Home is where we can put our feet up, unwind, and relax. It's also where our most disturbing, private behaviors come out to play—and sometimes we forget to hide these unseemly habits when guests are over. From strange neighbors to secret attic rooms, Redditors share the most chilling experiences they've had in someone else's house.
#1 Eat up, Mother
I went to my friend Brian's house once for dinner, and his mom set 4 places. One for me, one for Brian, one for herself, and the last one was for a doll with a cut-out picture of Brian's dead grandmother's face taped on. Very creepy.
#2 Better Safe Than Sorry
Growing up, I (often with other friends) would do sleepovers at a buddy's house. He was a bedwetter and wore diapers to bed, but we were cool with it...Never any teasing or anything. His mother would demand that we ALL wear diapers to bed when sleeping over, which was odd, but it made our buddy even more uncomfortable about his situation. Poor dude would apologize constantly about the fact that we had to use them too.
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#3 Prepared for a Burglar
I once went to a friend's house and as I entered his house, I saw knives on the wall. I mean, c'mon, a burglar can easily murder your family as soon as he comes through the door.
#4 Momma Scrub-a-Dub
I spent the night at a friend's house in sixth grade. He lived with just his mom, his dad wasn't in the picture, and he was an only child, so they had a close relationship. We were having a great time until his mom called him for bath time. With her. Like, together. They even left the door open like it was nothing.
#5 Room for One More?
I rented a house with a couple of friends a few years ago. In the attic, we found what we would come to call the "Angry Room." The stairs led up to the finished part of the attic, and through a heavy wooden door was the unfinished area with no windows or lights. Following the path of narrow carpet scraps as it snaked off into the darkness, you came to a rough door that latched only from the outside.
Next to the door was a pull-chain for the single, bare light bulb in the tiny room on the other side of the door. Inside, it was completely featureless, aside from the various metal brackets on the ceiling and two of the walls. The door had scratches on the inside and there were a few small holes in the walls. But hey, the rent was cheap and it was close to campus.
#6 Losing It in an Instant
My friend’s dad had a full-on nervous breakdown during dinner while I was over one night. He and his wife were having a relatively light disagreement about something, and then all of a sudden he starts losing it and crying uncontrollably. He got up and began pacing back and forth in the kitchen.
I didn’t see what happened after that because my friend's mom quickly shuffled us off to his room and made us lock the door. I was probably 9 or 10 at the time. I told my dad what happened the next day, and he just kind of made a face and that was it. A few years ago, I asked him about it and my dad said he and my mom put the kibosh on our friendship, at least me going over to their house, based on that event. No idea what actually was going on.
#7 redruM
My neighbor once asked me to feed his cat for him while he was out of town. Nice guy, mid 30s, lived alone, ran his own landscaping company. He would sometimes cut our grass for us when he was out cutting his on his huge landscaping mower. So I mean, yeah, of course, I'll feed your cat for a few days.
Bible verses were written in red marker on every inch of every mirror in his house, and there were an odd amount of mirrors. Like, multiple full length mirrors in just his living room, absolutely covered in tiny red Bible verses. I never really looked at him the same after that.
#8 A Chip off the Old Bowl
I landed a summer babysitting job when I was 15 or 16, and got yelled at because I took Cheetos, Doritos, and Pretzels and put them all in the same bowl. They were snack-sized bags, and I’d eaten the whole bowlful, but there must’ve been “crumb evidence” for Sherlock Mom. She said, “We don’t mix our food in this house.” And then she fired me soon after because she said she wasn’t comfortable with me doing stuff like that around her kids.
#9 Always Follow Your Nose
My wife and I were touring a home we were considering buying. Old, vacant awhile, fixer upper, but LOTS of potential. Couldn’t get around a smell that followed us through the house, though. Got upstairs and the smell was worse. Opened up a bedroom door, and there were strategically placed human turd piles all over the floor, filling the room. Driest and oldest in the far corner. Relatively fresh closer to the door. We did not buy the house.
#10 Too Old for Diapers
A five-year-old in diapers. I was an adult literacy volunteer and I went to this couple's trailer. A kid walks in shirtless, wearing a diaper. At first, I thought it was a joke. Then, I thought maybe developmental issues. Then the mother says "About time ta change 'at diaper ain't it?" And the boy said defiantly, "You ain't gonna change my diaper."
#11 The Sound of Silence
Went to a friend’s house. Well-to-do kind of family, straight laced, all that. The Dad came home and started practicing saxophone in the front room. When I asked a question, my friend told me to shut up, and that nobody is allowed to make any noise while his dad practiced saxophone. Just as this short conversation was exchanged, his dad burst through the door and told us all to shut up because whispering really put him off his saxophone playing.
His son/my friend started to cry. His dad played for 3 more hours. We just sat in silence because this was before mobile phones and I couldn’t get collected until later that afternoon. I was asked not to tell anyone else at school, but enough people had been and experienced what I had experienced, so everyone knew not to disturb this kids’ dad when he’s playing his saxophone.
#12 A Real Horrorshow
Ohhhh boy OK. This happened a couple years ago. Hopefully I can remember all the details. So, my mom and I stopped at what was advertised as a garage sale in my neighborhood. They had a bunch of kids' stuff in the front yard, and we were looking for stuff for my son, so we decided to check it out, but when we got close it was all in really bad shape.
No big deal, we think, let’s go inside. As we are walking in, we're greeted by a person we assume to be the owner of the house. He’s wearing black pants and a tiny leather vest with no shirt underneath. I see this now for the red flag that it was. He welcomes us and tells us everything in the house is for sale. Everything. Look anywhere you want, he says.
Open all the drawers. Look in all the closets. OK cool. He definitely DOESN’T say anything about there being anything weird in the house. First things first, the house is kind of trashed, but it still looks relatively normal. The only obviously weird thing is that they have a giant TV playing a crazy-looking horror movie. Super scary and gory.
He says the TV is for sale too, so maybe they’re just playing whatever is on to show it works. We look around and don’t find anything good and decide to go upstairs. Once upstairs, we proceed into the first bedroom. Looks pretty normal. Kind of small and furnished for a kid. Nothing we want? OK, move on.
The next bedroom looks like someone is sleeping in the bed. Oops—sorry! But no, it is a full-sized human horror prop of a very realistic zombie woman, and oh god, in the corner is a very realistic prop of half a human crawling across the floor. These things looked so real, guys. We’re like, “Man, these people are serious about Halloween.”
We go to the next room, and it is set up like a full-on dungeon with torture equipment and fake humans and piles of Barbie heads for some reason. We are seriously freaked out, and decide to leave as quickly and quietly as possible. As we’re walking out of the dungeon room, a woman comes out of the other creepy room. We look at each other, wide eyed and silent, and all proceed out the front door to separately process our trauma.
#13 Hey Mike
I dated a girl who had a life-size Michael Myers statue in her living room, year round. She really liked Michael Myers. Needless to say...I screamed like a girl the first few times I stayed there overnight, and had to get up for any reason.
#14 Sister in the Mirror
I used to install Dish Network for a living. I was installing for an elderly lady, who complained that her "sister's" TV always showed the same thing hers did. I had a two TV installation order so I figured that would be OK. I finished the installation and was demonstrating the system when she looked at the full length mirror and complained that her sister's TV was still showing the same thing. Noped out of there as quick as I could, and left notes on the account in case she called in.
#15 Reduce, Reuse, Retch
I was probably 10 or 11, stayed all night with a new friend for the first time. Her family seemed normal, we had fun. Got up the next morning, they’re all 4 in the kitchen at the table eating cereal together. So wholesome. Her mom gets up, prepares a bowl for me, super nice of her. I eat it, then try to be nice in return and pour my leftover milk down the sink.
