We were NEVER allowed to wear shoes in the house.
In other cultures like Japan it is considered an insult to wear your shoes in the house.
In the winter like now we take off our boots(not shoes) as soon as we walk in from the garage. I have a deacons bench in the hallway from the garage into the house.
My LL Bean slippers are there right now.
In the summer I will wear shoes into the house IF I just got out of the truck/car in the garage.
However, my work boots are on a shelf in the garage. next to an old picnic table bench where we sit to put our boots on and off.
My mom NEVER allowed us to wear shoes in the house. When she passed six years ago we cleaned out her house the following spring. We wore shoes into the house for the first time EVER. Since 1967 when they bought it.
We all said that mom must have been rolling over in her grave because we wearing sneakers in the house.
When we took out the carpet(not wall to wall) in the living room the oak flooring was discolored from the sunlight hitting the 1’ perimeter not covered by the carpet. The oak strip flooring underneath still looked brand new after 50 years. It still had a slight eased edge where the tongue met the groove of the adjacent piece. A light sanding and poly and it would be perfect.
Im not sure why Americans started doing that.
The Japanese do that, like so many of their other rules of etiquette they expect you do that as tradition, like the weird sitting on the feet thing, to assure to are at a disadvantage should you attack.
I dont want people spreading foot cooties around my house and I dont want to wear someone elses cootie slippers or trusting them that they cleaned up properly (staples, broken glass, hooks and nails).
I find it offensive really but I know a lot of people are doing it now. But its to save on the carpets! Some people should really put more thought into the carpet. I knew a family that lived in a small house meaning the living room was a good chunk of the square footage. They blocked off the living room, only the mom was allowed in there to dust. In a house full of men she decided she needed long not quite shag white-ish carpeting.
I think I got left behind. Someone was just telling me that “everyone” in the midwest does that now. I guess Ill just stay out in the boonies being the best American barbarian I can be.