Shoes or no shoes in the house?

Yeah, it's basically everywhere unless you've just cleaned, but shoes, floors, things on or touching the ground, would in general be far worse than anything else. There's no one in restaurants putting their feet up on seats, and tables and chairs are/should be cleaned after each customer with fresh cutlery, etc. Then again, it's a cultural thing. If you want to eat in a Japanese restaurant with tatami flooring, you'd have to. Plus, restaurant floors should be washed every day, sometimes a few times a day depending on traffic. Only the OCD clean at home every day.

Then again, I'm not one to talk, we don't take our shoes off here and the father does be out the back cutting logs, washing a car, shrubbing/weeding, cutting grass, etc. It's far from as hygienic as I'd like it to be, but I tend to wash my hands a lot at home anyway. Need to keep these hands clean for the rolling!

And yes, there'll always be fear, there's money in fear. But I think a few too many people are too unconcerned. Tbh, my main reason is to make the cleaning easier, closely followed by hygiene. I hate house chores, and with shoes things get dirtier quicker. Men (usually) who sit with one foot up on the other leg, that do be hitting off furniture, which you'd then touch with your hand, etc, etc. Yeah, I get it, the liklihood of getting something horrific from your shoes is slim. But how many people wash their shoes after travelling? Like a lot of things in life these days, I'd rather avoid than have to deal with. But I'm in no position to force that in the current house!

At the end of the day, if I had a house rule like that and people didn't want to take them off, grand, be like that, I'll talk to you outside. If they had an issue with it going forward, I'd just say not to bother calling so. But I'd also need to be social to make friends to do that, which I'm also avoiding at the moment.

Look, it's just a preference. My family and I leave our shoes at the door. At no point have I said I ask guests to leave theirs at the door. I do, no-one else has to. It's a choice. I think we could all really focus our attention onto more important matters and not blow something trivial up, to be bigger than it is.