Mom stops me and hands me a partially full gallon jug, "No need to waste! pour it in the cereal milk jug." I vividly recall how nauseated I was when I realized the milk I had just consumed was recycled. Never went back. They were not poor.
#16 Vending Machine House
Went to my friend's dad's house last month to help pack her belongings, and spotted a Blue Bunny Ice Cream vending machine in her living room. One of the selections was Pepperoni Pizza Hot Pockets.
#17 Clean up, Clean up, Everybody Clean up!
I was visiting at a friend's house when their mom stopped the movie we were watching to make all the kids clean the house. I sat awkwardly on the couch until she suggested I'd get to hang out with my friend sooner if I helped. I vacuumed the carpet and the mom picked up a tiny piece of popcorn and literally said: “You missed this.” My friend and I were 19 at the time.
#18 No Funny Business
I once had a sleepover party at a Christian girl’s house in elementary school. They had random pieces of duct tape on the floor in the hallway, and if I remember correctly we had to jump/step over them because that’s where knives were dropped, kinda like a superstition. Except I didn’t get it and it still makes no sense to me to this day.
I forgot to mention when watching a movie such as Veggie Tales, we weren’t allowed to laugh at a character's misfortune even though it was clearly a comical joke in the movie. That poor girl tried to laugh at it, but her mom shushed her.
#19 Giving Your Cousin a Sugar High
My cousin lives a few hours away from me and one time, through begging and pleading, he got to stay the weekend with me. When he arrived I poured a glass of Pepsi and his eyes lit up like it was Christmas Day. He said: “You're allowed Pepsi? I thought that was for adults only! Are you gonna get in trouble?” The dude had two liters of Pepsi in one night! He also wasn't supposed to play video games or ride bikes...Sadly, I think I gave my cousin the best weekend of his life.
#20 Living in the Past
I went to an estate sale, where the homeowners were definitely into Medieval decor. It was a normal, small, two-story house in a decent neighborhood. That was decorated like a castle inside. There were even two “throne” chairs, that had the most detailed, fancy wood carvings on them that I've ever seen. There were tapestries on the wall, swords hanging on the wall, very detailed chess sets, etc. Their house was so strange and not normal at all. I was in awe that someone would decorate their home like that.
#21 Uh, What Are We Doing?
I work in catering. The only time I felt weirded out was when we were setting up in the garage of this house and three kids get home from school with their nanny. They are shuffled upstairs for only a half an hour or so and then back down and leave for the rest of the night. The weird part was there was no evidence in the garage nor the first floor of the house that any children lived there.
No toys, no bikes, no shoes and zero family photos anywhere. And then the house party took a weird turn when it turned out to be some sort of fundraiser form, as they put it during the toast, "the poor unfortunate colored children." They did not tip.
#22 Breaking Point
Any time I was over at their house and we would go outside and play, I would have to knock on the door each time to come back in, even if I had been there for a while or if I had just walked in with their kid. Their mother kept tabs on exactly how much I ate or drank while I was there and expected me to work for whatever they had given me.
I had accidentally left something by the door and I realized after I got a few steps away from their porch, so I just opened the door and reached in to grab it. Her mother grabbed my arm and jerked me back into the house and screamed how I was a guest at their house and that I was to always knock before entering, how I was a rude child, she didn’t care that I was just there and what I grabbed was mine, etc.
I had known this woman my entire life. We lived in the same neighborhood, she knew all of my extended family and treated me like I was some stranger. That was my last day playing over there.
#23 Confused About a Lack of Stuff
My mom is a hoarder. When I first visited a couple of friends' houses, I was seriously shocked at the fact that there was space for all of their stuff. Little bit of standard clutter, but there were no overflowing boxes of stuff. They didn't have to spend ten minutes shifting boxes, clothes, and papers just to get to the washing machine. Their closets held all their clothes. We actually SAT at the dining table. I swear I asked someone once, "Where's all your stuff?"
#24 Not Suitable For All Bottoms
My step-grandmother does not let anyone under 16 (what she considers children) sit on her furniture. They have to sit on the floor. It should be noted that this rule didn't apply to her biological grandchildren.
#25 Being Watched Over by Porcelain Dolls
Former door-to-door salesman checking in. Sold subscriptions for TV and Internet. Once tried to sell to a lady (read: probably serial killer) whose house was filled with literally THOUSANDS of porcelain dolls of all shapes, sizes, styles, and degrees of scariness. She had everything from pristine dolls that looked like they'd never been touched to Annabelle-tier filthy monstrosities that honest to god looked straight out of a horror movie.
And these dolls were EVERYWHERE. Also, her floors and (what I could see of the) walls were painted red. Super creepy. 10/10, would almost get murdered again.
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#26 Putting the ‘Fun’ in Funeral Home
My parents bought a home that used to be a funeral parlor almost 100 years ago. Dad had never questioned why there was a second wall that went nowhere—until the day a pipe burst and they finally had to cut it open. Inside, we found a small walled off room that contained hundreds of old bottles, odd equipment, chemicals, perfumed salts, stained glass windows from the original building, and a few old ledgers and accounting books. My parents had no use for this stuff and a local antique shop owner/town historian happily took it when offered.
#27 A Delicate Dental Balance
I had a good friend whose family didn't drink anything while eating meals. They were convinced drinking something right after chewing food would crack their teeth. So I'd always be the only one with a beverage at dinner.
#28 Shoe Polish Wake up
I once had to stay over at my cousins', who we were never close with, and only ever saw them once every two years at family gatherings or special occasions. So I got woken up at 6 AM the next morning, which was a Sunday, and got called to the living room. As I walked into the living room, eyes half-closed, I see the whole family... sat on the floor, with all the pairs of black shoes lined up in front of them. Task? Polish the shoes. I was told to join them. It was my first and last sleepover at their place.
#29 Elvis Lives
One of the weirdest things I've seen at someone house a collection of Elvis paintings... the owner of them still thinks he's alive somewhere. So strange. Thankfully not all in the same house but: A full knight in shining armor set, a giant cat castle that took up more than half of the living room, a collection of vases, and some paintings of "things that your underwear covers," male and female. A room that was completely carpeted with purple shaggy carpet—the floor, walls, doors, ceiling, even the door knob had a carpet cover on it. Again, thankfully not in the same house.
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#30 Power Play
I was yelled at for quickly blurting out the question to a $200 Jeopardy! answer. Apparently, they played the game quietly, individually tallying scores. No problem, I was handed a pen and paper and I played their game. I think I am doing pretty well after Jeopardy and Double Jeopardy, eyeing everyone else...I wanted to impress them with my vast knowledge and high score.
I wager all of my money in Final Jeopardy because it’s a category I am familiar in. Back from commercial, soon as Trebek finished answer, they all yell out what they thought was the question. Apparently, it’s only the first person to yell out the correct question in Final Jeopardy who gets his/her wager to count. Psychos. I would have disowned them if they weren’t family.
#31 Take Note
We found a box full of random things in the basement of our own apartment. Inside, there was a notebook filled with handwritten notes that progressively got less and less legible, phone numbers, names, stories, etc. We tried calling a few of the numbers just for fun, and no one answered.
#32 An Author’s Secret
When I first got into advertising copywriting, I worked on a book account. I often got to meet the authors (such as Stephen King and Erica Jong) of the books, which was always a treat. I was with the account exec and our producer at the home of a famous author (she writes horror novels), who was in a wheelchair.
The AE wanted more ice for her drink and the author asked her if she would mind just getting it for herself. 30 seconds later, the AE called out for my help. Puzzled, I went into the kitchen. The AE, without saying a word, opened the freezer door. There to the right of the ice bin, next to some frozen food items, neatly stacked in plastic sandwich bags, were at least 50 dead, colorful little parakeets!
