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43 Times Workers Entered A Customer’s Home But Wanted To Get Out As Quickly As Possible
Walking into someone else’s home can be a completely normal part of the job if you work in industries like cleaning, repair services, social care, or real estate. But sometimes, stepping through that doorway reveals much more than a leaky pipe or a dusty living room.
One Reddit user, SheZowRaisedByWolves, sparked a fascinating discussion by asking these professionals to share the strangest and most unsettling things they’ve encountered while inside other people’s houses. From very bizarre décor choices to borderline paranormal activities, the responses highlight just how unpredictable private spaces can be.
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#1
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.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
This one is actually super cute! That really could have gone down a dark corner. Straight up Agret Suko vibes.
KatSaidWhat 3 months ago
I was bracing for something shocking until she came back with the keys, it was going to be fine!
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
This is a wonderful idea. Operating your own business deserves a private space to release stress and tension.
Jackie 3 months ago
Do you read books? It’s just part of story telling so people can visualise…stop making it something ugly!
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RELATED:
#2
I used to install residential replacement windows. My boss and I have to walk in out of almost every room that has a window. We go into this ranch style home, I noticed a small bed and pillow on the floor in a closet. Kind of looked like a dogs bed. Then throughout the day I notice they don't have a dog, they don't have a TV, they don't have any electronics, no kids toys. But what they do have is an adopted middle Eastern girl. That was where she slept. Mind you they have a little girl (5 yrs old maybe) with her own room and a little boy (7 yrs old maybe) with his own room both with gate latches on the outside of the door. She slept in a f*****g closet. I mentioned it to my boss. Said he's run into this kind of thing before, called them "Bible beaters". He brushed it off. I didn't. I called the police, anonymously. Idk what happened. I didn't work for that guy much longer.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
JFC! That is sick! Glad OP called CPS. WTF is wrong with those people?
detective miller's hat 3 months ago
Happens way more than we'd like to think. I work for a law firm in New Jersey and we once had a client who was originally from Guatemala and had been "sold" to a couple in a wealthy suburb outside New York City. She was kept as a servant and child şex şlave for the husband. She only escaped when she got too old for the guy's tastes and they kicked her out.
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Iris C 3 months ago
What's the point of adopting a child if you're going to treat them that way???? Those people are a sorry excuse for a human.
Anthony Elmore 3 months ago
I imagine it's for a similar reason that southern farmers adopted grown black men in the past.
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Tommy DePaul 2 months ago
Buy a slave (usually a daughter from a culture that only values sons) who becomes a housekeeper/babysitter.
#3
I used to volunteer for a wildlife rescue and did a pickup at a very elderly woman's house where she had found a baby bird. When I got there she carefully uncovered it from the towel she'd placed it in, and it was just a chestnut.
Catherina Thijs 3 months ago
Like that time my sister found an unhatched egg and put it in a little box with cotton. It was a marble...
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
I think I would've put an agency on alert regarding her wellness. She could be losing her eyesight or have early stage dementia, both would make living alone at her age a risk factor.
Cee Cee 3 months ago
Horse chestnut - Aesculus hippocastanum. Inedible but great fot playing conkers. Aesculus castanea - sweet or Spanish chestnut. Edible, delicious roasted in their skins - need to slit the skin first. Also lovely as marrons glacé.
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#4
My SO is a repair man. He went on a call where the customer was about 45-50 years old and *huge*. I guess the customer kept talking about his wife this, his wife that, while my SO was working. The guy walks away and comes back and starts talking in a high pitched voice about his husband. Apparently he had suffered from a TBI and now sometimes thought he was a man with a wife *and* a women with a husband. My SO said he felt so creeped out, like the guy was going to lock him in a basement or something.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
I've had numerous TBIs, but my imagination has never conjured up a housemate. A frontal lobe TBI can impair behavior and can lead to aggression. Your SO's spidey-sense was not misplaced.
Billo66 3 months ago (edited)
I worked with mentally ill people for several years. Yeah, thats scary. You feed into their delusion, just go along with it, in the hopes they don't just flip the switch. You can't predict what hey will do, they don't even know. De-escalate and gtfo. Edit: Missed a letter :)
Bewitched One 3 months ago
Still missed one jsyk. End of fourth sentence :)
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Laura Deckers 3 months ago (edited)
I've noticed people writing a women instead of a woman a lot more lately.
#5
I'm a pool guy, I go into people's backyards to clean their pools.
One week, it was a 4 day week due to a holiday, so I'm not going on the scheduled days, I'm cramming 5 days of work into a 4 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 2 kids, maybe 14 or 15, are absolutely butt a*s 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, suprised you haven't met them, lemme introduce you."
They were brother and sister.
They cancelled service within 2 months.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
Was the last name Epstein or Maxwell? Sounds like their kind of thing.
#6
Community mental health nurse. Visited an elderly lady in London one evening. She lived in an attic/loft apartment. It was winter and starting to get dark outside.
