We’ve all been guests in other people’s homes at one time or another. The decent, reasonable folk amongst us will know that you should treat your host’s home and its inhabitants with respect, no matter how long or short your stay might be, and no matter the occasion. But some, it seems, never got the memo.
These shell-shocked hosts know this all too well, and their terrible tales of guests from hell might just have you bolting your door and shutting out the outside world for good.
43. Beanie Brat
One of my friends in kindergarten wanted a Beanie Baby I had and when I told her she couldn’t have it, she took it away from me and tried to flush it down the toilet. Then, when the toilet started overflowing and my mom came in, she started crying and said I did it.
We did not stay friends.
42. A Brush With Toxicity
I lived in a small house, so my dressing table was a table and wall mirror near the front door.
One day we had people over while it was raining, and my husband’s cousin came in, picked up my hairbrush from the hall table, and brushed her wet dog with it.
41. Infuriating In-Laws
Not nearly in the same ballpark as the rest of these, but my in-laws always just walk right in like they own the place. Drives me absolutely nuts.
A couple years ago I put some vinyl window tinting on the front door to keep the house cooler in the summer. I could see out the window but no one could see in. I'd lock the door and enjoy the looks of confusion on their faces as they tried to open the door and couldn't.
40. LEGO Destroyer
Wasn’t home when this happened, but some family friend I’ve never met and their kid came over one afternoon.
The kid gets bored and decided it’s a great idea to disassemble every LEGO build I’ve kept over the last 10 years. Almost everything was built from imagination so no instructions to rebuild again. I was devastated when I got home seeing LEGO pieces spread across the entire floor of my room.
39. Seeing Red
A girl who stayed with us dyed her hair red in our bathroom sink—staining the brand new granite countertop, then dripped onto the new tile floor, then dripped onto the hardwood floor in the hallway, and ultimately slept in our guest bed with wet, freshly dyed red hair—staining the sheets and pillowcase.
38. The Leftovers
This was at my grandma's house. She had just passed and everyone was getting together for the funeral.
We had a bunch of pizza in the fridge we'd ordered the night before this particular family arrived. There were three other families already there, so we had ordered a lot and there was a lot of leftovers, and everyone who was there at the time had pitched in to pay.
The one family who hadn't been there for pizza arrived the morning after and were talking about going out to eat. The families were all okay with this, thinking it'd be great to have lunch in individual families and get back together for dinner. Everyone was loading up, including the most recent arrival family, but when we drove off, they unloaded, went back inside and ate all the pizza.
We would've told them it was fine if they had asked, but pretending they were going someplace and then sneaking back inside and eating it was so shady.
37. Colossal Creep
A colleague was coming into town for a meeting. I invited him to stay with me so he didn't have to stay with our boss. I specifically told him that the beer in the fridge wasn't mine and asked him not to drink it. Well, not only did he drink all my roommate's beer while I slept and refused to replace it, he also trashed my apartment. All the cupboards left open, toilet unflushed, beer cans and cigarettes everywhere. Yeah, he smoked inside.
The following day, he made me so uncomfortable in my own home by repeatedly telling me that he was disappointed that we didn't sleep together and that he thought that's why I invited him to stay with me. He knows that I live in a company-owned apartment and that we have a guest room specifically for company employees that travel to the city.
36. You Mess With The Cat, You Mess With Me
My "friend" entered my home, and my very typically shy cat came up to see what was what and greet him. He said, "I hate cats" and kicked her. Haven't talked to him since.
35. Daddy Issues
I had my wife's ex-husband turn up at the door to stay for 10 days.
We moved to Australia from the UK—he came over, ostensibly to see his daughter, and arrived at the door with a suitcase. His 10-year-old daughter was ecstatic...what do you do? We ASSUMED he'd get a hotel/motel/something!
While living with us, he broke a sandstone wedding present we had received from my brother. Forget that guy. We NEVER badmouthed him, just swallowed it all, with a sanguine smile.
Later, at 21 years old, my stepdaughter says "Thanks for not telling me my dad is a turd—I've discovered that all by myself."
34. Holy Hypocrite
A Christian missionary and his wife were invited to our home as a guest of my partner; he'd known them in grade school. The husband kicked my dog when he was scared by the fireworks.
What a juxtaposition of morals!
We immediately told them to leave. They acted very confused about it.
