The Dilemma of taking your shoes off

So you have your carpets shampooed (albeit it's a rented flat), we've just moved in and having lived somewhere previously where we had wooden floors, we decided (well the hubby lead the decision) to take shoes off when in the flat. I'm fine with this, we have cream carpets - and so we have a little shoe rack outside the front door, in our quaint little hallway, where you can put your shoes when you come in. I do also have stolen slippers from various hotel stays, if you feel you need something to wear!

A visit from a plummer the other day, a big friendly chap called Steve, saw him stride into my flat with his shoes and I felt a bit precious saying anything about our shoes off policy, so I stayed quiet, and just hoped his size 11's weren't mucky! They weren't.

Then yesterday, Steve returned, with his young colleague, accompanied by the landlord's father and his wife (the landlord is overseas) and the four of them had come to fix some stuff, as well as have a look at a few things in the flat, won't bore you with the details but all four of them walked past our little shoe rack and strolled into the flat, wearing their shoes. Now I didn't have the heart to ask all four of them to take their shoes off, but it got me to thinking... is it wrong to ask people to do this? I've been to houses where it's made very clear that they have a shoes off policy. Often people are apologetic about it.. I've also been to houses where people say, 'It's up to you'.. which I find confusing.. sometimes I'm wearing an outfit that is finished off by the shoes so I don't want to take them off, but I don't want to do the wrong thing in your house.

My co-presenter Stuart, told me you can't ask people to take their shoes off when they come in your house, so now I'm confused have I raised my expectations too high? Am I turning into Hyacinth Bucket? Do we need to make it more obvious, it's not even my carpet, so like I said at the start I'm not that precious but we did have our carpets shampooed so it seems like a nice idea to try and keep them clean.. I can't help but feel like this is a #middleclassproblem!