I spent about a half hour with her talking. She was a bit manic so was just talking at me for ages really.
After a while I asked her if she was going to cook some dinner for herself. She said that her friend was going to do it. I asked when her friend was coming over. She said that he's already here and looks over my shoulder. I turn around and there's black man standing up in the dark corner of the room behind me. Just standing there staring at me. I didn't see or hear him for the whole half hour I was there. He was obviously clearly a patient of our service too and didn't look too well at that moment.
Noped the f**k out of there.
Bewitched One 3 months ago
Well honestly I think it kinda helps to tell you how well hidden they would be in a dark corner. A white person would stand out more. IMO
Load More Replies... #7
"Dead body" might not really be surprising, here, but I still cant eat certain foods after experiencing it, and certain smells make me sick, too.
I was working for a condo building, letting air conditioning guys look at units within condos. I was just a key holder. One of the last units of the day was a condo, knocked on the door, no answer, opened the door, immediate waft of foul smell. Just some rotten eggs, maybe?
Enter the unit, see some moldy bread on the counter, sweaty looking cake (condensation) on the stove.
"Its pretty f****n rank in here" I say to the guys. I look into the bedroom and see an older black woman with kindof a bad blonde dye job, hunched over in bed, in a bit of a yoga pose? ("sat up" in bed, but head at feet, legs crossed) Im immediately embarrassed. "Sorry ma'am, I didnt know you were home!" I said.
No movement.I take a step closer. "Ma'am?"
"Shes f****n dead, dude." One of the air conditioning guys says, as he hurries out of the unit. His only evidence is the smell, and my tone of voice when I said "Ma'am?"
I step a little closer, the womans skin is "bruised" and has mouldy patches on it. This is not a "yoga pose", this is a "settling in to the bed" pose.
Some facts I later learned from the police: Shes a young caucasian blonde woman (i.e. not an older black woman). Last diary entry 10 days prior, pill bottles and last will and testament on the bedside table.
Food I cant eat: wonton soup (first thing I tried to eat, 8 hours later). Smell I cant handle: dirty fridge (e.g. mouldy items left by careless coworker)
I also no longer fantasize about how cool the zombie apocalypse would be.
edit: Sorry for the Rorschach-esque narration. Im on mobile so that was the fastest way to tell the story. Funny side note, the 9-11 operator spent a full 2 minutes trying to get the security guard to touch the body, to make sure she was not actually still alive.
Also I got the employee of the month award, and a $100 gift certificate.
Though, it was admittedly a slow month.
Mrs. Kay 3 months ago
I found my brother’s body after he’d been dead for at least a couple of weeks. He was black as night from head to toe except for his eyelids which were still white.
Billo66 3 months ago
I sat on my bicycle when I was 9. This nice elderly man, Mr. Grisham, who everyone knew to be a drunk, (it's a small town) We were waiting for the freight train to pass. The wind blew the hat off his head and when he leaned to catch it... The first to go was his arm, then his head, and the rest was mangled under the wheels and some on top of a nearby shed. His arm was still twitching, like trying to grab his hat. I ran in the barbershop and they called the ambulance, got the train stopped. I was just numb, like wtf just happened. They gathered him in trash bags and all the bags went into a proper body bag. I will never forget the smell of a freshly completely mutilated body.
S Bow 3 months ago
Good grief, what a horrible thing to witness, especially as a kid.
Load More Replies... Leg less In Minneapolis 3 months ago
Decomp is special odor. Smelled it as a teenager. Forty years later I still remember it and certain thing bring back. Just uuuggghhhh
#8
I'm in insurance restoration, we deal with houses that have caught on fire, or any insurance problem, really. Long story short, a woman's house catches on fire. Woman has a deep freezer in the garage with the body of every cat she has ever owned since the 80's....Guess who stumbled upon it, after the power had been out for a week?
Jan Rosier 3 months ago
first step : leave it closed and get it plugged in / step 2 : after a night of freezing, fill to the brim with water and let freeze solid again / step 3 : get it hauled to a legal dumping site for carcasses
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
I feel like such a fool. I had freezer chests, but instead I choose to bury my cats when the ground allowed or cremated when it was frozen.
KatSaidWhat 3 months ago
My nephew kept snakes in the freezer in my mom's house for a little while...
#9
I work in apartment complexes and constantly go into people's units, once we were taking over a property and doing this we had to go into every single apartment and room to check for the conditions of things. One of the apartments I went in to had a room that was covered in nothing but pictures of ceiling fans. There was a bed in the middle of the room, and a small computer monitor in a corner, and hundreds of pictures of fans, big and small, all over the walls. Fans from magazines, fans printed out, fans fans fans.
#10
I'm a firefighter/EMT so its 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 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 acrossed. 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 atleast 2 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.
