands of houses I’ve visited in the UK that 90% were shoes off.
That’s funny because, thinking back on it, I’d say about 90% of my friends and family were shoes on.
Perhaps it’s regional. I grew up in the South East, for reference. Not London, but in one of the surrounding counties.
The same in NZ. Is this that you never ever wear shoes on inside?
Is it acceptable to walk into your own house and walk around with shoes on? Sure.
Do most people do that most of the time? In my experience, people will be shoes off in their own home most of the time, but it’s not some big taboo to keep them on if you’re popping in to grab something.
Yeah as a kiwi this resonates. But it’s weird to see us labelled as a “shoes on” country when even shoes outside are optional lol.
US here. Depends really. If I’m working around the house I like my shoes on but when it’s time to shutdown. They off, maybe some flip flops if I head out to the pool
Does anyone here do shoes on indoors?
In/out doors doesn’t really make a difference. If I need shoes outside, I’m probably wearing them inside. And vice versa.
It would be different if I had carpet. Carpet is impossible to thoroughly clean in situ. I would never want outside shoes on non-rental carpet. But I’ve got 100+ year old hardwood floors that have seen way worse than I’m tracking in.
Yeah I’m US and my parents were always at least annoyed if we wore our shoes further into the house than right by the door.
My parents keep their shoes on, I take mine off.
Same with France, many if not most no longer wear shoes inside of their homes.
So when I visited my friend that moved there, the rule was if you aren’t muddy shoes on in the first floor is fine but no shoes on the second floor.
They also have guests slippers for the first floor. I think this kinda makes sense since they like having parties then they don’t allow anyone upstairs.
I have no idea why anyone would want to wear shoes in the house.
It’s so constricting and unnecessary. Do y’all not clean your floors? Do you feel like your floors are gross and shouldn’t be touching your bare feet?
When you lay on the couch do you need to take your shoes off and then put them back on when you get up to go make a snack in the kitchen?
Makes zero sense to me
What if you have to quickly go inside and grab something? Do you take your shoes off for that or just walk inside?
Shoes are ok inside they’re not mandatory
Moved to a shoes off country over a decade ago.
That’s EXACTLY what I do.
Do you take your shoes off for that or just walk inside?
Yeah shoes off. It’s a pain in the butt.
However, you often wear shoes that are easier to take off / put on.
Also, you just learn to really check that you’ve got everything before you put your shoes on.
I have a pair of slip-ons I’ll throw on when i need a quick trip outside
I take one off and hop. Or throw a rug on the floor and shuffle.
I got in and out of my house about 50 times per day, and my feet are size 13.5s, so all my shoes are tight (they don’t make most shoes in anything larger than 13s). Plus my back isn’t what it once was. If I had to bend over and take my shoes off 50 times a day, I’d actually lose it, “it” being my L3-4 disc.
Whereas, litereally nothing bad has ever happened to me because I wear shoes in the house. It’s all some hypothetical … I don’t know what exactly. Grossness? Is grossness hurting me?
Tell you what’s ‘gross,’ as a thought exercise tho - walking around barefooted where my dogs and cats walk barefooted, they’re not exactly wearing shoes outside, or in the litterbox, nor are they putting a handkerchief down under their assholes when they sit down.
But a pair of flip-flops for in the house plus floor cleaning regularly… I don’t really worry about it either way. IDK why anyone does.
IDK why anyone does.
My floors are dirty enough without wearing shoes inside. Shoes would make it ten times worse. Shoes are uncomfortable. And I don’t want to turn my socks black because my floors are so dirty.
Being a cripple makes yours very specific circumstances. Most people can bend over at will with no ill effects.
Laced shoes are a pita to flip on and off. If you’re in a dry area there’s no reason to take off your shoes.
If you can wear sandals, or it’s a wet sloppy environment, then yeah it makes sense to take them off at the door.
I mean, if you’re doing yard work or something understandable to leave your shoes on in your own home if you’re coming inside for a snack or to grab something etc I do that all the time.
But like, if I invite someone over to hang out for a few hours I expect them to take their shoes off tying the laces isn’t that complicated.
And if I am taking the day off and don’t really need to leave the house for any reason I won’t even touch my shoes I’m going to be barefoot or in slippers all God damn day.
?! You wear your yard work shoes in the house? Those usually come off before I go inside even if it is a quick grab n go.
Only if it’s a quick trip <3 minutes after using a boot scraper and brush. Unless I know I’ve stepped in something particularly sticky like mud.
Edit: and only if it’s my own home, not someone else’s
Being barefoot is a luxury not everyone has. Combine that with not being able to wear slip on shoes and it’s a bit of a bigger problem.