In shock, but not wanting to offend the author, we both got a few ice cubes for our drinks and, as casually as possible, rejoined our group. Neither one of us drank another drop of our drinks! I still get the willies just thinking about it. Fantastic author and great creepy books! The author still had about 10 live parakeets in cages in her home.
#33 Eyes On You
My friend wouldn't actually let us into her house. She threw a housewarming party, and we were all excited about attending, but instead she herded us all into her garage and locked us in there. There was a door in the garage that led into the kitchen that she would only unlock if someone wanted the bathroom.
She would then escort the person to the toilet and stand outside the door until they were done, take them back to the garage, and lock the door again. The garage was empty as well. Not even so much as a deck chair or box to sit on. The guests did not stay long. I left in under an hour and the rest not long after. She was offended after she put so much "effort" into having us over.
#34 Seeing Red
I found a pool of dried blood stains above and behind my bathroom mirror. The rest of the bathroom looked to have been hastily painted to cover this situation up.
#35 Hanging With “Bud”
My partner and I were in Arizona during a road trip to verify locations we were using in a novel we wrote. We had been corresponding with a guy online and accepted his invitation to visit him, since we were in the area. We arrived at his home in Tucson and he showed us into his living room. Suddenly we were face-to-muzzle with a bighorn sheep!
After our initial shock, we found that the whole sheep was actually taxidermied, stuffed, and mounted. “I call him Bud,” our host informed us. “I killed him about ten years ago on a hunting expedition. I thought of just having the horns preserved, but he was such a beautiful creature, I decided to keep him exactly as he was.”
Needless to say, my partner and I kept our mouths shut, but we got out of there as fast as we could, politely. It was creepy, disgusting and somehow just downright sick.
#36 The Potato Drawer
My Russian friend had a potato drawer. Just a normal silverware drawer...but it was filled with nothing but potatoes.
#37 Isolated Dad
My friend’s dad was really strange and their home life was eerie. When I was a kid I used to stay for dinner, as kids do. But the dad would not eat with us. The mom would make a plate of food, take it down the hall and slide it halfway under the door to the basement. A few seconds later the plate would slowly slide under the door. Nobody at the house seemed to think this was odd but I thought it was weird.
The other odd thing this family did was, every weeknight at 7:00 on the dot, the family would clear out of the living room so the dad could come and watch Star Trek. Once the show was over, he would go back into the basement and the family would move back into the living room. What?
The father was quiet but seemed to be normal other than those odd habits. The family thought none of that was weird and my friend thought it was "funny" that my dad ate with us at dinner.
#38 Watered Down Hospitality
Stayed with a neighbor during a family emergency, estranged grandparent was deathly ill far away, and my parents had to make some "oh dear" arrangements for child care. The neighbor had 5 kids. The Dad had a "one tub of water for the family" rule. This was in a bathtub with a shower and when a normal water bill for a large family would be under $40 a month, so I still don't get why.
Dad would bathe, then Mom, then oldest to youngest. Guests last. The water was cold, dark with muck, and had a greasy film of skin cells on it by my turn. I was 6 or 7 and tried to refuse, but they shouted at me and I gave in. I gagged the whole time.
#39 Speak Easy When Reading This One
When I was a kid, we bought this one old house that used to have a general store in the basement. Beneath the basement stairs, there was a hidden hooch room with empty old bottles and two little stools, rigged to a pulley system so that the door would slam if someone opened the side door to enter the shop. It was apparently a hooch house during Prohibition.
#40 Bringing Pasta to the Pizza Hut
This wasn't actually at this family's house, but something weird they did. 10-year-old me got invited to a friend's birthday party at Pizza Hut. It was great back in the early 90s. I showed up and his mom had made a complete spaghetti dinner...and taken it to Pizza Hut. We sat and ate spaghetti, while the paying customers gave us weird looks. She brought in her own HUGE pot of spaghetti, her own oven mitts, and off-brand 2-liter bottles of cola. She did actually go to the counter and get paper plates, cups, and silverware. Super awkward.
#41 Don’t Say a Word
I went to a friend's house and they had their halls lined with grandfather clocks. This was a little weird but nothing major. The weird part came when his dad told me and my friend, "Don't you kids go around telling anybody about my clocks." Now I'll never forget about his precious clocks.
#42 One Messed up Home
My ex-friend's dog peed in his house so much that parts of the floor were warped. He would stand on the first floor and pee down the basement stairs because going upstairs took too long. He didn't want to grab a garbage can so he grabbed a hammer and knocked a hole in the wall. Proceeded to stuff chicken bones inside of it.
He lived with his dad. They have a giant painting of a spider on the wall. Creepy as heck. All of the bush trimming in their yard was done with katanas. They rarely mowed out of fear of hitting a kunai or piece of broken blade. They had three neighbors live next door to them within four years. I blame the turnover on the fact that when a machine stopped working, they took it in the backyard and beat on it with sledgehammers and pipes.
Once at 3:00 AM, their microwave broke, and the cops were called after they beat on it for an hour. They had an area rug in the middle of the living room. If there was flat pop in a can they poured it on the carpet and tossed the can in a bin for recycling. They didn't want to get the bin full of stale pop. All of the furniture was from street corners, just because.
He dragged a futon home three miles to put in his room. Nothing wrong with reusing things but this futon was barely functional and covered in garbage. The son showered once every two weeks. He somehow had attractive and smart girlfriends all the time in high school. None of us could understand it, since they too would go back to his place.
He tossed sandwich parts he didn't want (tomatoes, onions, certain meats) behind his TV dresser. He would leave the window open and told me it was so animals could get the food. Thought he was joking till I saw a squirrel running out with some bread he tore off.
#43 Next Time Won’t You Play With Me?
In our dark, musty attic, we found an ancient baby swing and crib. It's still there—and I'm scared to go up there for fear of seeing the gleaming eyes of some monster-baby, sitting there in the dark.
#44 Less Skin Is More
I was in a foster home from ages 5 to 7. They were religious, and the rules were as follows: women couldn't cut their hair, wear short sleeves after 5 years of age, could only wear dresses and nightgowns (even when swimming on vacation), and nobody could enter the home if they were wearing shorts.
Pants were fine. The upside was the whole family ate dinner together every night and there was always dessert. As a kid coming from a home where food was not aplenty, I thought it was wonderful. I've stayed in touch over the years and went to the mom’s 80th birthday party last summer. Lots of people were there in shorts, so the rules have obviously been relaxed over the years. One daughter even had hair a little below her shoulders, so that rule isn't enforced, either.
#45 Not Lying About the Pet Lion
My parents were in a bowling league and would bring me with them. I made friends with a girl who hung out at the bowling alley because she lived in a home on an acre next to it. She invited me to come to her house while my parents bowled. I asked my parents and they said I could. We walk to her house, and when I walk in there is a lion cub chained to a coffee table in the front room.
She asks me if I want to pet the lion, of course I do! I pet the lion, we hang out, and I go back to the bowling alley like nothing happened. I tell my parents and they are like “Sure, you pet a lion.” Years later, I’m reading the paper, and the girl and her family have been arrested for illegally having exotic cats. I showed my parents and had the best "Told you so" moment of my life.
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#46 Hoarder Central
I had a friend named David and he invited me to his house once. Little did I know that his family were horrific hoarders. You couldn't see the floor of his house, and I was literally stepping in bowls filled with cereal. At one point, I saw a snake just slither through the refuse and immediately made up an excuse that I was sick so I could go home. What a nightmare.