Upstaged75 3 months ago
That's awful. I have no doubt my cats would eat me if necessary. I'm kind of OK with that.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
I never had a problem with my cats eating my dead body. What made me nervous is having a paralyzing stroke and being aware they were eating my body.
Load More Replies... S Bow 3 months ago
Almost certainly. I live in Arizona and the temperature in our car commonly exceeds 180F/82C.
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Uncle Panda 3 months ago
Brain, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Rewind information intake 30 seconds and hit record. We don't need this one in there.
Gingersnap In Iowa 3 months ago
I have no doubt that Baby girl will be munching on me. Some days she stares at me as if she's planning my demise.
Stéphanie Nadon 3 months ago
I didnt see my dads body but I bet that the cat he had did the same thing. He was found 2 weeks after he died... the cat had no food and still full of energy... I got her. At first when I was going to sleep she was licking my face every night for like an hour. That creeped me out, maybe she wanted to make sure I wasnt dead too lol
detective miller's hat 3 months ago
I have a friend that works for a company that cleans up after disasters like fire and flooding (and occasionally crïme scene cleanup). One time they get a job cleaning this house where an morbidly obese man had dïed and no one had found him for months. He had dïed sometime in early summer, and then his body sat in the house in 80-90F heat until late August. Friend said the guy had basically MELTED into his recliner and the floor. The people who were buying the property wanted them to save the hardwood floor under the carpet, but apparently the ooze of the deɑd guy had just seeped way too deep into it, they had to remove the whole floor. Friend said he's never smelled anything like it before or since.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
Ditto with watching authorities pull what was later determined a woman's body out of a pond. Put me off playing hooky for a few weeks.
#11
Construction inspector here. I was looking at a house about to be renovated by new buyers. The basement was all wood-paneled walls, Spanish tile floors, and s**t-tons of animal heads mounted on the walls; very old-school "hunting lodge" style.
Except there was also a room off the basement, behind a bookcase "hidden door" that I only noticed because I was trying to understand the relationship between the foundation and the main floor. Small room, maybe 80 SF. The ceiling had a single fluorescent fixture, recessed, with a heavy steel grating over it. The floor *and walls* were covered in sheet vinyl, and there was a single metal chair in the room. It was sitting over a floor drain.
I noped the f**k right out of there. The renovation never happened; the owners tore the house down and built a new one. I still can't drive by that site without feeling a chill.
Upstaged75 3 months ago (edited)
I babysit for a family whose house contains quite a few taxidermized exotic animals. I try not to look at them since I don't need to go in that particular room anyway. I've been with the family for a while now but haven't ever brought up the topic. Because I really just don't want to know if they actually k!lled the animals or not. They seem like lovely people otherwise. 🤷🏻♀️
Anthony Elmore 3 months ago
Original house owner just can't figure why they can't sell the house off. It even has a secret shower for when someone else is using the main bathroom.
Roxy222uk 3 months ago
I was wondering whether they could do anything e.g. use their funding to investigate from a forensic point of view
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 3 months ago
Wouldn't this be something you'd mention to the local police, or better yet, the FBI. I'll bet that drain had evidence that could've closed a lot of cold cases. But instead, you just noped out and let the evidence be destroyed.
T Barth 3 months ago
This made me think of the movie ' Hostel ' of which I will never see a 2nd time.
Aboredpanda 3 months ago
... if someone discovered my murder room I would have also torn down the house to destroy any evidence...
#12
I used to do in home therapy.
Worst was this home with a mom with MR and three young kids. The house was DESTROYED inside. Chairs had been busted apart, the couch shredded with a knife. The beds were filthy, had no sheets and had also been knifed. The kitchen cabinets had been completely busted apart.
And there were jars of pee EVERYWHERE.
I asked if the plumbing worked...they showed me it did. I asked if one of the kids had a problem. Nope. Asked about the pee jars and mom just smiled and ignored me.
I did call CPS.
#13
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 2 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.
Anthony Elmore 3 months ago
This is actually a fairly well-documented mental illness. Mirrored-Self Misidentification. It is indeed associated with brain damage/dysfunction, and could be a result of dementia.
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Zaach 3 months ago
to start a psychologist was called in because the woman in the cabin in the woods spoke a complex language but it was obvious that she had never left the cabin and was fed through a slot. People alone do not create a language so everyone was puzzled. Complicated things happen and the woman pulls the tablecloth and opens it up and there is her twin dead at least 10 years. In the play and book the psychologist has a sexual relationship with the woman but there were cameras everywhere so he tried to get the woman to leave with him because he would lose his career - she refused, she did not need him. In the movie she leaves with him - seemed like a sell out to me (actually not - since it starred Nicolas Cage, I am sure they threw a lot of money at her)
#14
I used to do pest control. While baiting a house for roaches I made my way to their bathroom...and on top of the toilet tank there was a decorative bowl. Nothing out of the ordinary right? Well the bowl wasnt full of extra tp or washcloths..it was full of white-cheddar cheeto puffs.