I can get it for some environments. For example in central Asia, coming from a nomadic lifestyle and living in yurts (big tents) it’s totally understandable to keep your shoes on. Maybe the building style is a continuation of the yurt and lends to similar choices.
I was once in Paraguay and their buildings typically don’t have a hallway, every room is accessible from the outside. Most of their life is also spent outside, like cooking and eating. It’s nice weather for most of the year, why not.
But for European style weather and houses, I will always take my shoes off.
In what backwards and uncultured shithole do you have shoes on in the house? That’s filthy.
I prefer shoes off, but I have dogs that track so much dirt and filth in so what’s the point 😭
Wipe their paws off at the door. Your dogs will thank you.
If you don’t already have a mudroom then designate a room as the mudroom.
For us that is the kitchen. The dog goes right to the kitchen which is cleaned daily. Only after the dog sits around and it falls off do we let the dog into the rest of the house.
It makes a very nice buffer.
Shoes off inside the house is only really useful when one has shoes on, when outside.
Get your dogs some shoes.
Buncha weirdoes ITT. As soon as I get in the door, my house or yours, you can bet I’m stripping down to just my shoes and nothing else.
Fuck society and their oppressive insistence on wearing “pants”.
Clothes are a cage!
Some.people are into caring their genitals…
I gotta say it’s one of the benefits of kids being at college - everything constricting comes off as I walk in the door, there’s no one’s objection to consider. You might not want to make a surprise visit unless you’re ok with seeing me in my underwear
Thank you, I hadn’t seen that before!
Do shoes on people immediately put on shoes as soon as they wake up or something? I don’t even put on socks!
Rookie mistake. You sleep with your shoes on.
Somebody ban this guy
I get triggered when in American movies people jump on the bed with shoes on
Pro-tip. Sleep with nothing on!
I put them on when I’m leaving, generally
I used to be shoes on.
You just wake up, put on underwear, pants, shirt, socks and shoes, in that order.
So You keep Your shoes in the bedroom?
I used to. Yes
I’m not judging you but this just seems so uncomfortable to be.
I sleep in these cool long john pant things. when I wake up I put a shirt on and potter around for a few hours in that outfit doing my own thing before the kids wake up. Only then do I get dressed for the day.
Everyone has their own routine I guess.
I live in America.
If you don’t take your shoes off in my house my wife will scatter your dismembered body across the hillside for the animals to feed on.
As with most things. If America does it one way, then it’s probably the wrong way.
America does it both ways, so…
In this case, America does it two ways.
Shoes on is fine… if you live in a barn.
I’m in the US and shoes off inside.
Heres the thing tho, do slippers count as shoes?
House shoes are not shoes
Yeah maybe the dude is in the interior? Anywhere near the coast is shoes off
Places with diversity, basically. You visit a Japanese friend and realize how much better that is, lol.
That, and have you seen interior people’s floors? The shoes are sometimes cleaner, oof.
yeah, last time i visited the statesian interior (utah), the floors inside were cleaner than the floors outside until you got to my buddy’s home who used to live someplace civilized. so i get your point.
I’m kind of poking fun as a Missouri friend of mine who had dogs who came and went outside freely. Obviously when you’ve got animals coming and going, the floor gets really dusty and dirty.
California is shoes on in my experience.
I am Australian and we are a shoes off household - don’t care if you wanna have shoes on in the house but why would you wanna wear shoes in the house?
We barely wear shoes in public let alone in the house - shoes are just foot prisons, barefoot is best
I appreciate you not wearing shoes but please put on the house slippers. Also please switch from house slippers to toilet slippers, and switch to the garden slippers when you go into the garden. Please make sure to not mix up the slippers, it will upset my family.
Yeah. I’m “barefoot shoes” on outside for the minimal amount of time necessary, and off as soon as I can manage it. If it’s summer and I’m in a park, I take them off so I can walk on the grass with bare feet. If I’m at someone else’s house hanging out outside, you bet my shoes are already off. If it’s winter and I’m at a movie, I’m not leaving my feet in winter boots rated to -30C for the whole 2 hours.
UK is shoes ON. Canada definitely shoes OFF. US is shoes ON, drives me nuts seeing tv show characters hop on the BED with shoes on. 😡😡😡
The US is shoes OFF most of the time. Hollywood is just filled with sociopaths.
I used to believe art could be used to gaze into the zeitgeist of their production times.
Then I realized what you have just said. If someone in the future looks at hollywood productions, they’ll have very wrong ideas about how people live nowadays. Like, it will be comically wrong. You could throw a dice to select a verb from a dictionary and you’d be more correct.
There’s an idea among foreigners that Americans use Mayo in every meal. It’s because there’s a set prop list for refrigerators in productions that every sitcom uses.