#47 Leopard Love
I used to work for a carpet cleaning company. I've had some interesting stories but this one always takes the cake. We had this program where we hired special needs people part time. So we hire this new guy, Bob. Bob's a rather large fella, not the fastest thinker but real nice to work with. Bob and I showed up to clean a couple rooms in this couple's mansion.
It was immaculate, two gay men in their 40s. Never mind the paintings of half-naked dudes all over the walls. So part of our job is to move furniture to clean under them. I had Bob help move the bed, and this giant two foot leopard print veiny adult toy rolls out like a dead possum. Bob stares. No words spoken...I clean around it, kick it under the bed and move it back.
Bob and I finish the job and get in the van to leave. Bob turns to me and says, "where did they get that leopard's genitals, and what are they gonna do with it?" I still cannot tell this story without laughing.
#48 Under the Radar
I'm not very tall. I was cleaning out my bedroom while preparing to move out of the house my family had rented for about three years. At the very top of the closet, right at the back, were a balled up pair of a stranger's used underwear--which had evidently been there for at least the three years that we'd lived there. That was gross, to say the least.
#49 Model Home
I went to high school with a girl whose family would dress up their house like a model home being sold or something. For example, the dining room table was dressed with a plastic thanksgiving feast, with plastic food on nice plates and fake wine in fake glasses. When you walked into her bedroom the bed was made with top corner open as if she just got out of bed and there was a tray with a fake bowl of cereal and a fake glass of orange juice.
On the floor were coloring books and crayons as if a child lived in the room... They kept the place spotless and every room had an odd theme of fake living. Her parent's bedroom had quite a few large African animal statues and fake rose petals leading to the bed.
#50 Lights out Means Lights out
I had a friend who had to go to bed at 7 pm every night because that was the bedtime for his younger siblings. He was 14. His mom would flip out if he tried to stay awake any longer.
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#51 Lickety Split
In my first few weeks of high school, I made a new friend who quickly invited me to his house. He and his family were extremely down to earth, normal people it seemed. When we sat down at the table I don’t remember the finer details of the meal but… after a while I noticed my friend and his younger brother licking every last crumb and bit of sauce from the plate.
Nothing out of the ordinary, I thought. Long day, I supposed. This was until an hour later, when his mother brought my dirty plate into his room and demanded to know who hadn't licked their plate clean. My friend nervously pointed at me. She was furious and asked how the next person was supposed to eat from it if I had not licked it clean.
She left the room, surely what I was thinking couldn’t be true? I asked my friend if they actually wash their plates and he replied “Of course, we use our tongues so the next person can use it.” Needless to say, I never returned to that house.
#52 Taking the Chance to Pee in the Closet
When my brother and I were kids, we would often comment that our next-door-neighbor's house smelled like pee. One day my brother was playing video games with the kid from next door at his house, and asked to use the restroom. The kid said, "We just pee here," and started peeing in the closet. My brother peed in there too.
#53 Too Much on Her Plate
I knew a girl in high school who had parents who were obsessed with dinner plates. They had such a huge collection of collectible plates in their house that every room was full of them on display. Their entire house was basically a library set up for these things. Her bedroom was a mattress on the floor surrounded by display cases of plates.
You couldn't even lean on any wall, they were all like this. The last time I went over there I knocked one off the wall by mistake. I caught it and it didn't even break, but my god the rage her dad flew into was horrifying. He was inches away from punching me. Never went back! They tried to nervously laugh it off like "Haha good ole dad being funny haha."
The one time I asked my friend why they had so many she want on a passionate tangent about all the cool plates they had and why they were so awesome, it went on for an hour. I never asked again because hearing about neat dishware for an hour was a torment. I just looked her up on Facebook. She now works as a Tupperware consultant. Seriously!
#54 Amateur Archaeology
When I was dating my first girlfriend in high school, I was invited over to her house for dinner and meet the parents, etc. At one point I was talking with her father in his study and noticed lots of old-looking phallic objects on the shelves in the room. On closer inspection, they were mummified penises, dozens of them. Turns out he was a urologist and an amateur archaeologist.
#55 Please and Thank You
I had a good friend in elementary school. They lived in a farmhouse that looked like it belonged to the Addams family. Every wall in this house had a crucifix on it. Not a small hand-held size crucifix, These were two or three feet tall. On EVERY WALL. Bathroom, bedrooms, closets. They had a room upstairs that we were forbidden to go into—so of course, we had to sneak in and see.
I didn't know why it was forbidden, but it basically was a Vatican-style church chapel complete with burning offering candles, pews, an altar and six-foot-tall crucifix with Jesus hanging on it. But this was not the weirdest thing. They had a Cuckoo clock they called the "Prayer clock.” The clock had the 12 disciples for the numbers on dial, I never knew what came out of the clock on the hour (probably Jesus).
But every single hour that clock would go off. My friends’ mother would round up all the kids and make us write thank-you prayers and place them in the "Prayer jar.” We had to write down thank you notes to Jesus for everything we did in the last hour and place them in the jar. If we were playing with Legos and had a snack I would have to write down "Thank you Jesus, for letting me play Legos and eating string cheese."
His mom would read them and usually would have us edit them, saying thins like "You had apple juice too, you don't think Jesus would be sad if you didn't thank him for the apple juice too?" By about fourth grade I refused to go over anymore, it was just too weird. Especially since their mom had just had a new baby, and they "didn't believe in diapers."
They let the kid crawl around naked, and pee /poop on everything. 24 years later? What happened to the kids? One (the roaming dirty baby) became a Catholic Priest. The second youngest moved out and is an "entertainer" and the oldest (my friend) became a programmer in Silicon Valley. The father eventually left the mother.
BrainJet
#56 Who Needs a Doggy Bag?
The family's dog literally ate at the table. He would bound up and place his hind legs on a chair and forepaws on the table and eats. They treated the dog like a KING at that house. And no one skipped a beat.
#57 Security Measure
I deliver food for my restaurant and one time I pulled up to the gate of this house. The resident told me to just come inside and deliver the food since she was wheelchair bound. Ok, cool. I get to the door and I discover a biometric fingerprint scanner that unlocks the door, along with a camera. So I press the doorbell and the resident opens the door.
I take the food to her in her living room and as I look around this lady has an electronic code lock installed on her fridge, pantry, and the backdoor to go outside is card-accessed only. The garage door is quadruple bolt locked and the windows have window-sized garage doors on the inside. I hurried up outta there and told my manager to never put me on delivery runs again.
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#58 Children Eat Standing
My mother tells this story that when she was a child, at a friend's house, the children were not given the privilege to eat at the table. They ate standing at a kind of shelf mounted to the wall. Meanwhile, she was there and got to eat sitting at the table, with the adults, since she was a guest.
#59 Protection Is Important
My friend's mother had some borderline obsessive rules. No walking on the carpets. You must remain on the strips of clear plastic carpet protectors instead, which were arranged to create walkways around the house. Guests must wear slippers, there were spares if you didn’t bring your own. The leather sofas must remain completely covered in sheets to protect them.
Even the dog was expected to follow these carpet protector paths and was constantly being told off for stepping off them. I understand wanting to keep your carpets and furniture nice, but this was crazy. You couldn’t even see them under all this ugly protective stuff. Plus, I nearly fell down the stairs wearing oversized slippers and tripping on this protective plastic mat that was draped down the staircase.
I was also constantly getting in trouble for not following the correct route around the room instead of walking straight to where I wanted to be. She would literally check for footprints on the carpet. Also, I don’t think it was a cleanliness thing as their house wasn’t spotlessly clean. I think it was more about preserving the value of everything, their house had a lot of cabinets filled with old ornaments and junk his mother was certain would be valuable one day.
