“What’s The Most Bizarre ‘House Rule’ You’ve Encountered At Someone Else’s Home?” (40 Answers)
“My house, my rules” is something quite a few of us have arguably heard before. And even though often it would come from parents trying to manage their child, the same could be said by the host of any home.
When you're a guest, following the house rules is the respectful thing to do, whether it’s taking off your shoes before entering, for instance, or helping to clean up after dinner. But some house rules go way beyond taking one’s shoes off. Some examples of that were shared by members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community, after one of them asked about the most bizarre house rules people have encountered in someone else’s home. The answers covered everything from no speaking during dinner, to unplugging devices after dark, and so much more. Scroll down to find them and see just how bizarre some rules can get.
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Playing beer pong at this one couple's house and the rule was if the ball hit the floor and their cat got to it first everyone had to finish their drinks. Cat was wicked fast too.
Kitchen hours.
I stayed at a friend’s house when I was younger. Nobody told me the entire family has breakfast at 7am, so I slept in (nobody woke me up either btw).
I wake up around 9am and see my friend is gone. I wander into the kitchen and see them all sitting around the table laughing and eating a huge breakfast - pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, fruit, etc.
My friend’s mom looks at me and goes, “Hey, look who’s finally awake! The kitchen is closed, but there’s cereal in the pantry if you want to serve yourself!”
So I poured myself a bowl of cereal and went to sit down at the table, and the second I sat down they all stood up and left the kitchen - even my friend.
To this day I don’t understand why they did that to me.
In 1972 we were amazed when a colleague announced that no one would be allowed to smoke in his house.
Went over to a classmates house and the children weren’t allowed on the furniture. She was not even allowed to sit on her own bed. All children sat on the floor. My poor classmate was hardly allowed to touch anything in her own room without “permission”. It was bizarre and uncomfortable. Never went back.
When I was a kid my friend’s dad made his kids line up on the couch and just sit there silently while he watched TV and drank a beer. If you were visiting you had to do it too. When my mom heard about it, I wasn’t allowed to go over there when he was home. My mom knew an abusive weirdo’s behavior when she saw it.
The most bizarre house rule that I’ve encountered was at my friend's place, where they had a strict policy of 'no talking' during dinner, not because of any traditional reason, but because their elderly grandmother believed that a mischievous spirit living in the dining room would learn secrets and cause chaos.
If we slammed the door as kids, my dad made us kiss the door to make it feel better.
Went to a friends house for a sleepover when I was about 7. The rule was: no talking at the dinner table. The dad was in the other room watching TV while myself, friend, his sister and mother were supposed to just eat in silence and the whole vibe was like “don’t anger daddy.”
Suuuuper f****d up and sad to think people live like that.
Yet another abusive, controlling father.
I went to see a college friend over the summer & stayed the night. Her parents weren't home when I got there, and we went into the living room to talk. There were four recliners, no couch or other chairs. She sat in one recliner & I sat in another. She asked, "What are you doing?" and informed me I was sitting in her dad's chair. The remaining chairs belonged to her mom & brother. Where was I supposed to sit? On the floor.
What...? What if elderly people come to visit? Do they just sit on the floor as well?
I cannot sit on the couch at my dad’s house if his wife is home because she will feel “invaded.” She has to have the whole couch to herself. So I get to sit in a dining room table chair.
That if I’m on my menstrual cycle I am forbidden to have tampons or cups. So I was at a friends house and I left my tampon wrapped in a small plastic bag in their trash. Their dad whipped it out and yelled at me for using tampons. (While holding the bloody tampon)
Guests eat last. My aunt's ex husband used to make me sit and watch everyone eat before I could be served food.
When I was around 8, I went to a friend's house for a play-date/dinner after school.
When I asked for a drink, her Mum gave me a baby bottle with squash in it. I laughed, but she didn't laugh back. My friend took her own bottle and started drinking.
I asked the Mum if I could please have a cup instead, but she told me nope, and that children drink from bottles in their house.
Never went there again...
8 year old drinking out of a baby bottle is not only weird but it would fu(k up there Teeth
A friend of mine has a rule that nobody is allowed to use his frying pan (his wife and kids included).
Edited to add: For those getting outraged, this was not known or pointed out before I was already cooking scrambled eggs using said pan with a plastic spatula. I have 3 different sizes of the same pan and know how to use a non stick pan without damaging it - calm down.
I was staying there for a few days after a surgery and used his frying pan without knowing and when his wife spotted it she quickly warned me nobody is allowed to use that, it's his special frying pan and he doesn't let anyone use it.
I laughed and said "I don't play that childish s**t" when he came in and got all upset about it.
By that time it was too late as I'd finished cooking and was cleaning it.
He then hid his frying pan from everyone.
Because I had the time and have a bit of a malicious streak, and it was only a $40 pan I decided to prank him and I went and bought the same pan from a local store the next day while he was at work. I took photos of myself using it to cook, pretending to clean it with a steel wool pot scrubber, and drilling holes in it with his cordless drill, printed the photos at a local stationary shop and put them in about 20 photo frames around his house, and stuck one to the fridge.
His wife and kids thought it was hilarious, and still have one on their fridge a year later, and anytime we go away together I take one and put in on the fridge of the Airbnb/hotel just to remind him that he's a manchild and it's just a frying pan.
I had a friend when I was a kid and sometimes I would go to he's house. The kids couldn't eat at the table at the same time as the adults, we had to wait for them to finish and leave the table, and we couldn't talk at all at the table.