Drop Bear from Hell 3 months ago
I shared a house with people who would eat and drink in the toilet room. always irked me - especially when i would find milk cartons (still with milk inside) sitting on the toilet seat. 🤮😡 I would just bin them much to housemates' annoyance. I didn't last long....
Jane Hower 2 months ago
This is a good story, about me anyway. The pest control guy went thru our apt in FL, all the closets, floor baseboards, AND drawers and cabinets to spray and he made the comment that he'd NEVER seen a place so clean and organized. I was 19, and at 81 and still that way. My best friend says I'm CDO - I asked what that meant, she said so OCD that it's alphabetical. hehe
TheGoodBoi 3 months ago
While couldn't it have been the regular puffs!? Don't do that to the white cheddar ones!
KatSaidWhat 3 months ago
I had a staff member who would get breakfast and then eat it in the toilets at work. Same for lunch. We had a canteen. She didn't last long. That wasn't why, that was minor stuff compared to her batshit other issues.
#15
A couple of years ago I worked for a cleaning company. One of my first days on the job, I was cleaning a woman's house and entered a room on the second floor that - I kid you not - was full of only clocks and mirrors. I've never been so aware of my own mortality.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago (edited)
That sounds like a scene from a David L-y-n-c-h movie. Come on BP! It's the man's name!
WindySwede 3 months ago
Test, from wiki "Philip Nathaniel W**g Sin Goi is a British-Malaysian stand-up comedian and comedy writer"
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 3 months ago
Back in h i g h school, I spent the weekend at a friend's house whose father was an antique's dealer with a focus on clocks. That house drove me crazy with all the ticking and chiming all hours of the day and night.
TheGoodBoi 3 months ago
Ahhh when you look in the mirror, your face, (like the clocks) shows the passage of time. 🫠
#16
Old guy with learning disability. Went in to clean his house and found floor to ceiling money. Hundreds of thousands just piled up every where - a lot of it no longer in circulation. Had to get the police in to make him and it safe.
#17
Boiler repairs...4 sons in the house, playing xboxs, all mentally ill, rooms two foot deep in takeaway trays.
A duck and a rat loose in the other room, the mother was just in her underwear with a fresh kidney transplant scar around her middle, the hot pipe had snapped off the washing machine and was running the combi boiler flat out, she had tied the pipe into the sink,' How longs it been like that for 'I said...about 6 weeks she said, the bottom had dropped out of the wall units because of the steam.
The carpet in the duck/rat room was sodden with p**s and c**p,.I went into the lads rooms, they never flinched or acknowledged me, one was holding the controller but the tv was off.
Jenny 3 months ago
The sons were all in their 20s, according to an update on Reddit.
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Blue Bunny of Happiness 3 months ago
I hope OP called social services or at least environmental health.
#18
Worked a while in what would probably be called Home Care in english, I've visited a lot of weird people and seen some weird s**t.
Just the other day I was in a apartment so stained by nicotine and other chemicals from smoking that you could literally scrape the residue of the walls and doors. Pounds of it collected over decades of smoking more than a couple of packs a day.
It's sad really, the guy just sits there all day hugging his boxed wine and watch tv and smoke like a chimney.
Uncle Panda 3 months ago
I helped paint a house with nico-stained walls. It tooks primer and 3+ coats of paint to cover it.
Jenny 3 months ago
Sugar soap is the best thing to clean nicotine from walls.
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Billo66 3 months ago
I used to work at Medical Supply delivering and setting up oxygen and beds for hospice and whatnot. People on an oxygen hose with piles of cigarettes. Even if you turn it off, your clothes are saturated with O2. Saw a lot of messy cleanups after fires. The worst was this couple living in a small motel room with boxes everywhere, AC wasn't doing anything. Both chain smoked, the room was a very strange orange. And, 3 cats and 2 dogs. In a motel. The air was so thick I can still taste it if I think about it.
Jenny 3 months ago
I was always amazed that my dad didn't blow himself up when he was on home oxygen. I lost count of the number of times I went to visit, and he was sitting in his chair with an oxygen mask in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.
Load More Replies... Jenny 3 months ago
Every house my mum had was like this. The walls and ceilings were always yellow, no matter what colour they'd been originally. All of her soft furnishings were nicotine-stained and had cigarette burns in them. Her carpets had even soaked it in, and they would crunch slightly when you walked on them.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
I don't smoke outside my flat, not even outdoors. But my walls remain white bc I either have the windows open or the air filter on. I've had to wash walls before painting where the nicotine has stained them yellow with darker stains where it's dripped down the walls.
Huddo's sister 3 months ago
There is a granny flat on my property that had been rented by a man with an intellectual disability for 15 years. He clearly smoked inside and there are still nicotine stains on walls and windows, even though I washed them twice. I had to replace all the carpet too, as it was covered in cat p**s/p*o and had the smell of cigarettes too.
