PeevePile • A Pet Peeve Archive » When people make you take your shoes off before entering their house/apartment.

When people make you take your shoes off before entering their house/apartment.

Especially when they have pets, so there's always cat/dog hair all over the floor anyway - are my shoes really going to make your place THAT much dirtier?

— M. from Boston, MA | Household | 3.14.2010 | Comments (9)

yes. yes they are.

— E. posted 3/14/2010

Think of the things buffered by your shoes on your way over to that house/apartment. Dogshit. Gum. Spit. Actual DIRT. Yes, I may have some cat hair on my floor, but the bottoms of your shoes are still too disgusting to be on my carpet.

— D. posted 3/15/2010

I agree with the two other comments before me. It's actually much more cleanlier to take them off. It seems to be more of an American ritual. (Canadians by the way tend to take off their shoes always)

— Kara posted 3/15/2010

I have to side with the poster on this one. I think if you have guests over, you should just deal. It's not an every day thing.

— jmc posted 3/15/2010

i think for me it's just family/cultural practice. my dad's from guam, and that whole side of the family doesn't think twice before taking off shoes at the door.

— whothegoods posted 3/17/2010

I guess it makes more sense in the winter/spring, when people have on shoes that have been in mud, snow, slush, etc. It does make the place easier to clean, but it is annoying to me (as the guest) because now MY socks are covered in hair/skin cells/general place filthiness. So the peeve goes both ways.

— KimK posted 3/21/2010

simple - bring slippers! everybody's happy

— harmony posted 3/22/2010

Yes. When you live in a city, absolutely. Pet hair is not the same as urine or rotting bilge water from the seafood restaurant you walked by. So unless you plan on helping me mop and disinfect as you tromp all over my clean living room, take 'em off. I will gladly lend you some socks if it's such a big deal.

— Diana posted 3/30/2010

Unless you're happy vacuuming my entire apartment before you leave, it's shoe's off! *Although we do offer comfy indoor slippers to those who prefer to wear shoes indoors. :)

— N. posted 4/14/2010

When parents start voicemail messages with "hey [name], it's your mother/father." » My husband does this with his kids! It never fails to drive me bugshit! – Mindy 7/26

Grubby, tangled haired children. » Keeping clean is one thing; the kids I see don't even start out clean. Parents and kids both seem to roll out of bed and go to the local WalMart (where else?) without so much as running as hairbrush through their hair or taking a bar of soap to their bodies. I think we can be quite sure they don't know what a toothbrush is for! The trend of wearing pajama bottoms in public needs to stop as well. – Mindy 7/26

When strangers try to touch my children. » Good god, it's like you read my mind. I absolutely hate it when I'm in the grocery store and people touch my son's feet or poke his little cheeks. Yes, I know he's the cutest thing on this earth but THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN TOUCH HIM – CakeThief 7/24

Air quotes. » use shocker quotes instead. form shocker with fingers, bend to mimic quoting action. – kn obel 7/22

When non-white street beggars call me racist when I don't give them money. » I always want to know if people would feel equally as badly if the opposite were true. Like, if you only gave money to non-white street beggars out of guilt/fear of being perceived as racist. That's racism, too, right? Right? No one complains about that one... – Chelsea 7/22

When non-white street beggars call me racist when I don't give them money. » Ugh. This happened to me when I declined to sign a petition without even hearing what it was about (I was also not a registered voter in that state AND was in a hurry). Jeez, I'm not racist! I hate all petition signature gatherers equally. – Kate 7/21

02.11.10

Send in your mobile phone pet peeves for the week of February 15th! Perhaps the simplest and most common generator of peeves, the mobile phone prods and pricks us in all places, public and private. With skull phones just around the corner, it’s likely these peeves will soon become irrelevant—so let’s spray them across the galaxy while we still can.

01.18.10

For the next week or so, the pictures for peeves will be of Peeve Pile’s national spokesperson, Rob Grace, and his special person, Shana, enacting various peeves. Please feel free to make such pictures yourself. Just include a link to them when submitting a peeve.

01.02.10

Hello. I’ve added a voting feature, so you can vote as you assume that you would – just click on a one-to-five star rating (it will tell you your vote has been recorded); five indicating that you completely agree with, or find the peeve amusing, one meaning the opposite.

Once a bunch of ratings are in, I’ll add a worst, and best rated area to the right column.