33. The Fried Rice Fiend
One of my best mates came to spend the night, so my folks decided to splash out and get Chinese takeout for everyone.
I come from a family of seven, so he made eight. We got 5 or 6 dishes and two big tubs of fried rice. My mate helped himself to the ENTIRE first tub and, when confronted about it by me, helpfully pointed out that there was still another tub.
For the seven of us.
32. Grandma Overstays Her Welcome
My grandma visited from out of state for my high school graduation. She stayed for two weeks past my graduation, threw a fit if I tried to sleep past 9 AM, and told my mom that she needed to work less so she could clean the house better.
31. Party’s Over Folks
Someone at a party dumped a cup of vodka in my fish tank because "Your fish look bored! Hahaha!"
I kicked everyone out and had to change out all the water before they died.
30. Someone Has a Death Wish
My wife and I were having my high school friends over for some hanging out when our twins were 4 months old. For those without kids, the first few months with a newborn are BRUTAL because you're sleep deprived, having a constant mental battle of "I should sleep" vs. "I should clean/be productive/be social," and it's even worse with multiples.
So, needless to say, we put on our happy faces, made the house presentable—though not pristine—and opened the door. My friend's wife walked in and immediately says "Wow, it's not very neat in here. Couldn't you have cleaned?" I'm fairly certain my wife almost committed a crime that day.
29. Parental Misguidance
I used to host extravagant yearly parties at my house as a thank you to everyone who worked for me. Significant others were fine, but I stressed that young kids were not welcome, because it was an adult party and the house/garden just weren’t child-friendly.
One of the guests decided to bring her four children anyway, all under the age of 12, and leave them completely unattended. I walked into my master bedroom halfway through to find they had filled a dirt hole in the garden with water from a hose, made goopy mud pies, stomped around in them, come back inside and crawled into my bed under the covers, and ground their shoes intentionally into my pillow and all the bedding. They also took all the clothes out of my closet, put them on, threw them on the floor and stepped on those, and ruined two rugs on the way.
The mom's response: "Haha! Well, that's just how kids are, you know. You'll understand once you decide to finally grow up and have some."
28. Condiment Catastrophe
In the first year of university, my housemate had friends round. He drank himself unconscious at 2 PM, but they went out without him. They came back at 3 AM to find the door locked. They made a lot of noise and came back at 5 AM, when they kicked his door down so they could sleep in his room.
In the morning we discover that in those two hours they'd been squirting ketchup up the kitchen walls and pouring oil on the floor. A month later we had an ant infestation on all four floors and we discovered they'd spread Nutella inside the cupboard doors.
27. Landlord From Hell
When I was younger, our landlord used to come by a little too often to "check up" on us. I remember I would get so frustrated because he would act as if the house was his even though he had legal ownership of it. He'd put his bare feet on the couch and would ask me to get him snacks from our kitchen. I wish I was older then so I could've kicked him.
26. When You Know, You Know
I was dating this woman for about a month, invited her to a party at my house, and she got pretty drunk. She went to the bathroom, used my toothbrush and told me she was going to lay down. I looked her in the eye...really looked at her...and said "Are you going to puke? If so, I'll get you a bucket."
She said, "No, I'm fine."
Queue an hour later I find my bed and floor covered. To her credit, she was apologetic the next day, and cleaned it up...
...We’ve been married for about 1 year now, things are going great!
25. What A Crappy Kid
Cousins were visiting and one of them used the bathroom. Somehow managed to get some poop on his hand. Wash it off in the sink? No, I'll just wipe in on the window, so someone comes in later and sees a brown smear. Worst part? The kid was 14 years old.
24. Pad Problems
I had some relatives over, and despite very, very clear instructions to not flush feminine products down the toilet, they did anyway. It destroyed our septic field, almost $10,000 in damages overall. When confronted, they just denied it, despite the fact that the 32 pads that were pulled out of the system matched the brand that they had while they were over.
23. When Things Are Going Too Well
I threw a party in high school. Everything had gone surprisingly well. There were the remnants you'd expect, but nothing major was broken or anything. Around 3 AM everyone was either asleep or had gone home, and I was on my back porch smoking with my friend. One of my friends had been particularly drunk and was sleeping on a couch when all of sudden he stumbled on to the porch and punched my dad’s birdfeeder off the porch into the yard, where it shattered into about seven pieces.