#19
I was working as a social worker for a home health agency. I got called to a mansion in the most exclusive area of Miami, It belonged to a department store heiress. She was a hoarder. The mansion was filled from top to bottom with racks of clothes and lots of assorted garbage, I finally found her in the garage apartment with just a narrow path through the litter to the bedroom where she was lying in a huge canopy bed. She wore bright red lipstick and told me of her days as one of the first female aviators. Best stories ever. On the way out I almost stumbled over a alligator coming out of what had been the pool but was now a swampy mess. Got relatives from the north to come and get her. She had been out of touch with them for years.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
When I was in college, I rented a flat not far from the school. The right side had regular tenants, the left side flats were rented to people who had been in asylums. See back in the 80s, the idiots in charge closed all the asylums and released these people, so they were on their own with weekly visits from social workers. One was a hoarder who was putting the entire building at risk for vermin and fire, yet nothing was done about it. Returning vets with untreated PTSD and the mentally disturbed were the first wave of the homeless crisis we have today.
#20
My wife is a Physical Therapist who does home health visits. She has seen some s**t.
* Several hoarders. People who have bizarrely huge collections of curios like snow globes, crosses, and one lady who had a disturbingly huge collection of Princess Diana memorabilia.
* Several old guys who tried to subtly proposition her for sexual favors. Then there was the one old guy who was recovering from a knee replacement and flat out said something like, "I haven't had a b*****b in like 20 years. Is that something you do?"
* Crazy cat ladies. They are real. And sometimes their houses are infested with fleas.
* There was a lady who had experienced a stroke and had lost a good chunk of her impulse control as well as mobility on one side of her body. Every single time my wife saw her, there were two dildos on her kitchen counter, in plain view of the living room where my wife worked with the patient.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
Had a nasty neighbor turn me in for hoarding cats, so the ASPCA sent officers to my home. They were stunned when they saw the layout designs just for the cats, their own doors into an enclosed yard, the pantry filled with all sorts of cat food, litter, and medications. I was able to produce all their medical records. They recognized this was a Forever Home sanctuary for stray cats and not some perverse hoarder situation.
Rebecca O’Donnell 2 months ago
Riley Quinn, your story made my day. Thank you for all that you’re doing!
Load More Replies... Billo66 3 months ago
After my Moms best friends Husband passed, she became a hoarder cat lady. Barely could walk, small path through garbage. All dirty dishes. Cats everywhere, couldn't count them. Unfortunately she fell a few times and went to a nursing home where she passed. It's a perfectly good nice little house that would take some major cleaning and renovation but the city condemned it. I never saw the final state the house was in but watching a lady I liked a lot fade away like that sux.
#21
I perform Home Inspections, and I've see a lot of pretty disgusting/creepy/and strange stuff. But the worst is when the home is still occupied by a renter. This one house had at least 4-6 cats, black mold all over every window and bathroom fixture (and the children's beds were directly next to in the bed rooms), and the house had a vomit inducing, musty and poop smell. Within seconds of entering the home, I told them I was going to inspect the crawl space first (which I ALWAYS do LAST), so that I could suit up with my full face respirator. I did the entire inspection in full organic bio-hazard gear. I gag a little just typing this.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
As a Home Inspector, you'd be obligated to report all of this. Right????
#22
I did junk removal over the summer. One lady had a very large, very detailed painting of two horses getting it on hanging in her upstairs hallway.
#23
Back when I was a door-to-door salesman, I had a bunch of odd experiences, ranging from the mildly odd to the terrifying.
1) One dude decided to give me a tour of the giant backyard shed he used for fermenting wine. It was actually pretty interesting, he explained a lot about how he did it and what it was like running a home winery. Didn't buy anything from me, though.
2) One dud did buy stuff from me, waited until I stepped out to print him his receipt, and was waiting for me wearing nothing but a (very short) bathrobe. That just so happened to fall open as he was receiving his receipt. He then asked if I'd like to stay for coffee. I did not stay for coffee.
3) One dude invited me in, waited until I'd walked into his front room, then locked the door and blocked the doorway. He then just started *screaming* at me. He was screaming about how "You're right out of school, right, and you think you know F*****G EVERYTHING, and you don't know S**T. You're just a NAIVE F*****G IDIOT, and *YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE WORLD*-"
This went on for five minutes. He never physically touched me, but he screamed at me the entire time and it was f*****g terrifying. Eventually he let me leave "God, just *leave*" and I bolted out of there like a bat out of hell. I still wonder what the hell that guy's deal was.
#24
Multiple bottles of serious acid hidden behind a false wall. Police had to be called and such.
Aboredpanda 3 months ago
Probably acid to damage someone physically or such, not to get high on. ;)
Load More Replies... #25
Work in restoration construction. There was an old lady who still had the plate that she had fixed for her husband on the counter for him when he got home.
