I had this same problem in my old house. We just learned to walk carefully up and down the stairs. Unfortunately for our dog, he skidded down a couple of times. When we moved into our new house and hardwoods laid our dog was in his "senior" years, so we bought enough hardwood to do the stairs when he is gone. Until that time, we left the carpet for the very reason you are speaking about;)

I would ask the company who refinished the floors and perhaps a Houzz hardwood person can come up with advice.

My own non-professional thought would be to barely sand them with the finest grit sandpaper possible. For me, safety would be the top priority.

I personally don't care for runners, etc. so what we do in our house with hardwoods is have a no socks rule. Must have shoes on or bare-footed if you are going up or down the stairs. Kids all know they must hold on the handrail also. Hardwood on stairs is beautiful!

Of course if you are concerned about safety there are options as others are pointing out.

When we ripped out our old carpeted stairs and went with hardwood stairs, we intended not to cover them. Hardwood stairs are beautiful. My husband fell down the stairs twice and our dog fell down the stairs. We had a runner installed and no problems since. We were just too concerned about overnight guests (as well as ourselves) getting hurt.

No matter how beautiful a floor is, if it's a hazard to anyone's safety, it needs to be dealt with. You could end up losing your home should a guest slip on them, especially if it came out that you knew they were dangerous.

There is a spray on product I just came across that supposedly makes them less slippery. Haven't tried it yet though - need to rip up the current carpet. (Oddly, for all that people suggest carpet for stairs, the current stuff seems to make the stairs here pretty darn slick.)

Take a look at SolidStepCote. It is a coating that is applied with a brush or roller and will bring the coefficient of friction up to within ADA standards. It will last for years and can be safely removed at any time. We offer this product in quart, gallon, or five gallons and have had many satisfied customers!

That SolidStep stuff, though, seems pricey.

I just cleaned my wooden staircase with a product that I did not think would leave my staircase slippery, but it did and I'm having guests tonight so I took to Google to see what I could find. When one reply said sand them lightly, I decided to try magic eraser. Worked like a champ!

Thank you!!! Did Thebes exact same thing today. People are coming over in a hour. Off to use magic eraser.