Another example is the Transatlantic accent. At most, it was just used by actors and public announcers because it was clear and easy to understand. The general public didn’t talk like that.
Can confirm, US is mixed, mostly off in my area. I’d be curious to see this broken down by state.
Speaking of Hollywood, it was a Japanese movie that made me realize how ironclad their “shoes off” rule is, compared to ours.
Where I live, it’s shoes off, but nobody’s going to bat an eye if you forget something inside and keep your shoes on while you go back and get it. Even if your shoes are dirty, as long as you clean up the mess you made when you get back, it’s no big deal. So, it’s shoes off, but it’s not like there’s a special zone by the door where you must switch footwear and you must never wear shoes after that point.
So, what I saw when I watched the Japanese horror movie “The Ring” surprised me. It was a movie where people were running in terror, they were out of their minds in fear, but even in that state, when entering a house / apartment, they’d still take off their shoes. For me, as a westerner, it was really distracting to see someone take the time to observe that shoes on / shoes off rule even in a state of utter panic. But, the reason they did it that way is that for a Japanese audience, it would have completely broken their suspension of disbelief if someone entered a house / apartment and didn’t remove their shoes.
The US one should be stripped, it varies state to state
The US is a nation of immigrants, so it depends on the host’s culture of origin. So it varies from house to house.
Striped, yeah
I prefer the other spelling
What does it mean the US is shoes on? In my entire life the only family I know of that did that was a hoarding family with layers of filth on their floor.
Exactly! I think either this is SO innacurate, or :
- Green actually shows ‘shoes on at work’
- Green actually shows ‘takes shoes off after crossing the threshold rather than beforehand,’
How can Canada be a shoes off country if Britain and America are shoes-on? It just couldn’t be.
Maybe more pride in home ownership?
Also, Canada has been far more left leaning than the other two, imo Canada is closer to New Zealand just harder to leave out of a world map.
How can Canada be a shoes off country if Britain and America are shoes-on?
Weather.
In Canada (except near Vancouver) you have to wear winter boots whenever you’re outside for many months.
In most of the UK, and part of the US, you never get snow.
People wearing winter boots change them when they get home. If you’re just wearing sneakers or something, it’s more reasonable to keep wearing them around the house.
I think there are probably a fair number of homes in Canada (especially on the west coast) where people wear shoes around the house. There are probably even places where people switch from winter boots to “house shoes” or something. But, I’d imagine that there are many more “shoes off” houses in Canada just because of winter, and many more “shoes on” houses in say Miami or Phoenix or Los Angeles where it never gets cold.
Similarly, I would be that even though Argentina and Chile are listed as “shoes on” countries, my guess is that in the deep south where it can get wintery, they at a minimum change their footwear after coming inside in the winter.
It’s regional in the US. I’m from Colorado, and it’s strictly shoes off here. I have family in California and those animals wear their shoes inside and it drives me crazy.
Yeah, I’m from Jersey, and I guess the majority of people I know are just transplants to other states, but it’s shoes off everywhere to me. Home is comfort and comfort is shoes off.
The Netherlands look red but it’s definitely a shoes on country. People find me weird for asking them to take off their shoes. Any idea how nasty the roads are? Any idea how easier it is to clean your floors when you don’t bring all the nastiness from outside under your shoes? Plus it’s much better not to wear shoes in general, for your feet. That’s why I wear barefoot shoes outside and nothing inside. Because outside is naaaasty. Otherwise I would be barefoot everywhere.
I’m Dutch speaking Belgian, so culturally similar I guess…
I generally don’t wear my shoes at home, and I don’t know anybody who does, but it is considered weird to ask guests who are not staying over to take their shoes off, and it would be considered weird to voluntarily take your own shoes off in someone else’s home. It is more a question of intimacy and is considered getting too familiar. So unless you’re really familiar with each other, or you’re staying over long term or something, guests keep their shoes on.
In practice, I take my shoes off when I’m at my parents’ home, or at my girlfriend’s place, everywhere else they stay on, even at friends’ places.
I think Netherlands is more mixed nowadays than a hard shoes on culture. Like people keep their shoes on if they have visitors over like a party and they don’t ask their visitors to take them off. But when they are home alone it’s shoes off or slippers. Like many people have underfloor heating so there is no need to keep the shoes on.
Though I know some freaks who don’t take off their shoes until they go to bed.
Looks green to me. But there is a lot of jpeg going on.
I’m slightly colorblind and when it’s so small, it looks red so I guess it’s just me haha
Whoever says Greece is shoes on, I’ll spit in their coffee.
tbf, greece is so small that I can’t see the colour on the map.