She told us it had been there for like 7 years. It was really gross looking. Also the WHOLE rest of the house she kept EXACTLY like it was on the day he died. Same towel hanging on the bathroom door. His work shirt laying in the hallway floor. As we worked she kept a close eye on us to make sure that we moved NOTHING. She was adamant about the whole situation.
It was REALLY CREEPY. The lady was nice though; she just had a screw loose upstairs.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
Grief can overwhelm, keeping you stuck in a moment of time. This woman required grief counseling about 7yrs ago.
#26
I petsit. I've got a pretty good set of regular clients built up. I stay at their homes while they're away, which gives me plenty of time to get very familiar with their houses. Surprisingly, I usually feel more at ease at my clients' homes than my own, but weird stuff happens occasionally.
* Last summer, I was taking care of a pair of cats. I went out at 8 pm to stop by the grocery store and pick up some dinner. When I came back, the fireplace was lit. I was terrified, because either someone entered the house and lit the fireplace, or it's malfunctioning and somehow managed to light itself. I went back to my car and called my client to ask if that was a known issue. Woke her up (oops), and she explained that the fireplace was connected to the heating system, and it would turn itself on if the temperature inside got low enough.
* Found an inflatable butt plug in a bathroom drawer of another client's house. I was just looking for some ibuprofen, but I found that instead.
* At a house way out in the middle of nowhere, I was up late studying one evening, and the exterior lights kept turning on. I figured it was just a wild animal, but it only happened one evening in the entire time I was there, and I later tested the range of the motion sensors. You had to be pretty close to the house and make significant movements to turn them on.
* Last month, a couple people were found m******d a block away from my favorite client's previous house. My client moved last year, but it was still scary that that happened in her neighborhood. While I was petsitting at her old house, someone did get stabbed on the trail behind her house.
* While letting the dog out into the front yard in the middle of the night (he likes going out there better), I watched a pair of girls get out of what was probably an Uber. They were clearly trashed, and as they walked down the street toward their house, the driver followed them, asking if they wanted to come home with him. I should have yelled at him that if he didn't leave them alone, I'd call the cops. He did leave them alone eventually, but I stayed outside with the dog until they got inside their house.
I've probably got more, but I can't think of anything at the moment.
Upstaged75 3 months ago
I have an electric fireplace that turns on with a remote. The cats have managed to light it before. And turn on my Roomba. 🙄 Also, my kitchen faucet has a hair elastic around the handle - because one of them turned on the water too. Anyone want a pair of kittens? 🤣
Multa Nocte 3 months ago
We ALWAYS want a pair of kittens! Signed, my littlest kitten.
Load More Replies... Bored Trash Panda 3 months ago
Yes, I'm kinda curious about how that would work. Not for personal use, cause ew. (Not judging anyone who uses them)
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 3 months ago
Strange place to store a butt plug. I think the bedroom is the usual standard storage area.
#27
I'm a home health nurse and also take all the psychiatric patients that need homecare, cause a lot of times people aren't comfortable with doing basic care with mental health patients. I have a laundry list of f****d up things I have seen.
Most recently it was probably this cat lady who had an abdominal laparotomy and had to have her wound vac taken off and the order was to pack her abdomen full of iodoform.
So this ladies open from right below the belly button to just up below her ribs...and she's a big lady. So we have a gaping open wound. I think it was about 6cm deep. So anyways I go over to start services on her in this strange apartment and the lady tells me she has 14 cats. They were literally crawling on everything.
So fast forward im taking off the old dressing while she's kicked back in her recliner and after I get it all out one of her cats (who I've been desperately shooing away) jumps up and tries to dive right in.
I had nightmares for like a week about going back to unpack her wound and change the dressing and finding a cat in there.
Another strange thing I've encountered is the ghost cat s**t. Which is when I find piles of cat s**t in my patients apartments/houses and when I ask them about it they look at me like I'm crazy and say "I've never had a cat".
I could write a book.
Catharina Geerts 3 months ago
Sometimes stray cats go in a house, so the patient may not have a cat, but she should have seen the s**t
Sara Frazer 3 months ago
I don't wanna sound morbid but the cat was probably trying to eat her 💀
#28
Crime scene cleanup.
Guy was left in the hottub for about a month.
It wasn't pretty. Worst job I've been to.
#29
Working on a guy's computer and he wants help with his pictures I guess so I'm like "OK I need to open your pictures folder, is that cool?" And he says yes, that's what I'm here for, so I do that and he says "HEY". I look at him, he gestures to continue, and I drill down another folder and again he shouts "HEY" so I'm like "Is this not where your pictures are?" and he admits he has tourettes and he can't help saying HEY at random. He's a jazz musician so it probably doesn't affect his work.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
A customer of mine had a brother with TS and asked me if I would clean and organize his flat. My customer warned me that he would suddenly shout out obscenities, but to ignore it. The brother turned out to be a really cool guy with a potty mouth.
