BoomerGirl Diary

Forget the presidential debates.

Rudy versus Mitt versus Hillary versus Barack? Mere child's play.

You want a real debate? Ask your holiday guests to take their shoes off at the door.

"People have really passionate views about this," said Noelle Howey, deputy editor at Real Simple magazine. "Some people feel very offended if they're asked to take off their shoes. Other people are equally offended if a guest balks at the request. It's very much a hot-button etiquette issue."

Perhaps at no other time of year is this dispute more impassioned: The holidays provide endless opportunities for entertaining guests, and the weather provides endless amounts of crud on your shoes.

Where you come down on the question may depend on a number of factors - social, cultural and geographic, among others. How to deal with the issue is a universal quandary.

As a Chinese-American, David Chan grew up surrounded by friends and relatives who removed their shoes. "It just never made sense to me to wear shoes in the house," Chan said. "When do you eventually take them off?"

Chan's fiance, Tiffany Simon, grew up in a shoes-on household. But the couple has adopted a no-shoes policy for the home in Chicago's Lake View neighborhood that they now share.

"When people come over, we just say, `I'll take your coat, you can just leave your shoes here,'" Chan said. "One of our friends doesn't like it because she wears tall shoes - she says it makes her feel short. But most people don't make a big deal."

For Lisa Mariscal, it's a matter of health. "We have five kids, and that includes 3-year-old twins who love to play and lie on the floor," Mariscal said. "I prefer that the amount of dirt and germs are kept to a minimum."

Indeed, shoes-off subscribers point to various reports of pesticides, lead, mold and other toxins entering our homes by way of our soles.

Mariscal, who owns her own carpet steam cleaner and describes herself as "anal," said her close friends and family take their shoes off as a matter of course. And her kids know that failure to remove their shoes and place them in the front closet will result in the shoes being taken away and sold back to them for $1.

But when new guests come by, Mariscal takes a softer stance. "I do a cookie exchange every year, and for new friends who haven't come before, I won't announce it," she said. "But people will usually ask, and I just say `If you want to. We kind of prefer it.'"

And if someone takes offense? "I've never run into that, but I guess my response would be the health of my kids is more important," Mariscal said. "I live in Schaumburg (Ill.) and there's a lot of geese poop around."

Well, Doreen Howard of Roscoe, Ill., isn't buying that argument.

"I'm sorry, but most people have pets, most people have more dirt on their clothing, pollen on their clothing," Howard said. "Are they going to make you strip down to nothing? That's the next question."

Howard, who was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in San Diego, said her first shoes-off request threw her for a loop.

"When I moved to Illinois from Texas in 1998, a (real estate agent) asked me to remove my shoes at a house we were viewing," Howard said. "I was appalled at the lack of manners. You just don't do something like that in Texas!

"If I had dirty, filthy shoes, I would have taken them off myself," she said. "The person asking you to remove your shoes is assuming you have dirty feet and you don't have enough sense to wipe your feet or take your shoes off if they're a problem. That's not hospitable."

Real Simple's Howey calls for a little compromising.

"If people feel really put out by the request," she said, "they should try to understand that people usually have a strong reason to make the request: It could be cultural or religious or a number of other deeply felt reasons."

On the other hand, she said, a shoes-off request "can sound a little off-putting" - and maybe should be skipped in certain settings.

"It's such a personal preference, but I would personally set it aside for a party," she said. "If you're inviting a lot of people over and it's going to be cumbersome to step over a pile of shoes or you're going to have to stand post at door, you might want to bend your rules for something like that."

Compromise is certainly the name of the game at the Smolik home in Naperville, Ill., where husband and wife Ken and Anita fall into opposite camps. Ken is a strict no-shoe guy. Anita doesn't like to take hers off. "My feet get cold. I run into things," she said. "I just feel protected with my shoes on."

So they've developed a system: When Anita comes home, she takes off her shoes and changes into a new pair. Ken takes the dirty pair, washes them and places them next to her desk for the next time she comes inside.

"I thought he'd get tired of it by now," she said. "He kind of complains about cleaning all those shoes, but he still does it."

Call off the debate. Looks like we've found a winner.

How to (nicely) get guests to go shoeless indoors

If you do decide to ask your guests to remove their shoes, Real Simple's deputy editor Noelle Howey offers these tips for minimizing the drama.

Be subtle (but not too subtle): "You can make it obvious and hopefully avoid having to say anything," said Howey. A pile of shoes by the door is usually a good hint. To really drive the message home, Howey suggests placing a few shoe racks near your entrance.

Be courteous: "It's nice to provide footies or house slippers in a variety of sizes for people who are uncomfortable walking around in their socks," she said. "Particularly if you're going to have people over that you don't know as well."

Be funny: "Some people put up little signs at the door, although I personally advocate trying to make it light-hearted," she said. "You don't want to sound like a place of business." Don't be afraid to poke a little fun at yourself.

Be honest: Like it or not, some people are going to be offended by your request, but an explanation may go a long way. "Just tell them, `Little Bobby has allergies, so if you don't mind taking your shoes off ...' Or if you have a very valuable antique rug and you'd be devastated if it got ruined, tell people. Otherwise people take it personally and think you're implying they are somehow unclean."

Be confident: "It's your house," said Howey. "Just like if you don't want someone to smoke in your house, if you don't want to worry about what's on the bottom of someone's shoes, you shouldn't feel apologetic about it."

How dirty is your carpet?

This is not one of those stories that freak you out about the various life forms dwelling in your carpet. We'll leave that to the Internet.

We were simply curious, after researching the shoe story: How dirty are our floors?

We turned to Glen Needham, an associate professor of entomology at Ohio State University, who specializes in the study of dust mites and ticks. Needham is routinely approached by companies wanting to know if their latest cleaning product effectively zaps little buggers. Most recently, he was tapped by the people behind Halo, the fancy vacuum that apparently kills germs with UV rays.

The man knows dirt.

The good news is, you're probably not tracking dust mites or other insects inside on your shoes.

"Dust mites most likely are brought in on bedding, clothing, stuffed toys and various fabrics," said Needham. "They are less likely to be on shoes worn from the outside."

And if they do get in your house, mites and other organisms need optimal conditions to survive: "Food, moisture, space and the right temperature," Needham said, noting that mites tend to feast mostly on skin scales from humans or pets. "To control (insects) we need to take away as many of these requirements as possible. This is partly why we clean_we are removing food."

The bad news is, a whole bunch of other stuff gets carried in on shoes_stuff that's never intended for indoors.

"Say you had your lawn treated," Needham said. "You could potentially walk through your grass, bring the pesticides into your home and end up with a buildup of toxic material."

And although pesticides are broken down outdoors when they're exposed to UV rays, he notes, they last much longer inside your home where they don't see direct sunlight.

It's hard to know exactly what you're trekking through most of the time. But you may want to think twice about inviting it to join you in the living room.