Always found it to be weird, always felt a creepy vibe in that family, even thou I was a kid.
Edit: oh, and they pour sugar in coke! Yes, they drank coke with even more sugar.
so I should not have sugar with more sugar for breakfast.
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I saw that once and asked the mom why she threw a suger cube in the coke glass. She sadi, because soda is unhealthy and the suger get rid of the bubbles 🤷♀️
Is it weird to not have little kids sit at the table? My parents always did that and I never thought it was weird
I've never seen that.. so what were you doing while they ate? Just watch or playing.in another room?
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When I was a kid my Mom had to feed us before my Dad got home because he didn't want to be "disturbed" while he was eating. We'd get hot dogs and beans and he's get a steak and baked potato. Yeah, he was a really f*cked up alcoholic when I was a kid. Thankfully he got sober later in life. When he passed away in 2014 he had over 30 years.
Not only did the cats get to walk on the table DURING meals, but you were supposed to let them eat off your plate because otherwise you were "interfering with the will of a sentient being."
I love my own cats- honestly I love practically all animals - but they don't get to eat off my plate or stroll around on the table and even if I *was* ok with that I certainly wouldn't expect a guest to share their plate with one of them.
I totally agree with OP. As much as I love animals, it’s not hygienic to let them eat off your plate. My cats have been trained from when they were young to not climb any furniture. Even if they smell some food they want, they are obedient enough to never climb onto tables to snatch it. Of course they’ll be sitting on the floor staring at you until you offer some to them and 100% of the time their cute faces convince us to share!
In high school I had a friend whose dad was in the military. Not only did he make us do house chores (dusting, vacuuming, dishes) when visiting/sleeping over but he also woke us up at 6am by banging pots and pans to make us run around the neighborhood. he called it “morning boot camp” needless to say I only slept over there a few times.. I felt so bad for her.
I've known a few like this. Please remember that it's you in the services, NOT your family.
if the lights were on you got yelled at for them being on and wasting energy, if the lights were off you got yelled at for being in the dark
I once went to a party at the home of a colleague of my now ex-husband, where we had a very nice and collegial potluck dinner with another couple. So, there were six adults and two children of the hosts, age maybe 8 and 10(?). After we ate and moved to the living area, the two hosts declared a period of silence to “concentrate on digestion.”
It wasn’t like a moment of silence, either, but like ten minutes or so. We and the other guest couple were looking at each other like, “wtf”. It was awkward AF, not knowing when it would be over and ok to resume normal conversation. I felt like a little kid put in timeout and hated it. We cut the visit short and never accepted another invitation from them.
When I was a child we all had to stand in silence during the Queen's speech on Christmas day. One year my sister spoke...they talked about that for years after.
I just thought of one! Although, it was not something I encountered.
At the time, I lived in a city where it was well over 105F for over 14 days. During an informal office get-together, a few of us women commented how the 1st thing to "come off" at home was our bras.
As teenagers and young adults, she and her sisters HAD to wear a bra while sleeping. Her Mom or Grandma would occasionally do a bed check. If they were braless, they would be beaten. As an adult, she still could not break the habit of wearing one. Her own girls were warned to always wear one while visiting Grandma and Gt Grandma.
A schoolfriend's parents had a rule where you couldn't wee directly in to the toilet water and had to aim for the inside edge of the bowl.
I forgot one time and was never allowed back again because they'd heard me wee.
This is the worst of all on this page, thats so super weird and were they outside with there ears stuck to the bathroom door 🤯
When I was like 14, my friend was having a Halloween party. I had my period, so I went to the bathroom to change my pad. I wrapped up my old pad in some toilet paper and threw it away. The next day at school my friend said her mom was going through the trash (I guess this was something her mom did 😵💫) and she found the wrapped up bloody pad and was angry about it. My friend who was also another girl got in trouble for it because her mom thought it was hers. This was 15 years ago and I’m still so freaking confused by it.
What did she want you to do with it, wash it out and hang it on the washing line... wrap in toilet paper and bathroom bin is correct way of disposal
My former step father only wanted the toilet flushed if you went number two and only once a day per person. Cheapness is a sickness.
They had a room in their basement that they let the dog s**t in if they didn’t feel like taking it for a walk
Once stayed at a relative’s place where they had a strict "No Radio Waves After Dark" rule. Post sunset, WiFi was shut down, phones were powered off, and even the microwave was a no-go zone. They believed that radio waves interfered with sweet dreams. The first night I was there, I felt like I time-traveled to a pre-internet era.
When I was a child, my mom had a friend who would watch me for an entire weekend, or a week during the summer. She had a daughter that was a year younger than me.
She was an absolute clean freak. I liked her because she would take me places, but she had a lot of rules. Couldn't wear shoes in her house. Ok, not all that weird... but she would take your shoes to the basement utility sink and scrub the bottom of your shoes. Can't have your pants too long, because they might drag on her floor and get dirt on her floor, so I had to roll up my pants. Can't touch the walls, because the dirt from your fingers might get on her white walls. If it was nice outside, you're eating outside, because your crumbs may get on the floor. She was also an English teacher. Even at 6 years old, I couldn't say "yeah", you say "yes". Only ignorant people say "yeah". Can't say I'm going to take off my shoes. "Only rockets take off. You REMOVE your shoes." Couldn't say "I'm done!" According to her, "only turkeys are done. You are FINISHED.""
White walls and kids just dont go together, she probley had white carpet too
My wife stayed home with our two kids, and their various friends were frequent guests. She was happy to have them over, but she established that she was NOT there to entertain them. They had quite a bit of freedom to do things, or to do nothing, but if they tried to involve her she would have them clean something around the house.
