Wish I had a piece of the hosiery industry in Anchorage, where you remove your footwear after you enter someone’s house. Knowing you’ll be unshod regularly means making sure your feet are decently covered.
Once when I was an Anchorage Daily News reporter I took off my shoes at an interviewee’s home and discovered a rent in one sock. It’s hard to look professional when your big toe has its eye to the peephole.
Obviously Alaska is not the only place where indoor shoe-wearing is frowned upon. People in other cultures live this way too – and so, increasingly, do U.S. residents, as a quick Internet search indicates. Sometimes it’s because they want the carpet to last longer. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want spike-heel scratches on the hardwood.
And sometimes it’s to keep you from tracking in poisons.