It was purely his mother’s rules as well; his dad was pretty cool about it and even got us all in trouble when he drew a dick on the carpet once. His parents ended up getting divorced a few years later.
#60 A Sharp One
We opened up the wall in our home to repair a busted pipe. I noticed a pile of debris in the wall and luckily happened to be wearing gloves. I reached in to grab the debris and throw it away—and pulled out a handful of blades. Turned out there were several more handfuls of them still to come. I later learned a feature of the mid-century modern bathroom was a blade disposal slot in the back of the medicine cabinet. Super gross and creepy. Be on the lookout for this in any house you ever buy!
#61 Everyone Has Their Own Idea of Special
Few years ago I was volunteering with the city council helping people clean their houses after the neighborhood I lived in had been flooded. One house belonged to a Chinese couple who ran the local convenience store. They had asked our crew to help remove water damaged carpet from the ground floor rooms of their house so it could be thrown away.
As we were removing this carpet, we realised that it ran in one piece under a closed door and into a locked room, so we asked the lady of the house if she wanted us to cut it off at the door and leave whatever was in the locked room behind, or if she wanted to open the room and have us remove the carpet in there also.
She responded, "I'll check with my husband what to do. That's his special room." This lead to some nervously puzzled looks from our crew. What does a middle aged Chinese man who owns a convenience store keep in his "special room"? Eventually, the wife came back with a set of keys and told us that we could remove the carpet in the room and she unlocked the door.
We all crowded around as the door opened to reveal..A room with carpet up the walls, a mirror ball on the ceiling, a stage at one end with a PA standard sound system, a projector, and in the corner just about the fanciest karaoke machine I'd ever seen. Special room indeed.
#62 Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
Bathroom machete. Because, you know, "Just in case, man." It's literally nothing more than a real machete that hangs in their bathroom, so if someone breaks in while you're fighting dirt dragons, you aren't at a total disadvantage. Everyone there was surprised when I said I'd never heard of it. I now keep a bathroom hammer handy, because goddarnit, it's a great idea.
#63 Upon Closer Inspection
I went to this guy's house once after school. I wasn't friends with him, but we were assigned to a project together. We'll call him Gary. Anyways, we were working on this project when he excused himself to use the restroom. 15 minutes later he returned. A little while later, I decided to use the restroom while he was making snacks.
I walked into the bathroom and behold! Before my eyes, floating like a manatee through the brown estuaries of Florida, was the result of Gary's earlier bathroom excursion. I shrugged it off—I mean, we all forget at least once, right? Flushed for him, took a leak, flushed again, and went to work on the project.
Gary's mom gets home from work a couple hours later. She nods to us and says hello politely before heading towards the back of the house. A few seconds later she returns to the kitchen where we were working and screams "WHERE IS IT?" I jump and am confused, so I shoot a "WTF" look to Gary. Gary muttered "It wasn't me, it was [my name]." His mom glared at me, huffed, and walked out.
Gary later explained that every day after school he would take a dump and was required to leave it in the toilet, so his mom could check it. He wasn't even sick or anything—she just wanted to check it to make sure he was healthy or something. I never went back to Gary's house. We were 16 or 17 at the time. I failed to realize this makes it all the weirder.
YouTube
#64 Big Brother House Owners
I'm in and out of thousands of houses every year, so I've seen a lot. One of the strangest was finding hidden cameras (the people were moving in that day, so not theirs) set up in the attic and pointing into bedrooms and bathrooms. Also in the same attic (it was a big one), was a completely furnished hidden room that was only accessible from the attic. Needless to say, the homeowners were pretty freaked out.
youtube
#65 The Floorwich
Whole items of food left for days on the floor. Toddler not interested in that apple? That's fine, just leave it there on the floor where he threw it. It will work its way under a piece of furniture and out of sight if we give it some time. Once, I went to these people's house and there was an entire sandwich sitting in the corner of the living room floor. I was so distracted by it I didn't really hear much of what was said during that visit. I just sat and stared at the floorwich.
#66 Pee House
Had a friend in high school. Went to his house for the first time and everything smelled like piss. Turns out he had a dog and his family never bothered to potty train or clean up after it. Everything in the house was covered in old dried-up urine and fresh puddles. While I was there the dog peed on my friend's bed and he didn't even care. He literally sleeps in his dog's piss. Even I got pissed on. Never went to his house again.
#67 Keeping the Garbage Clean
I work in the restoration business, deal with insurance companies claims for water, fire, mold etc.. I had just started my job a month before I was sent to the worst house I’ve ever been in. There was a house that the bank took from someone because they defaulted on the mortgage. I was sent in to clean the house out, she was a hoarder.
She had no running water and had not once taken her garbage bins to the curb. Not even kidding, they were the cleanest things on her property, two garbage bins that were spotless, not a spec of dirt inside them. The house however had 18” of garbage covering the WHOLE floor of the house. Pringle cans everywhere full of crap. A pile of used pads beside her bed, as high as my waist and about four feet in diameter.
Tea bags piled from the top of the counter, to the bottom of the upper cabinets. A pile of used toilet paper taking up every bit of her bathtub and about four feet higher than the top of the tub. There was a spot under all of the garbage where she burnt clothes and a big burn mark into her hardwood floor. Mouse poop everywhere and dead mice.
It was also the middle of the summer when I had to go in, was about 25-30 degrees Celsius out over the four days I was there. We filled two MASSIVE dumpsters up with garbage. That was easily the worst four days of my life.
#68 Alternative Birthday Cake
A cow tongue in place of a birthday cake. It wasn't like they couldn't afford a birthday cake either. They just had a cow tongue with a single candle in it.
#69 National Insecurity
An old friend's mum was completely paranoid that Al Qaeda would storm the small British town they lived in... her solution? Have a massive bomb shelter built under their house. Not the weird part, though. About five times a year, she would spend literally thousands and thousands of pounds on groceries to stock the shelter with.
By this, I mean she would genuinely buy out the whole supermarket—it would take her about 20 trips over a week. Not just canned food, but perishables, too...I only found this out by sleeping over on one of her 'shopping' days, where food covered literally every single surface of their massive house. My friend just shrugged it off and was “Oh, yeah, just restocking our bomb shelter! We always need to be ready for invasion.” Da heck?
#70 Poop, Always Poop
Heating company person here. We went into a home to install a new furnace, but turns out he needed a new heat run put into the bathroom upstairs. I should also mention that the dude has been without running water, electric and gas for about two years. Guess what we found piled up all over the bathroom floor? I honestly don't know how he was living there, but we called some people to get him the help he needed. (It was poop.)
#71 It’s Only the End of the World
I was just beginning to see this girl in high school, we'll call her Sara. After a few weeks, she invited me over to her house for dinner. Classic family, pretty Christian, all blonde, dad’s a construction worker, mom’s a hairdresser, live on a dirt road. Anyway, so my mom drops me off at their place all the way out of town.
I meet them, we chat, everything’s going well as we talk about current events. Since it's early November of 2012, I start joking about how stupid it is that people think the world is going to end next month. "SHUT UP!" You could hear a pin drop after that comment. Total silence. Sara is just glaring at me, her sister staring at her dad who is also staring at me.
And I mean the angry dad stare. Oh man, what did I do. Then her mom starts bawling and leaves the table. "What’s wrong?" I ask. "SHUT UP" her sister yells again. I excuse myself to the washroom. I know I've messed up and should just go home but teenage me is trying to think what I could do to recover this night and turn it into getting some.
When I come out Sara is waiting for me, explains that her mom is just sensitive to the idea of big depressing death stories like those and doesn't like how sometimes she feels like she can't get away from it, even when the TV is off. Okay, makes sense... So I tell Sara I'm sorry, she said it's okay and that we should just go downstairs and watch a movie in the basement. Booyaa, night recovered.