So one day our daughter had two friends over, one who knew the ropes at our house, and one who didn't. The latter started to say, "I'm bored!" and the former quickly said, "Quiet, or she'll put us to work."
No talking about or watching anything that contained “magic.” Harry Potter was banned along with many shows and cartoons.
That’s not an uncommon one amongst some of the more conservative/fundamentalist Christian peeps I used to hang around with
Everyone needed to be patted down and searched just in case someone was the feds wearing a wire 😂
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.
Having to ring the bell by the gate and wait minutes until my neighbor (same age as me) would open the door and come to the gate to let me in. I would hear them hecticly moving around behind the door when I rang the bell.
Turned out years later that they hid a girl, which they adopted because doctors told the parents that they were infertile and can’t get a child on their own. Right afterwards they got pregnant and then again (my friend). They were upset that they got lied to and tried to bring the girl back but they refused. The only thing the parents came up with, was to hide her. I walked in and out their house several times a week and never knew she lived there.
Wait, they adopted a child, thinking they were infertile, had two biological children and tried to return the adopted kid cos they, assumedly didn’t need here anymore. Then when they couldn’t, just hid her instead? Is that the story? Not only is that inhumane but it’s also bizarrely illogical.
It wasn't really a rule but I got invited (and my parents jumped at the opportunity) to a friend's house quite often. The friend's mom was sort of weird, whe was usually in her bedroom on her computer unless she was in the livingroom demanding us to paint her nails.
Anyways, the rule was eat before you get there because you won't be fed while there. If your there while they have dinner you sit in the livingroom or my friends bedroom and wait. Weirdly, this extended to breakfast and any other meal had while I was there. No matter how long I was there.
Anyways, I figured out by age 8 that I can go 3 days max without eating before I pass out and get sent home. 😅
Edit: honestly, yall, it seemed so normal at the time. I would literally wake up in the morning and play with Bratz dolls while she finished breakfast I wasn't abused or anything just sort of neglected I guess? But it wasn't this woman's responsibility to take care of me tbh. I appreciate the kind words, thanks guys. 😊 hope yall have a great day.
If you need to pass gas you have to go outside and all the way to the mailbox.
I stayed at a friend’s house for a few days when my parents were out of town when I was 13 years old. I have always been someone who draws a lot (I went to art school for my undergrad.) When I started drawing in my own notebook after dinner, my friend told me that if her father caught me, I would be in real trouble because he thought drawing was a waste of paper. So I stopped drawing for 4 days. When I returned home, I rushed up to my room, grabbed a drawing pad and drew for hours. The funny thing is that her dad was a lawyer. You know how I said that I was in art school for undergrad? Well for graduate school eventually I went to law school and worked as an attorney for almost 30 years before I retired. Most lawyers waste an inordinate amount of paper, both in and out of court, especially when this guy was practicing.
These are from one ex friend house... We were friends in middle school:
1) immediately after getting home from school she had to sit down at the table and recount her day step by step, including all conversations. Not like "school was okay, we had a test in math and I think I did good. We had chicken at lunch" but "when I got on the bus I said hi to the driver and sat in my seat. My partner wasn't on the bus this morning so I read 5 pages of my history book. The bus was quiet for the whole ride. Then we got to school and I stopped to talk to x at her locker. She was wearing y and z and asked if I saw Inuyasha last night. I said no and she asked me why." Etc etc
2) must complete homework and study after recounting day for at least 2 hours. I guess not that weird but weird to me
3) never allowed to lock doors
4) cannot leave house without putting on makeup and having hair styled. Every day. Not her rule she made, her mothers rule for her. She had to wake up two hours earlier than most everyone else on school days just to do this. She was a pageant girl so her mom was a loon.
5) wasn't allowed to shower, only bathe and only bathe with the door open. There was no curtain. Red flag now as an adult but at that age I just thought it was weird. She also regularly bathed with her younger sister who was only a few years younger than her.
6) can only watch TV with both parents present.
All around weird person with a weird home life. Almost feel bad for her looking back but she was an a*****e in the end so meh. Obsessed with being popular, having the best grades, and cried when she found out Santa wasn't real... In eighth grade.
EDIT: yes she was an a*****e to me and did some really horrible things. Yes she was being abused at home but no that doesn't mean she gets a pass for the things she did to me in high school. She can still be abused at home and still be an a*****e. I think I was her punching bag to let out all that anger on and she was the reason I'd attempted suicide so I'm sure you can see how it would be difficult for me to not think of her as an a*****e even after all these years.
I can relate - had to study from when I arrived home until at least 9 - 10pm every night. Also had to study on the weekend. Couldn't close my bedroom door and wasn't allowed to go to friends' homes until Year 11. Year 12 formal had to be home by 10pm And they wondered why I left and no longer speak to them.
I have a job that involves going into peoples homes. I had an inspection once at house where the homeowners insisted that I put on this light blue bath robe (over my clothes) and white slippers to enter their home. The husband, wife, and adult daughter who lived with them were all wearing the same blue bath robes. This was in the US Midwest… just a “typical” American midwestern family so it wasn’t even like a cultural thing that I was unaware of. I still wonder to this day if they were messing with me.
They were either messing with you or the whole bunch of them needed psychiatric treatment.
My friend’s mom wouldn’t let her put any trash in the bathroom trashcan. There was a trashcan there but it was just there for show (???) They were directed to put all trash generated in the bathroom down the toilet.