22. Unwelcome Redecorators
While we were out, houseguests staying with us rearranged our furniture and artwork according to their own taste.
21. Some People Are Unbearable
This was a guy I was seeing.
My son at the time was just over 2 years old, and he had a teddy he brought EVERYWHERE with him. It didn’t bother me cause kids like comfort toys. Well, this guy had an issue with it.
So, we’re out on my balcony, and my son had shown this guy his teddy bear. He grabbed the bear, threw it over the balcony and told my son to grow up, bears are for babies.
If you’re reading this, I still hate you.
20. With Friends Like These...
One summer, while my family was up north, my best friend at the time asked if her and my other good friend could use my pool. I said okay and told her where the key was. She ended up throwing not one, but three house parties at my house without my knowledge. My grandmother even walked in on one because she was there to water the plants. The entire house was trashed. There were bleach spots on my lawn, bong water stains on the kitchen tablecloth, and broken glass everywhere. I wasn’t friends with her after that.
19. Choosy Beggars
A relative stayed at our house over the holidays and went into our room and drawers. When my wife came home, she asked my wife why she had so much makeup if she doesn't use it, and proceeded to ask if she could have some of the items she found for keeps.
18. Beyond Neglectful
I went out of town for three weeks and asked a friend to housesit. In exchange, I would pay her. All I needed was mail collected and garden watered every day, and to pick the beans and cucumbers from the garden.
She hung out in my house all day every day playing video games. She watered the garden once, for a couple of hours, the day before I was to come back.
Everything was dead. Beans and cucumbers dead on the vines and my pumpkins and squash all got powdery mildew. I actually cried. I had cleared that garden space the previous year from 20 years of blackberry bramble and fixed the soil.
17. Really Sticks in the Memory
When I was about eight our family did a house swap with another family because they lived near London and we lived near the coast so it was a change for both families and a cheap way to holiday.
One of their idiot kids who stayed in my bedroom peeled the glow-in-the-dark stickers off my bookcase because they said they were stopping them from being able to sleep, which is total rubbish because there's no way they could be bright enough to stop anyone sleeping.
That was 33 years ago and as you can tell I'm completely over it now.
16. When Jealousy and Insanity Collide
A friend was housesitting for me while I had a long weekend away. They said they would stop by two days out of the five to make sure everything was good and water my plants.
They showed up the day I left, unplugged my fridge, and left.
Came home to everything rotten and it smelled like someone was murdered in the fridge. Called and asked what happened and she said she was mad at me because her brand new boyfriend said I was cute. I was in a committed relationship with another woman at the time. Literally, the LAST person to be interested in her scumbag boyfriend.
We weren’t friends after that and it took everything in me to not go kick her butt. I’m not a fighter by nature but that tested me.
15. Take Cover
When I was in high school, a couple of friends were staying the night when one of them decided to grab a case of 10,000 airsoft pellets and fling them all over my room. For ten years, up to the point where I moved out of my parents’ house, I was able to find airsoft pellets somewhere in my room.
One of the most blatantly annoying things I can think of to do.
14. Holy Smokes
I got my first apartment and invited a friend over. They brought a friend. This guy lights a cigarette in my living room and starts dropping his ashes on the carpet. I give him a cup to ash in. He says he doesn't need it. I ask him to use it. He holds the cup in his other hand and continues to ash on my carpet.
He had the audacity to ask me to fill his cup with water. I don't even allow smoking in my house, I was just very new at having my own place.
13. Cats Before Brats
A friend from college came to stay with us for several days while looking for a job in the area.
We told him there was only one "house rule": Do not let the cat outside—he's an indoor cat and has never been outdoors.
On the third day, we came home and found that he'd left the sliding glass door and screen open to the deck, and our wonderful cat was gone—lost in the woods and probably terrified.
The guy didn't seem to care. His response was, "So, get a new cat." We showed him out and said we'd get a new "friend" first.
12. Never Be Too Careful
I'm pretty sure I win this one. I had a guest of a guest attend a party. Apparently, she injected drugs while she was in the bathroom and threw her bloody needle uncapped into the garbage. I got stuck with it while cleaning up. It took tens of thousands of dollars and years of medical testing, treatment, and prophylaxis for me to get back to "normal" health.
Never reach into a garbage can, people. Even in your own house!