Until I went to said basement. THE ENTIRE PLACE WAS STOCKED FOR THE END OF THE WORLD. GUNS, FOOD, RAFTS, MAPS, EVERYTHING. I tried to play it off and ask what they were for, hoping a sane answer. "For when God will wash the wrong. We're just being prepared," she replied. I walked 20 miles home down the highway that night.
#72 Wasting Water
I knew a girl who would get glasses of water and whenever she couldn't finish the whole thing, she would dump the rest on the carpet because "it just absorbs it."
#73 No Way 0ut
I had a friend whose parents would lock her in her room at night. As in, the lock was on the outside of the door, and once she was in for the night the door was locked and there was no leaving, even for the bathroom. She obviously saw nothing weird about it. She and her family were weird, and I didn’t hang out with her for very long. I think they only stayed in my neighborhood a few years before moving.
#74 Cats on Cats on Cats
I've mentioned these people before. I was building an addition to an existing house. The owners were... they were a weird pair. Husband and wife. The husband looked like Gollum and the wife looked like Hagrid. They were both very slow mentally and they smelled terrible. Like they bathed in pure ammonia.
Even the new addition started to smell. The more we sealed it up the more it stank. And we hadn't even opened them up to each other yet. At the time I wasn't anybody important on the crew, so I'd never had occasion to enter the house itself. Until one fateful morning when I was there early. The power to the exterior outlets had been cut and the electrician hadn't installed the new ones yet, so I decided to run an extension cord from inside the house.
I opened the back door (intended to become a hallway entrance) and the smell nearly knocked me over. It was like the ammonia smell that clung to them, but ramped to 100x. Breathing shallowly through my mouth I ventured into the dimly lit interior.
The living room, or at least I think it was a living room, was a literal maze of containers.
Cages. Eighteen inches tall and a couple feet square, all stacked one on top of the other. As my eyes adjusted I thought they were filled with rabbits. The ones by the door were stacked such that I could see over them; elsewhere and against the walls they were stacked to the ceiling. Each and every one of them with an occupant. I stepped closer.
Not rabbits. Cats. Hundreds of cats. Each cage containing at least one, some two or three. Each stacked four or five high. Nothing under them, each one pissing and crapping on the cage below. I got the heck out of there.
#75 All Natural Diet
This dude who managed local bands had a rule that only vegetarians could poop in his toilet. Find somewhere else to poop if you eat meat.
Pinterest
#76 Drink This in
My cousins always had weird rules about which cups were acceptable to use for which beverages at their house. I can't tell you how many times I would go to get a cup of water just to have one of them appear out of thin air beside me and scream, "THAT'S A SMOOTHIE CUP WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” or go to pour myself a cup of milk only to be berated for using a juice cup.
I've brought it up to my siblings, and apparently it always made them really uncomfortable too, and it's given us all some degree of anxiety about using the kitchen at other people's houses.
#77 Birth Memento
When I moved cities in grade two or three I didn't know anyone. I met someone the first day and he invited me to his house that weekend to stay over. Everything was great, we played GameCube and stayed up until 3 am—the latest I had been awake up to that point. He said we had to sleep in the basement so that we don't wake his parents when we went upstairs.
We go downstairs with our sleeping bags and immediately I knew something was wrong. The worst smell I've ever experienced filled my nostrils the further we descended. In the corner of the room was a bed covered in what looked like crusty blood and some pus-colored streaks. Turns out his mother had a home birth the week before and kept the sheets as a memento. I never went back after that.
#78 Musical Chairs This Is Not
Had a babysitter when I was about 8 and my sister was 5. The rule was all day we had to sit on the stairs. No couch, no kitchen table, nothing. Literally had to stay on the stairs the whole day (which was pretty uncomfortable even to my 8-year-old body) and me and my sister were pretty well-behaved, so we did it without much question. When my mom would come pick us up, of course, we would get to sit on the couch. Only years later did I realize how weird that was.
#79 Never Let You Go
Definitely has to be my neighbors when I was younger. I hung out and played with these three siblings. They were all pretty normal kids, but the mom seemed kind of clingy. During the summer we would play outside a lot. Baseball. Hockey. Go carts. Swimming. The norm. Every single day at about 12, the mom would call the kids back to the house, one at a time.
They would have to go inside for about a half hour, then come out and the next kid would go in. Never thought too much about it, until one day I was actually in their house with them and found out why she called them. She had mandatory cuddle time with each of the kids. They would lay on the couch, and she would spoon them, in the quiet, for about 30 minutes each. Weirdest thing I've ever encountered.
#80 Wall Of Heroes
For 20 years, I've spent my summers designing home theater systems. After the installers finish, I go by the house a few days later to check on things. Fully 75% of the time I hit play on the DVD player, adult video starts playing. (And yet I forget to check before hitting play, every darn time. Not sure who's dumber, me or the clients).
Oh... and the recent one...Went by the client's house to do the usual check-in. He showed me his "Wall of Heroes" in the foyer. It consisted of framed, autographed pictures of Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Henry Lee Lucas (and a few others I'm forgetting). Plus some framed letters from them. "Wall of Heroes," indeed.
#81 Good Housekeeping
I'm a medic, so we go into people's homes every day. We had a cardiac arrest, so we were working a man, and the wife was having a fit about the mess we were making. Yes, there was some garbage from the pads, needles, meds, but we put all of it into our jump bag. She was screaming at us about it. I told her that her husband was very sick, and we were doing everything we could to help. She said she didn't care if he died as long as we didn't make a mess.
#82 The Game of Thrones
I babysat for a family that locked us in the house. I called my dad and he said if I felt trapped I could throw a chair through a window, and he’d cover it no questions asked. Never babysat for them again.
#83 Smokey the Friendly Ghost
I was about 14 and staying over at a buddy's house one night. Their house wasn’t big so much as it was tall. Each level was maybe 900 square feet, but it was three stories tall. The bottom floor had a small bath and a living room with direct access to a kitchen. The second floor had two bedrooms and a bathroom, and the third floor had another bedroom and half bath.
Anyway, we were playing video games in his living room (attached to the stairs) when I suddenly smelled smoke. Almost like a campfire. I got up and walked around his living room a bit, and the smell grew stronger by the staircase. When I looked up, I saw a small tuft of grey haze working its way up the stairs and told him.
He yells, "YAAY THE GHOST IS BACK!" and runs to catch up to it. We ran up the stairs, following it, until it went into his bedroom on the second floor and just dissipated. It was the strangest thing I had been exposed to at that age. But around the same time every year, the same haze and smell will reappear, staying in the kitchen, go up the stairs, and "die" in his bedroom. I witnessed it about two more times
#84 No Sweat
They all shared a towel after showering. Like one towel for everyone, for one or two days. When I visited, I asked where the towels were so I could shower after the pool, and they looked at me like I had two heads. Explained the towel-sharing situation, because, “You’re clean when you dry off, so it’s still clean!” Yeah, Mr. Friend's Dad I don’t want to dry my face after you’ve dried your parts on it...
#85 A Bug’s Life
Now, my experiences in life might be slightly different than your average person. I worked for a plumbing company in Baldwin Park, CA for a while, and during that time probably visited 250 homes, roughly. So I’ve definitely been in more houses than not. We ran a special ad saying, “We’ll clear any drain for 79.99” so naturally we were very busy!
So , we’re in the van and the tablet dings, which means we have a new service request. We get the address. It’s down by the beach in Laguna Niguel. At this point, I’m already rolling my eyes in the passenger seat because that’s on the far end of our operating zone, it’s only a drain call so no commission really, and rich people are notoriously hard to work for in my industry.