Must be up by 9am and fully clothed. No pajamas or sweats etc.....even if it was the weekend and even if you had no plans to go anywhere or do anything. We would wake up and just sit there.
i found out during the lockdowns that it was best for me to just shower and dress every day, even with nowhere to go. Just being ready to go out for a walk made a big difference.
My friends thought it was weird that they weren't allowed to go into the basement when they were at my house. I didn't know this until we were all much older, which I then explained that my parents were major pot heads and the basement is where their smoke spot was located. Also discovered that's why one of my friends wasn't allowed back over; her parents recognized the ode de stoner on her clothes.
Knew someone who was an engineer for BT back in the 90s. He used his skills to build a household PBX exchange with a billing system.
Once a month he would present his children with a printed bill for the calls they made.
He also had a payphone for visitors to use.
My friends house rule when I was a kid. One square for pee. Two squares for poo. I did not follow that rule.
not really bizarre i guess but my ex’s mom is a very tightly wound cleanliness addicted woman. no shoes on in the house. her fridge and separate upright freezer are stocked and organized according to her liking and if you want to put something in there you’d better ask.
she had a meltdown bc i put some frozen pot pies in the freezer when we stayed there for a week… she also didn’t like anything except for plastic water bottles on the middle shelf of her fridge. that’s the water shelf and she will remind you if you forget.
i wasn’t allowed to sit on a straight backed dining chair to breast feed my newborn in her kitchen, she made me sit on a barstool instead (no back support).
also when you used the shower, she expected you to deep clean it immediately after. i bathed my newborn in her newborn bathtub inside the normal bathtub and just emptied & rinsed when i was done, bc i had to get a crying baby diapered, dressed, and settled down. she stuck her head into the guest room three times within ten minutes to ask me to go properly clean the tub🙄
and the last one was that she came home one day and i was lying on the couch watching tv while my baby napped. she said she doesn’t like people “laying around” during the day… so i went back and laid down in the guest bedroom. bc i was a mom to a newborn and wanted to f*****g lay around.
Years ago Myself (8) and little sister (6) were having tea at a friends house ( the big bro (14) and big sis (16) and the little sis (8) was our friend ) a plate of jam tarts in little foul tins were placed in the table and told this was our dessert .
Myself and sister only liked the strawberry ones and so had 2 each of those , my friend and her siblings had 2 each of the black current and lemon curd ones . Then the mum came in and my friend and her siblings literally went pale and froze , eyes darting at all our plates .
Psycho mum flipped her s**t and screamed at my sister and me that we were 'vile disgusting greedy pig gannets 'for both eating 2 tarts the same flavour when the house rule is. ..
When eating jam tarts you can only have ONE of any flavour if eating multiple tarts !!!!
WtF l!! Like why would we know that was a house rule as it was the first ( and last) time we had been there and even at 6 and 8 yrs old a rule regarding any desserts was ever mentioned before anywhere. Myself and sister still now 30 yrs on still feel on edge when we see jam tarts .
However the absolute obvious terror and visible shaking from her kids ( the teens reaction seemed more scary) made it more traumatic of a memory, as this was a BIG DEAL and clearly there had been severe consequences in the past for this broken rule .
We never asked them all why this was a rule and why they were so scared and never talked about the incident with them ..probs because i was to scared to hear the answers.
Don’t sit in this one dining room chair because it was the dog’s. He was too short to climb up on it, but it was “his” chair.
You couldn't ask for/get a drink half way through a meal, you either had to ask for/get one before you were served or wait until you were done, I could never understand it.
I've run into a few odd ones over the years:
At one friend's house, only the father was allowed to touch the TV. Turning it on or off, changing the channel, adjusting the volume or antenna, didn't matter. It had to be done by Dad. And if the father wasn't home or was busy elsewhere in the house, the TV couldn't be used.
At another, very sheltered, kid's house, the TV wasn't allowed to be turned on before 5pm. I can still remember the mother saying to us "Television is a nighttime entertainment only." The kid in question (this was about first or second grade) was AMAZED when he found out about before and after school cartoons while visiting our house! In fact, he didn't even realize TV stations were on the air before 5pm. His parents didn't let him come over anymore after he apparently told them all about the cartoons we watched at my house...
At a relative's house, everybody had to be in bed and asleep by 11:00pm. Watching a sporting event or movie that isn't over yet? Too bad, it's bedtime. Wanted to see your favorite comedian guesting on "The Tonight Show?" Nope. Still working that Sunday crossword puzzle? You'll have to finish it tomorrow. Major news event happening and you want to keep tabs on the latest reports? Sorry, it's time to sleep. Even if throwing a party for grown adults, and things were fun and lively with cocktails and snacks, all the guests knew to be out of the house by 10:59pm, because by 11:00 it was bedtime for the hosts. Yes, even on New Year's Eve.
Lastly, in high school I had a friend whose parents would rearrange the living room furniture every three months so the carpet would wear evenly.
I mean, I sort of get it. If you want your kids to be more active during the day and not watching TV all of the time. If your motive is you want them to experience life outside of TV time, but have a little bit of leniency.
No Disney in the hpuse back in the 80's. The first babysitting job I ever had was when I was 12
The neighbor called and asked if I could babysit. The Disney halloween special was about to come on and it was my favorite but I said yes because I figured I could just go watch it with the kids. I get over there and they start going over the rules for the kids and one was no Disney and apparently we could only watch anime cartoons. This was the 80's. I didn't know anything about Moonies or their weird rules. I said okay then me and the kids watched the Disney Halloween special anyways. They obviously didn't rat me out because I kept babysitting for her and it was never brought it up. I never did it again. If I had known ahead of time I would have just said no and stayed home to watch the one thing I looked forward to every year.