11. Bullet Dodging 101
It wasn’t in my home, but I brought a girlfriend at the time to my parents for Christmas. We had been dating for roughly 7-8 months and my parents went and dropped some cash on gifts for her. She opened them and said: “It’s like you don’t even know me. I would never wear any of this [clothes and scarves and such from Nordstrom’s and Neiman Marcus]. You can take them back and return them.”
I asked her to leave and she asked if I could give her a ride home since it was Christmas...I said no and to call a cab. My parents did take all the stuff back.
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10. A Costly Bathroom Visit
My brother had a friend over before going out for the night. He went to the bathroom right before they left, and used way too much toilet paper. Ended up clogging the toilet, causing it to overflow. Instead of saying something to my brother, they just bounced. My parents were already asleep at this point, so the toilet was overflowing for four hours until my mom woke up to the house flooding. Caused $50,000 worth of damage.
9. Monster-In-Law
While my husband and I were gone to work, my mother-in-law took it upon herself to clean our house and "organize" our things. Twice. Yeah, she's only allowed in the house on an invitation-only basis now.
8. What The Puck?
It happened to me in the third grade. My mom’s friend’s son stole my holographic hockey cards. I didn’t even notice until the next day when I saw him on the bus showing the cards he stole from me to his friends.
7. In-App Robbery
One time a younger guest went on my parents iPad and bought around $70-$80 worth of in-app transactions. They were young, but the response after getting caught was along the lines of “The guest should be given nice things.” They were young so maybe they didn’t know better.
6. Lesson Learned (Eventually)
My husband let a former coworker crash on the couch because he had been drinking and we didn't want him to drive. Woke up the next morning and he had stolen our computer, a cell phone, a little bit of cash, and our cigarettes. Turns out he had a substance abuse problem. We got our computer back.
I also once had a drunk friend puke on my son's bedroom floor, because he thought it was the bathroom. My son wasn't home, thank goodness. I’ve had a different drunk friend pee all over my bathroom floor, which I discovered by walking into the bathroom the next morning while wearing socks.
I need to stop letting drunk people stay over...
5. Older Bro Comes Through
Everyone has a story from their childhood that still pisses them off, this is mine. I was 5 years old and my snotty older cousin was over at our house. I had just gotten a copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out for my birthday. He was getting his butt kicked by King Hippo and he got so angry he rage quit. But he didn’t just rage quit, he ripped the cartridge out of the Nintendo and spit into it. Then he threw it across the room and stormed out.
I told my parents what happened and they told his parents and they made him apologize, but the game was ruined. It would kind of play but would freeze up all the time. My family barely had enough money to get me the game for my birthday, never mind buying it again. I was sure I would never be able to play it again.
Then for Christmas, this little jerk got Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. So my older brother went over to his house and switched our ruined cartridge with his. It was awesome.
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4. Future Serial Killer Alert
I was a kid, probably 9 or 10, and my mom had a friend and her son over for lunch. The kid disappeared for about 10 minutes, and at the time I thought he had gone to the bathroom because I really had to go. So when he came back I quickly maneuvered my way past him into the room before the bathroom, where we had a fish tank. This would be completely irrelevant if the fish tank wasn’t cloudy and swirling about. At first glance, I didn't know what it was, until I noticed smashed and ripped apart pieces of little fish faces moving around in the swirl. The kid had reached into the fish tank and squeezed the ever-loving life out of every single fish in that tank.
3. More In-Law Insanity
My in-laws hated me. We invited them over for Thanksgiving dinner and, upon arrival, they asked me to leave and come back a few hours later because they wanted to “follow their tradition of preparing the meal alone as a family.” They are now my ex-in-laws.
2. Doggone Moron
A beast of a relative came over with his new wife, who apparently hated dogs, but didn't warn us or ask us to move ours into another room. Our jolly, obese Bichon Frise was just walking around smelling people's legs, not even jumping up, and he kicked my poor dog with no warning! I still haven't gotten over it, and I still don't like him.
1. For Shame
I have come to confess: I was the horrifying guest. This happened at the house of my mum’s friend. I was around 8 years old. I came across a bidet for the first time and I pooped in it, thinking it was a kid’s toilet. It flooded the bathroom and collapsed the floor, pouring water below into the newly refurbished living room. My mum and Jeanie didn’t remain friends long after that. I am so sorry Jeanie.
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