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We actually made people take their shoes off at the door.
It was a pain but no matter what, you still got stuff tracked in.
It took us almost 5 months and it was not a pleasent experience.
The worst part was when realtors brought an older person to the house. We lived in a townhouse with stairs...
One person said that the house was too clean and didn't have alot of personal things around. My fiancee was so mad she wanted to kill.

I had already moved out so it was even worse for me - I had to keep going back to turn down the heat they had cranked up for their visits, turn out all the lights they'd left on, and neaten up the place. Someone even crapped in a toilet and didn't flush - some people are just pigs.

I loved that house but after 3 months of the general public tramping thru I was so glad it sold.

"We ... made people take their shoes off at the door."

I understand to some degree your insistence on this, but in sluggish housing markets - where traffic volume is especially important - this is a real turn-off. A few years ago when we were looking to buy, a builder who was showing new homes in a semi-rural subdivision had this policy. The weather was sunny, and there was no danger of tracking in mud from the street. Mrs. Riverdawg's jaw dropped open, and she quickly waved us off the porch and back to the car. There were simply too many other nice houses on the market to put up with having to walk around in stockings/socks or bare feet to see a house. We wouldn't have minded if the builder had put plastic or paper sheets down instead, but he obviously didn't want to be bothered. Three months later, we noted that the same house was still on the market while others in the neighborhood (built by other contractors) had sold.