Yeah they were in a cult but still really nice people.
My aunt doesn’t let anyone kill flies in her house
She also lets rats and raccoons live in her attic because “they have nowhere else to live”
Attended a birthday slumber in middle school for a girl that I wasn’t really close with. My mom wanted me to go because she knew the girl didn’t have a ton of friends.
So, it’s a weekend night, probably a Friday. We’re all in our sleeping bags on the floor, giggling and talking like most middle school girls do. Her mom comes in at like 9pm and tells us it’s time for bed and if she hears any of us talking, she’ll call our mothers and make them come pick us up. Ffs. Who does that?
Every single adult who’s had to look after a load of children and wants them to be quiet but doesn’t really mean it? Although I don’t know how old middle school is so maybe 9pm is a little early.
My aunt had a rule that nobody was allowed to use the bed comforters to actually sleep under. Comforters were just for looks, and had to be removed and folded up before going to bed.
I heard about a woman who, when she went to nursing school, would wash her feet in the toilet every night before bedtime. When asked why she did that, she said she was from a large family, and they would all line up at bedtime and do this.
This would have happened in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
My mom’s house. Leave the mirrors in the bushes, all pennies stay where they are, no playing music, no cellphones and always apologize to/thank your food.
I went to my childhood friend’s house for dinner and her dad legitimately refused to let us drink any water for an hour before dinner so we didn’t “spoil our appetite”
What was for dinner? Watercress sandwiches with watermelon on the side and saltwater taffies for dessert??
I had a friend in middle school whose parents had very strict rules. No shorts or tank tops allowed, even for pajamas. I brought shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in and the mom freaked. Found a pair of sweatpants for me and informed me I wasn't permitted to leave my friend's bedroom without a bra on. She also woke us up by singing some "Rise and Shine" song and clapping her hands. The kids weren't permitted to speak while eating, and you ate what was on your plate and then waited to be dismissed. If you didn't clean your plate, you had to sit at the table till you did. Television only allowed on public broadcasting on approved shows.
We stopped being friends after she came over to my house and we watched Labyrinth and TMNT (the 1990 version, TYVM). Her parents found out, called my parents, and the next time I saw her at school, she said she wasn't allowed to speak to me anymore. I felt bad for her.
Edit: The song got in my head, so I went and found it. Listen at your own risk.
https://youtu.be/olBzSdX1vF4?feature=shared
I had a high school best friend who had to change out of her school clothes the minute she got in the door. Her mom was also oddly obsessed with her patting her face dry instead of rubbing it. I guess that’s not a rule, but I can remember 2 separate occasions where she got in trouble for this. Apparently because it ages you (?) but her mother would also buy us smokes, so….
EDIT: I’ve really been enjoying reading all these replies, and TIL that maybe WE were the weird house because we didn’t have this rule! :D
getting changed from school clothes to "playing out" clothes isn't odd at all,it's for very practical and economical reasons...I along with many of my peers done this as kids and it still happens with today's kids... would often go and knock for someone after school (yes when the world wasn't electronically connected) and ask someone's parent (yes parents answered the door mainly back in the dark ages) if so and so was coming out to play and the response would often be "yes they're just getting changed out of school clothes" ,damnit used to be a race as to who could get changed quicker 😁
No eating in the dining room. A woman I know kept her dining room table set with all her china and crystal all the time. The family ate on tv trays in the den.
I was required to take my shoes off at the door. Totally normal, right? Except their house was neglected AF and every surface was covered in filth: dog hair, person hair, dirt, old spills, dirty clothes, etc. I would've rather kept my shoes on in her house.
ETA: It was my best friend's house, so I was over all the time for years. We didn't use slippers and definitely walked barefoot/socks on that nasty floor.
It wasn’t exactly a house rule but more of a lack of one. I went over to a friend’s house for the first time when I was about 15 and her dog took a s**t on the floor. Well, it was a very new puppy and these things happen, I suppose, just needs more work on toilet training or let it outside more often. What floored me was that my friend just kinda draped a shirt from the hamper over the dog’s turds, shrugged, and said “my dad’s the one who usually cleans it.”
It was the last time I went over to her house. If she couldn’t even be bothered to pick up dog s**t off the floor god knows what else was going on in that house.
Rented a basement room in a house after college for a couple months while my internship finished up. The family said no flushing the toilet after midnight-were VERY clear this was IMPORTANT. Being in college I was a frequent enjoyer of social establishments, so coming home late at night after the bar left me with few options…(sorry downstairs sink!)
I stayed on a friend's house for a few days as a student, and he was adamant I put dirty toilet paper in the corner for the compost, rather than flushing it. I thought he was joking until I used the bathroom and saw it there.
Kids arent allowed to sit on the sofa
My kids aren’t allowed to sit on “the good sofa” when they’ve been playing outside/at school etc and have sand in their pockets and food on their hands and faces. They have their own couch for that. Are we weird?
Parents that allowed their kids to use the most profane language as long as they used it in a proper sentence.
Not that unusual, different cultures have very different attitudes to cursing. Where I live in scotland cursing (or swearing as we call it) is very common and not really seen as offensive. Most people don't care if kids swear as long as they're not swearing directly at someone, it depends on the context. Brits in general have a very relaxed view to swearing and often use swear words and insults as terms of endearment for family members or friends.
