That's interesting. Inviting guests to my home, I never want them to take of their shoes for a few reasons:
- it can bother a person in different ways;
- sight might be rediculious (a man in a white shirt, suit, tie and slippers or a girl brilliantly-dressed and in slippers as well);
- there's nothing wrong in sweeping the floor. To clean up the floor takes me 1 minute (linoleum) or 3 minutes (carpet);
- what if a person is infected by some kind of fungus or so (
http://news.izvestia.ru/tech/news78469);
- if a sanitary technician has a privelege not to take off his shoes, why do my guests have to have less rights in that and not to take them either?