Tim Douglass 3 months ago
Had an apartment manager with Tourette's. His tic wasn't verbal though, he would touch his left shirt pocket every few seconds. All his shirts had a noticeable stain or wear from the constant touching. Outside of that he seemed perfectly normal - and appreciated that I cleaned the apartment thoroughly when I moved out so gave back my entire deposit.
#30
Not me but my mom. She's a visiting physical therapist
She used to work in a small city in the area, with some bad areas, and she had to do therapy for a rather overweight guy who was pretty paranoid about the people in his complex (granted most of us would be too) but my mom sat down on the couch and felt something hard underneath the cushion.
She had the guy get what it was, and it was a stick, with a large knife taped to the end. She had almost sat on the knife too. She asked him if there was anything else like that in or around the area she needed to work in, and he managed to remove multiple knives, makeshift spears, and a syringe based weapon. He was HIV positive.
My mom discharged him shortly.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
People who don't live in shady neighborhoods would never understand why residents keep weapons in every room. Not all of us can afford the ridiculous costs of living in a posh, secure neighborhood.
#31
Crazy cat lady had all her previous cats taxidermied.
Upstaged75 3 months ago
Whatever floats your boat I guess? But I'm cool with just the little carved/engraved box that contains my cat's ashes.
Drop Bear from Hell 3 months ago
Yep - knew a couple that had their beagles taxidermized, added a glass top and used it as a coffee table. It was very uncomfortable being around it.
Gregory Garcia 3 months ago
I would have kept my JRT but she died at the start of lockdown.
Load More Replies... #32
I work in catering. The only time i felt weirded out was when we were setting up in the garage of this house and 3 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 for as they put it during the toast " the poor unfortunate colored children".
They did not tip.
#33
First day as a field tech for a cable company. My first real customer looked like Marilyn Manson and an evil wizard had a baby. Black long wavy hair, long finger nails, one glass eye, wearing a long robe. He claims he just came back from a decade long war for our souls. Inside his house smelled like death but the worse part was the crow in the corner. I still think about that crow and how it just stared deep into my soul.
So I go to try to fix the TV and he states that his issue is that certain shrooms makes his TV say his name. He offered me the shrooms so I can verify I said no thanks and left. The crow gawked as I was leaving.
Captive 3 months ago
Don't we all just love to stretch our legs and watch TV after a decade long war for souls?
#34
Police officer, so it's kind of cheating for me.
Back when I was working for a youth corrections/residential program I had to take a kid home for a home visit on Easter (2013), it was a supervised 4 hour visit so I had to stay. This house was in the worst neighborhood in one of the worst cities in the country. It was hot that day, probably low 80s which is hot for this part of the country in the spring.
In this tiny apartment we crammed 14 adults, most of which were extremely obese. Nearly all of them were smoking, and this house probably hadn't been cleaned since the day they had moved in. They still had their heat blasting inside so it was probably closer to 90 degrees. The walls were literally dripping with tar from their cigarettes, I'm sitting there sweating my a*s off and desperately trying not to touch anything while crammed into a couch with three other people. I still hate easter because of that day.
Riley Quinn 3 months ago
For some people, incarceration is a reprieve from the trauma-inducing home they came from. I'm curious if the kid was forced to visit based on some judge's order.
Load More Replies... #35
My helper and I were at an old ladys house working outside for a few hours. When we finished, I went to give her the bill but she was dying on the kitchen floor. I could see it through the window. I went inside and started trying to get her to wake up but she was dead. I called 911 and my helper performed cpr. He brought her back to life, slightly.
10 minutes later the ambulance showed up at the same time as her caregiver, the daughter I think. The caregiver seemed more upset that we performed cpr than anything else. She said the lady had a dnr order and we were not supposed to do cpr on her.
I called my boss to tell him what happened. He says "was this before or after you gave her the bill?" I said before. He said "leave the bill with someone and get to the next call".
Victor Botha 3 months ago
I read this as the guys working outside saw the lady dying when they went to give her the bill for the outside work, not the EMT staff giving a bill.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 3 months ago
Boss had clearly had an empathy bypass. In England at least, unless you’ve seen the DNAR you still start CPR. Had a few cases where paramedics haven’t seen the DNAR/not logged on the system and so have had to commence CPR against the family’s wishes.
Lost Panda 3 months ago (edited)
Same for most medics I believe. Even the military told us that without seeing it (and it had to be notarized), you do it. The DNR will take affect when they are admitted (if they are admitted)
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Ace 3 months ago (edited)
That last comment about the bill struck me. Yeah, we know the American healthcare system sucks, but the idea that you're going to be billed for medics coming out to a death is just shocking. My wife died a few months ago, at our house in France. Her heart had just stopped. I unlocked the front door, called the ambulance then started CPR. First medics arrived in a very short time, seemed like just five minutes, then there was a helicopter, more medics, in the end I think three crews including two actual doctors. They were there for up to an hour, IIRC, but there was nothing they could do. Except for reassuring me that I and they had done everything possible. Total charge Zero. The idea that one might have to think about how you're going to pay, trying to make a decision about whether or not you call an ambulance, is just horrific. The idea that I might have been left wondering if I could have saved her if only I could have afforded it...