When we slept at my best friends house growing up we weren't allowed water after 8pm because that's when her mom went to bed and she didn't want us waking her up to use tue bathroom. She had a little yippy dog who would bark at every little sound and if we came out to use the bathroom, she would bark. I only slept over there a handful of times lol
If only not drinking water after 8 PM would keep me from needing to get up during the night - sheez!
Pretty low on the bizarre scale just something unusual I guess.
I had a friend whose family dressed up for dinner Sunday nights. Dad and the brothers were ties and a jacket, mom and the sister, fancy dresses. It wasn’t a religious thing either.
At one of my Aunt & Uncle's house, everyone had to turn the water on and off multiple times during a shower. Like turn it on to get wet, turn off to shampoo, back on to rinse hair...etc
Grandparents of my childhood friend. We weren't allowed to step on the doorsteps/thresholds. We always had to step over it, never directly on. Still don't know why.
I wonder if your friend was Hindu as we aren’t supposed to step on the thresholds
Not sure if it qualifies as a house rule but my now fiancé lived with some of his extended family when we first met, and the matriarch of the house absolutely insisted on my fiancé being on time and downstairs to eat dinner at the table every night while her son rarely came down for dinner.
It was a little off for sure, her son usually stayed in his room playing video games until like 8-9 at night and he would pop down and make his plate and head right back to his room. But one time we were “late” for dinner (I should mention, dinner was served like over an hour earlier than usual this particular night) and we both got stern long texts about it and were told it was our responsibility to clean her kitchen up after dinner?? I didn’t live there, been dating my then boyfriend for like 4 months at this point.
Thought it was a B I Z A R R E house rule
once I went to a house and the entire house is just covered in cloths...the parents were raising a big a*s rabbit in the kitchen which is also covered in clothes and they have an entire wall of dvds for some reason and we were not allowed to watch any of them...also we were not allowed to move the clothes around
No pda of any kind for anyone. Not like "no makeout sessions", but no holding hands between couples, no kiss on the cheek, etc.
When I was a teenager I went to my friends house and his mom was like “house rules: we’re gonna go around the table and introduce ourselves before we say grace (like hi my name is *x* and I’m *y* years old and I like *z*).”
I got up and walked outside and called my mom to come pick me up.
Mf psychopaths.
I can see this, if it was your first time there. a way to get to know the family, and them you. that said, if they do it everyday with themselves, then yea, that's weird
When I was young, my parents regularly brought me over to this couple's house... we'll call them John and Mary.
John and Mary had no kids. However, John was a huge nerd that had toys and video games and so it was generally a fun time to go there while they went off and did "adult s**t". However, they had a rule that nobody pooped indoors. It isn't that their toilets didn't work, or that they had plumbing problems, or anything that would make sense. Peeing indoors wasn't an issue, they just didn't like the smell of lingering s**t in the house.
Any time someone had to make the poopies, they had to go to an outhouse and dump in there. I never learned what they did with it. It's not like they had a garden or anything that I can recall would warrant doing this. It's just... weird.
I met a girl at a new school and she invited me to spend the night and asked me “do you smell bad though? We had a girl over once and she smelled so bad, so my parents wanna know if you smell bad.”
I never went to her house, went home one day and mom said we were moving back to our old neighborhood so i never went back to that school again
While on a Rotary exchange to Denmark for a year my host family post dinner always rolled dice. The Lower did the clean up and dishes. Sometimes I hit a bad stretch of roll luck and was in the suds for quite a while.
It wasn't a rule as such, but my friend in our early twenties was living in the family home alone as his mum moved in with her boyfriend and she put post it notes all over the house with the rules. Like flush the toilet. Replace the loo roll. Turn the lights off. They were everywhere.
Wi-Fi turned off at 10pm. 2 grown adults. No valid reason.
Is sleeping hygiene and making time to spend together and not looking at screens a valid reason?
I work in EMS and once got called out for an unknown problem. We get to the house , and this older woman stops us at the door, and hands us booties to put on. Nbd , our boots are gross , and we’re respectful. Then she asks us to sanitize our hands . Again, nbd. She looks us up and down, eyes our equipment, and asks us to wipe it down with lysol wipes . Ok? We aren’t sure why we’re there yet, so I ask if its ok if I wipe the bag down as we walk inside , and my partner can wipe down the monitor, and we’ll leave everything else on the porch. Cool. So we’re walking , we’re talking , we’re wiping , she’s telling us her husband was having some indigestion and she felt like he wasn’t taking it seriously , ok alright ok, we walk into a HOARDER HOUSE and fire is working an active arrest NO BOOTIES OR LYSOL SMELL. We kind of take a beat like , what the hell? And then the lady dumps some sort of salt/ash/herb mixture on us , tells us we’re blessed, and says she had to get rid of our evil attachments before we could come in and perform our medical duties .
Im fully aware there may have been some mental health issues going on. Im also extremely well versed on various spiritual and cultural practices, and wasn’t even mad I got herbed or salted or ashed. I wasnt confused about being cleansed of attachments, s**t made sense .
YOU DIDNT MAKE THOSE HO A*S FIRE FIGHTERS WITH THEIR COMMUNITY D***S AND ALL THEIR WHACK A*S VIBES GET CLEANSED BEFORE THEY CAME IN? THAT ONE HAS FUCKBOY TATTOED ON HIS CHEST AND THAT ONE DID IT AND THEY BOTH WERE DRUNK! Respectfully maam, with love, that’s b******t lmfao.