We pull into the gated community and drive up to the house...This house is NICE. I feel like calling it a “house” is a disservice. This is a mansion. I mean white doric columns on each side of the door, lawn manicured perfectly, they even had a freaking fountain. We knock on the front door, and for about four minutes no one answered.
We shrugged and said, “Guess no one's home.” Well, as we were about to walk back to the van, a very short, very old man unlatches the door and greets us. At this point everything seems okay. He’s wearing a country club kind of outfit. White polo, white shorts, loafers, and nice jewelry. But he has snow white hair, liver spots, and a general “oldness” to him.
So we head on in. There are marble floors, big fake plants, a small bronze bust of someone I don’t recognize, all kinds of nice things in the foyer. But it seems like a white room that’s never actually been lived in and is only used for “company,” which I’m guessing they never had. Again, everything seems normal here.
Once we walk further into the home, though, I start noticing the smell. Anyone reading this who has worked in a restaurant, the smell was similar to the drains in the dish pit area. Food and moisture and wet floor smell that’s been sitting for a while. We got to the kitchen where the drain problem was...Dude...The drain in the sink had backed up in their home. Because of that, they had stopped doing dishes for “a while,” which was what the man said.
No, these people stopped doing dishes 90 days ago at least. The two sink basins were STACKED with dirty plates. The counters on either side were STACKED with dirty plates. Their cabinets were empty because they had used all available dishes, and after those were all gone, they used Tupperware containers. Once those were all gone, they bought paper plates and were stuffing those into a garbage bag by the door.
THERE WERE ANTS EVERYWHERE. Again, I can’t emphasize this enough. THERE WERE SO MANY ANTS EVERYWHERE I THOUGHT THE COUNTERS WERE A DIFFERENT COLOR THAN THEY WERE. Truly a staggering number of ants. Swarming this huge stack of rotten food and plates and trash. The counters looked alive. Like a fuzzy counter top that moved.
I mean, to think these people were living in this house is beyond me. They had ants all over the floor, crawling in the windows above the sink, and even in the carpet in the living room. Me and my boss look at each other in disbelief. We spoke to them, respectfully declined, and had them follow up with the owner of the company.
Basically, the guy was very wealthy early on in life. Bought the house and married. His wife was about 10-15 years his junior, but she was completely senile. The entire time we were in the kitchen, she was by the glass doors and sat at the breakfast table staring into space. The man himself was probably on the edge of dementia, since speaking to him was difficult because he would get off topic and completely forget what we were speaking about.
It was a very sad situation realizing that even though they retired with all this money, it does them no good. They were in serious need of a caretaker or live-in nurse. They could obviously afford it, but I’m not sure why that wasn’t happening. But anyways, I’ve never been so taken aback walking into someone’s home like that. It felt like a horror movie.
#86 You Better Believe It’s Butter
When I was a kid, I went to my friend's house for dinner. They ate straight butter like it was mashed potatoes. I was like, eight, and didn’t want to offend them, so there I was, eating freaking butter. My brain hurts just thinking about it.
#87 Next-Level Cheapskates
When I was 12, my friend asked me over for a sleepover. He lived in a pretty big house in a nice neighborhood, and the family was upper middle class. Anyway, here’s the weird part. They refused to feed me. The dad told me to stay upstairs while they had dinner. I was 12, so of course I didn’t know what to think.
He tried to be normal about it, he said “we’re gonna have dinner, stay up here and I’ll bring you something to drink, what do you want? We have coke, lemonade, (etc).” So I stayed upstairs and drank coke and played Nintendo. My friend didn’t bat an eyelash. Apparently this was a normal thing. Later, when I told him I was hungry, he acted like I was bothering him.
He ended up sneaking into the kitchen and stealing a can of tuna fish and just handed it to me with no can opener. When I asked if he could open it, he said “I don’t know where the can opener is.” Ended up using a butter knife. Next weird part: it was the middle of winter and they didn’t use heat. At all. So it was obviously freezing cold in the house.
I was sleeping on the floor and all I had was a blanket. I remember telling him I couldn’t go to sleep because I was so cold. He ended up waking up his dad, who came in with a pile of blankets and dropped them on the floor next to me and walked back out. I wrapped up in them the best I could, but it was still unbelievably cold.
The next morning, they had breakfast and I was downstairs with them, but there was nowhere for a guest to sit at the table. There were 4 of them and they were having a sit-down family breakfast while I just awkwardly paced around the living room. I would occasionally make eye contact with my friend, and motioned for him to bring me some food, but he ignored me.
I didn’t want to say anything out loud because I thought it was against their “rules” or whatever. The next weird thing: they wouldn’t let me use their phone. I asked the dad if I could use the phone to call my mom to come get me. He picked up the phone and asked me the number. He dialed it and spoke to my mom himself and told her I was ready to be picked up.
I was only 12, but I knew I didn’t want to be that kid’s friend anymore. So I stopped talking to him after that. I remember the car ride home, my mom stopped and got me McDonald’s and I ate so fast. She was not happy about them not feeding me, but we just forgot about it and moved on. To this day I still don’t know what that was all about.
They were a very religious family, but they were Christian, and I usually had the opposite of that experience at other Christian friends' houses. I also thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that they had money and my family was poor and we lived in a “bad” part of town. Maybe they didn’t want my broke germs on their silverware?
#88 Fur Real Friends
I was babysitting for a girl and noticed weird furs on her bed. She explained to me very matter-of-factly that they were her cats. Her parents skinned her pet cats after they died (presumably of natural causes) and put the pelts on her bed. That was the only time I babysat for them.
#89 Not for Human Use
I had a landlord rent me a room. I paid first and last month’s rent. When moving in, he told me the room he showed me wasn't available. Instead, he showed me a converted CLOSET. Literally a 12' x 4' space. He knew I was stuck. His rules? No kitchen usage. No BATHROOM usage. No strong smells (he complained about my roll-on deodorant being way too strong. No one else even notices).
I had to be out by 6 AM, couldn't return until 10 PM. For $600 a month. None of this was disclosed or remotely reasonable. We had a very heated argument when he told me all this, but at the time I had no choice. I stayed there two months. He constantly made threatening comments to me, refused me access to the house at random intervals, and I caught his friends stealing from me twice.
He said, "Lawyer up." I did. I won. He threw me out after court. Literally drove back, took stuff from my parked car by smashing a window, and sold it to his friend. Then he threw everything else in the yard and pissed on it. We went right back to court a week later. He ended up losing the place because he was subletting without permission.
He still has bedbugs from a friend he let stay. I see him occasionally, covered in bites. He always sits and threatens me with more "legal action because you took my house," but I figure he isn't worth the trouble.
#90 H20 Intolerant
My friend’s mom wouldn't let you have a drink at the dinner table because she didn't want you to fill up on water and not finish your food. It didn't matter what it was or if you choked, no liquid until after dinner. She would also make you eat everything, or she would save it for you to finish later or just wouldn't let you leave the table until you were done.
#91 Cat Food
I'm a firefighter/EMT so it's pretty normal to find a dead body, but one will always stay with me. There was this middle aged guy who lived in his van out in a parking lot somewhat out of town. He never bothered anybody, so the police just let him stay there. It was around the middle of July in Arizona (so about 105-110 degree heat) and we got a call to go check on him.
Nobody had seen him for a while, and somebody had complained of a foul odor coming from his van. We all knew what we were gonna find, but nothing could prepare us for what we actually came across. I opened the back door to his van and a cloud of flies flew out so thick you couldn't see through it. I was immediately punched in the face by the stench of death, and when the flies cleared out we finally got a look at what was in there.