This one time my SIL told us to take our shoes off before entering the house and leave our shoes outside so for a brief split second we were walking on her little patio area barefoot.
What was weird about this was that this was the first, last, and only time this was asked of us
don't drink coffee with a spoon, "otherwise you will pierce your eye"...
A friend of mine growing up would have to be up by a very set time every morning, even on the weekends, and he would have to recite a Bible verse that he intended to apply to his actions that day.
What made this doubly weird is that his family wasn't hyper religious at all. Just.....different.
I mean, doing something like this isn't wrong or weird. I do a 12-step program, and I do something similar. But I don't ask my kids to do it, and I certainly wouldn't ask a guest.
This one time at a sleep over in the morning we got breakfast.. they filled up my bowl with cereal and poured like 2 drops of milk on it.. i was like wtf fill that s**t up..
Then years later i realized they were trying to save money..
Went to a friend's house where breakfast was ALWAYS the leftovers from the meal the night before. Even half-eaten fried eggs were served up cold. It was weird as they had a lot of money.
Once I broke down in front of this old guy's farm. It was late at night so he offered for me to stay but I had to sleep in the bed with his beautiful single daughter.
It was freaky weird.
And that, Pandas all over, is why I prefer Home-Sweet-Home. I get some of the rules of being in a house that isn't yours but some over here are just downright ridiculous... -_-
Some of them actually seem controlling and abusive to me.
Load More Replies... When I was young my siblings and I used to visit a teacher’s house for some extra classes (usually over the weekend). Her house was covered head-to-toe in pet fur and stuff because she had about a dozen cats and dogs. Furniture was covered in fur and the floor was sticky from mud prints and all sorts of other secretions and stuff from the pets. She loved saving animals off the streets and housing them which is such a great deed, but she should either know her limit or learn to be cleaner. My parents used to force her to wipe clean the table and chairs we’ll be using during the study visit. She was actually a little crazy (frequently got complaints from neighbors, got kicked out of houses, etc) but was good in the subject she taught so we continued to go to her house for several years.
My sister hated going to one of her friend's houses, because they had 5+ cats and it stank of p**s all the time. Even worse (for her at least) his mum collected porcelain dolls and had them all over the house. She was very happy when he moved in with his dad instead.
Load More Replies...
OMG I could not make it through that list. Abusive and just plain f'd up - OK the kissing the slammed door was not bad. I feel SOOO much better about the small ways I f'd up parenting, and I have apologized for the mistakes I make and made.
My house growing up was always the weird one. Every single door in the house, every cabinet, closet, etc had a lock on it. We had special locks for the sinks, refrigerator and stove as well. All the windows were bolted shut. All of this because my little sister is a nonverbal autistic and loved to destroy things and run away. It also didn't help that my mom was hyper-religious. If I somehow managed to have a friend over to spend the night, bedtime would be at 9pm sharp. No movies or books that had even a hint of magic in them. One of my friends brought over a Stephen King book and my mom made us keep it outside the bedroom so demons don't harm us. My mom even slept downstairs on the couch near us one time because we were talking after 9pm. It's a wonder I had any friends at all. I feel bad for putting them through that.
Since that Reddit thread is archived, I'll post my own example here. I have two, now that I think about it. Both of these were childhood friends' house rules. At one friends house we were not allowed to drink anything during dinner; we could only drink after finishing our meal, and even at that, our glasses were only ever half-filled. I didn't understand that one as a kid, but I think maybe it was some idea about digestion? At the same house we were also not given towels after a bath/shower, and we were told to "drip-dry". I'm not sure what the reason for that rule was either. At another friends house, his mother would rearrange their furniture...in every single room, every couple weeks. I would visit and everything would be in completely different places all the time. My friend was just resigned to it, even when she rearranged his room. His mom also put plastic coverings on the furniture, and plastic "runners" on the carpet to prevent wear on high-traffic areas.
The not drinking one is something I remember from a friend's house, too
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Nannied for a doctor. Didn’t let the kids near their beds with outdoor clothes on. I was like that’s a bit weird and controlling. 20 years later and corona happened, my outdoor clothes don’t go anywhere near my bedroom. Pathologists know what they’re talking about.
But is there any greater incidence of disease in households that let outdoor clothing contact the bed? It's probably less a matter of "pathologists know what they’re talking about" and more that they spend their days dealing with germs. In the same way, dentists probably have more strict rules about teeth brushing, and plumbers probably have strict rules about what gets put down the drain.
Load More Replies...
So I've had to institute a weird rule in my house due to my cat. He loves to play in water, even the water in the toilet bowl. So I tell guests they have to close the lid when done and (jokingly) that the consequence for violating the rule means you have to bathe toilet kitty.
I knew a high ranking Army officer thru church. He was an Army doctor & had been in one assignment his entire career. He used to invite me over & then years later when I got married, he invited my wife & I to stay at this place while on vacation from my other assignment. I hate to call it strange but they were peculiar. There was no TV. Never had one. They had a single radio that was used for the news from time to time. There was a record player, no other kinds of music devices. They only served water during meals. Everybody got dressed up to eat together. When the meal was done, the women, my wife included, cleaned up & did dishes. The men went into the living room to talk. I felt like I was in a bygone era. How did their three kids turn out? Wonderful. Top in their classes at West Point, Julliard, & Wesleyan.
I don't really know where to post this, but I was reaching for my bag of candy I got yesterday, trying to get a piece, when my mom told me not to. I was fine with this, but after I stopped trying to get candy, she kept yelling at me for a few minutes. This probably would be fine with most people, but I have always hated being yelled at. It makes me feel like garbage. So I'm super depressed now. In lighter news, apparently I have a Blahaj! Its not exactly the same, but SUPER similar. I showed a comparison to my sibling, and they said it was almost exactly the same! (They also told me that it was weird how obsessed with "some random shark" I am.)
When I was little, I wasn't allowed to eat on the couch. I could drink water, or juice on the couch, but I couldn't eat on it. Luckily that rule went away soon. Anyways, how was everyone's Halloween? Mine was fun, except for the guy in the decaying ALF mask holding a knife with creepy ambience playing.
And that, Pandas all over, is why I prefer Home-Sweet-Home. I get some of the rules of being in a house that isn't yours but some over here are just downright ridiculous... -_-
Some of them actually seem controlling and abusive to me.
Load More Replies... When I was young my siblings and I used to visit a teacher’s house for some extra classes (usually over the weekend). Her house was covered head-to-toe in pet fur and stuff because she had about a dozen cats and dogs. Furniture was covered in fur and the floor was sticky from mud prints and all sorts of other secretions and stuff from the pets. She loved saving animals off the streets and housing them which is such a great deed, but she should either know her limit or learn to be cleaner. My parents used to force her to wipe clean the table and chairs we’ll be using during the study visit. She was actually a little crazy (frequently got complaints from neighbors, got kicked out of houses, etc) but was good in the subject she taught so we continued to go to her house for several years.
My sister hated going to one of her friend's houses, because they had 5+ cats and it stank of p**s all the time. Even worse (for her at least) his mum collected porcelain dolls and had them all over the house. She was very happy when he moved in with his dad instead.
Load More Replies... OMG I could not make it through that list. Abusive and just plain f'd up - OK the kissing the slammed door was not bad. I feel SOOO much better about the small ways I f'd up parenting, and I have apologized for the mistakes I make and made.
My house growing up was always the weird one. Every single door in the house, every cabinet, closet, etc had a lock on it. We had special locks for the sinks, refrigerator and stove as well. All the windows were bolted shut. All of this because my little sister is a nonverbal autistic and loved to destroy things and run away. It also didn't help that my mom was hyper-religious. If I somehow managed to have a friend over to spend the night, bedtime would be at 9pm sharp. No movies or books that had even a hint of magic in them. One of my friends brought over a Stephen King book and my mom made us keep it outside the bedroom so demons don't harm us. My mom even slept downstairs on the couch near us one time because we were talking after 9pm. It's a wonder I had any friends at all. I feel bad for putting them through that.
Since that Reddit thread is archived, I'll post my own example here. I have two, now that I think about it. Both of these were childhood friends' house rules. At one friends house we were not allowed to drink anything during dinner; we could only drink after finishing our meal, and even at that, our glasses were only ever half-filled. I didn't understand that one as a kid, but I think maybe it was some idea about digestion? At the same house we were also not given towels after a bath/shower, and we were told to "drip-dry". I'm not sure what the reason for that rule was either. At another friends house, his mother would rearrange their furniture...in every single room, every couple weeks. I would visit and everything would be in completely different places all the time. My friend was just resigned to it, even when she rearranged his room. His mom also put plastic coverings on the furniture, and plastic "runners" on the carpet to prevent wear on high-traffic areas.
The not drinking one is something I remember from a friend's house, too
Load More Replies... Nannied for a doctor. Didn’t let the kids near their beds with outdoor clothes on. I was like that’s a bit weird and controlling. 20 years later and corona happened, my outdoor clothes don’t go anywhere near my bedroom. Pathologists know what they’re talking about.
But is there any greater incidence of disease in households that let outdoor clothing contact the bed? It's probably less a matter of "pathologists know what they’re talking about" and more that they spend their days dealing with germs. In the same way, dentists probably have more strict rules about teeth brushing, and plumbers probably have strict rules about what gets put down the drain.
Load More Replies... So I've had to institute a weird rule in my house due to my cat. He loves to play in water, even the water in the toilet bowl. So I tell guests they have to close the lid when done and (jokingly) that the consequence for violating the rule means you have to bathe toilet kitty.
I knew a high ranking Army officer thru church. He was an Army doctor & had been in one assignment his entire career. He used to invite me over & then years later when I got married, he invited my wife & I to stay at this place while on vacation from my other assignment. I hate to call it strange but they were peculiar. There was no TV. Never had one. They had a single radio that was used for the news from time to time. There was a record player, no other kinds of music devices. They only served water during meals. Everybody got dressed up to eat together. When the meal was done, the women, my wife included, cleaned up & did dishes. The men went into the living room to talk. I felt like I was in a bygone era. How did their three kids turn out? Wonderful. Top in their classes at West Point, Julliard, & Wesleyan.
I don't really know where to post this, but I was reaching for my bag of candy I got yesterday, trying to get a piece, when my mom told me not to. I was fine with this, but after I stopped trying to get candy, she kept yelling at me for a few minutes. This probably would be fine with most people, but I have always hated being yelled at. It makes me feel like garbage. So I'm super depressed now. In lighter news, apparently I have a Blahaj! Its not exactly the same, but SUPER similar. I showed a comparison to my sibling, and they said it was almost exactly the same! (They also told me that it was weird how obsessed with "some random shark" I am.)
When I was little, I wasn't allowed to eat on the couch. I could drink water, or juice on the couch, but I couldn't eat on it. Luckily that rule went away soon. Anyways, how was everyone's Halloween? Mine was fun, except for the guy in the decaying ALF mask holding a knife with creepy ambience playing.