The guy had been dead for at least two weeks and his cats had survived by eating the fleshier parts of his body. I've seen my fair share of dead bodies, but something about a guy who had been in a van for 2 weeks in Arizona summer heat with cats eating his body that just sticks with you.
#94 Oh, You Were Serious?
One time a girl I knew said she had a skeleton in her closet... I laughed, being drunk, and figured she was talking figuratively and that she was about to tell me a story. Nope, she took me to her closet, and sure enough there was a skeleton hanging in it, staring back at me. Real skeletons look like real darn skeletons, not the stuff you see in classrooms. Discolored bones and weight to the thing.
So...Her grandfather was a doctor, and I gather if you donate your body to science, there is not a lot of paperwork, so if you're not careful you can end up as a joke ornament. Now, I do admire her for her dedication to the joke, but the thought of sleeping in a room with a dead person in your closet still freaks me out.
#95 The King Is Still the King
First week freshman year, my new roommate and default best friend tells me we're going to a board game night somewhere. I figure "screw it, I've got no new friends yet, maybe this is the way to do it." So we go, and it ends up being at some sort of church house, but that's fine I guess. We play some train board game and have an alright time with some people who only seem a little weird, but not enough to really throw me off.
So the game wraps up, and me and my roommate are about to go home when the pastor says "Wait! You haven't seen the bathroom yet! You've gotta see it, everyone sees my bathroom!" Okay...So we open the door and walk into this little bathroom where every single square inch of the walls, sink, toilet, ceiling, and floor are covered in Elvis memorabilia.
Posters, tickets, photos, albums, lyric sheets, everything you can imagine. And mounted above the toilet is a creepy, mostly realistic Elvis animatronic singing head. Needless to say, this was discomfort I had never felt before. It was beyond being a fan or obsessive or any of that. It was really frightening.
So we turn around to him holding a guest book for us to sign. Obviously, I made up an email and phone number so he wouldn't email me or call me, and then my roommate, a devout Catholic, tells him he appreciates it but he's Jewish and he just wanted to come with me while I checked out their small group. That was a weird night.
#96 Shedding Some Light on the Past
I grew up in the middle of nowhere, deep in rural southern Idaho. The farm my folks rented was very odd. There was a ton of old farm equipment from the 40s and 50s. As well as several (about ten) old 50s cars just scattered around the property and hidden in the tree line. The owner had a small shed on the property she asked us to never open. No worries. It sat between the garage and an old mobile home trailer that was never used.
We moved away and, shortly after, the owner died. The new property owners went into the shed and found tons of old WWII stuff and older equipment. Guns. Bayonets. A Nazi flag. All sorts of things. This shed even had an old-school dirt wall basement that had old radios and tons of other crazy stuff.
#97 Lannister Children
I'm a pool guy, I go into people's backyards to clean their pools. One week, it was a four day week due to a holiday, so I'm not going on the scheduled days, I'm cramming five days of work into a four day week. It's a hot summer day, and I walk into the backyard of this house, get through both gates, and I'm met with an odd sight.
These two kids, maybe 14 or 15, are absolutely butt ass naked, cuddled on a poolside recliner. I look at them, they look at me. I immediately turn around and they run inside. I see the owners all the time, but I've never seen these kids before. Next week I go, the wife was outside, and we started chit chatting.
I ask her if she's had any visitors recently, she says no. I let her know that I saw some kids in her backyard, and she cut me off. She says, "Yeah, surprised you haven't met them, lemme introduce you." They were brother and sister. They canceled service within two months.
#98 If These Walls Could Talk
When I was in middle school one of my brothers’ friends that lived down the street went missing. She had an older boyfriend who also lived on the same street. He was allegedly the last person to see her and the story was that she had left his house late at night to walk home, and he never got the usual phone call that she got home safe.
After 24 hours of not hearing from her, he and her family filed a missing person. Eventually, the search parties stopped, the missing posters were taken down, and she was deemed as lost. Fast forward to a couple years later. The boyfriend had been moved out of the house for a while now, a new family moves in. The kids are playing in the woods behind the house, and they find her bones.
The skull was totally bashed in and a disturbing amount of her bones were broken. She was beaten to death. The worst part was the remains were no more than 6 feet from the house. I have no idea why the cops hadn't found them, but it really sparked a debate in our town about how serious our police force is.
#99 Disappear This Miss, Please
I may or may not have carried a girlfriend and a large amount of substances out of my bosses house (CEO of a very large company) while she was covered in puke so his wife wouldn't catch him as she arrived home from her sister's house a day early. Full story: My old boss regularly cheated on his wife with any number of women.
Well, he calls me one day, because we are friends away from work, and asks me to come to his apartment ASAP. I drive over there, and he's blitzed, and this chick is laying naked in her own vomit (maybe his too) mumbling about something. He says he has to shower and clean the vomit up because his wife is ten minutes away so please "Get that out of here."
I grab the girl and help her to her feet and cover her up with a t-shirt. As I'm walking her out he yells for me to grab the party bag. The only bag is a Dopp kit. I grab it, jump in my car and drive off. This girl is blasted! She doesn't know where she lives and is sure she's having a heart attack. So, I calm her down somewhat and reach in her purse and find her ID.
Luckily, she has her current address on it and I take her home. I drive back to my house and pull into the driveway and remember the Dopp kit. I open it up and there's a lot of illegal substances in there. I got a steak dinner and a few beers later that week from the boss. Needless to say, I no longer work there.
#101 Obsessive Father
One summer, when I was about 13, a friend of mine had a girl from her school who invited us over to go swimming in her pool. We go to her place and are shown to her room to change. As I'm changing my friend suddenly whispers "What the heck?" I turn around and see a bunch of used sanitary pads lined up on this girls desk. She comes to join us in her room and my friend flat out asks her what the pads are all about. She says, very plainly, "They're for my dad so he can check that I'm not pregnant."
#102 A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
I found a very large, colored-in black and white photograph in an ornate gilded frame in my own attic. The photo showed a young child in a white lacy dress, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, standing on the steps of a city building with a pony. The building in the photo was clearly a style of architecture that isn’t found anywhere near where I live.
Also, the child was the ugliest child any of us had ever seen. Scary ugly. I wasn't even envious about the pony—that kid was just so ugly. We hung the photo in a prominent spot, and would make up a story about the person/pony/photo, taking turns. We left the thing in the attic when we sold the house. Didn't seem right to take it.
#103 A New Meaning to Filthy Rich
Worked IT for a small company, the boss was Mormon and so every nine months there was another kid running around. One day, he called me at home to drive across town and help him with his home network for some under the table money. The neighborhood was gated, and the guard was looking so far down his nose at my 1986 civic that I thought his neck would break.
The house was HUGE, but I knew something was wrong the moment I walked in the door. I have never seen such filth, I had no idea people could live like that. "The maid hasn't come yet, sorry for the mess." Yes, that man just said they use a maid service, so this was likely just a single week’s worth of filth.
The high chairs in the dining area were absolutely surrounded by garbage and food, dirty clothes everywhere etc. I guess when you have money you don't even need to clean your room anymore.
#104 Waiting for the War to End
About a decade ago I was working a side job cleaning chimneys. Part of the job was vacuuming out the soot we freed up from the flue. I was led into the basement by an elderly woman, and there was an entire bedroom set down there covered in plastic. She told me it was her son's, saying "it's waiting for him when he gets back from the war."
Given the amount of dust on the plastic, coupled by her age, I think she meant Vietnam. She kept trying to give me beef stew, I said we were busy but if she can spare any to go I'd appreciate it. I didn't eat it, but felt like I had to take it after that.
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