Craig Reynolds 2 months ago
Umm, hello? How is a contractor or service person supposed to know about a DNR?
#36
Not my job but I guess I was working. Been divorced for a couple years and I was helping my girlfriend move into a new apartment. I'm putting stuff away in a kitchen drawer and I find a 15 year old photo booth pic of my ex wife and her sister. They looked to be in their early teens.
Just turns out my ex sister in law was the previous tennant and that was her junk drawer.
Edit: Was creepy for about an hour. Showed it to the girlfriend and asked if it was hers. She went to the same high school as me and the ex so it might make sense, nope. It was a basement apartment in a kinda wealthy dude's house so next time I saw him outside I showed him and he confirmed the sister in law was his last renter. Mystery solved!
roddy 3 months ago
The mystery of why his ex-wife's photo was in this unexpected location.
Load More Replies... #37
This is a collection of our business'. Most of these my brother saw personally.
- A guy had pictures of Gillian Anderson from X-Files framed in almost every inch of his house.
- An old guy asked us to come over to his house to sort his TV out. He was in a bathrobe with his todger hanging out. Afterwards co-workers hung large sausages on the front of the employee's van that had to go.
- People's appliances that are meant to be white are utterly black. Witnessed this myself unfortunately. Whole house was covered in swarms of flies in the middle of winter. Dog looked like it wanted to k**l itself. Washing machine & fridge were utterly black. They were only delivered a few months before we had to replace them. I nearly threw up several times from the smell.
- Cooler one. Brother went to a guy's house who had a lot of land. He collected old WW2 vehicles and had a tank or two in his back garden. Showed my bro around.
- Two of our guys went to deliver a washing machine. The family they delivered to had a 20+ year old daughter who had a mental disability, and instead of moving her to another room, they left her in the room with our guys. She went absolutely nuts and started trying to bite their ears off and wrestling them, and eventually tried to strangle them with a chain. One of the guys had to practically bear hug her and move her to another room. Parents just utterly failed to do anything.
- Old woman's washing machine being replaced & the entire machine smelt like s**t. Turns out she was throwing her soiled clothing into the machine with the business still inside. The outlet pipes literally sprayed s**t up the wall when they unplumbed it.
I could write pages going off their collective 60ish years of trade.
Jenny 3 months ago
I thought this might be in the UK, going by the spelling of 'smelt' rather than 'smelled'.
Load More Replies... #38
I sold residential real estate for a couple of years in the mid-80's. I was surprised by the number of homes with no books.
Unkeptwoman 3 months ago
I lived in Kentucky mid-80's. I had to have bookcases made because none of the furniture stores stocked them or sold them.
Beth H 3 months ago
Nah, it’s like going to a house and seeing no personal touches -it’s just unusual.
Load More Replies... #39
I install blinds for a custom blind company. On a job in a nice, if boring townhouse development I was let in to install blinds in a front room. Seemingly normal guy working from home lets me in and I get to work. It's a sparsely furnished place but just assumed he recently moved in, no big deal.
I couldn't find him after 1/2 hour or so and had to go to the restroom so I went to find it. Open a door and he's skinning a human corpse. I freeze. He drops the tools and I take off running. Police came hours later and he was gone but it was a huge crime scene for weeks.
Anthony Elmore 3 months ago
It does seem a bit fantastical to be true. There's no accounting for an unstable person, but if he seemed like a normal person at first, he would have had the mental awareness to wait until the blind repairman was finished to continue skinning. Not to mention, he would have stood watch over the door to ensure the repairmen didn't mistakenly enter the room while looking for a restroom. Even the most skilled of manipulative psychopathic killers have troubles just letting a visitor roam their home.
Load More Replies...
#40
Cable guy here.
- old lady with the dead cat behind her chair. She suffered from dementia and forgot she had one...
- they were using the basement as the dogs toilet during the winter. An inch or two of p**s and s**t covered the basement floor from end to end...
- old dude suffering from a blood cancer, tells me his wife died suddenly, of cancer, and he wants to stop his treatment so he can 'go be with her again'
- hooking up internet for a bunch of first year college girls. One asks me if they can get free tv. I say no. She says 'how about now?' and lifts her top up, showing me a very beautiful set of breasts (the answer was still 'no, but thank you').
- dude answers the door wearing a (clean) diaper, and nothing else. Ok, fine. I start setting up his phone, internet, and TV. He disappears into his bedroom, gone the whole time. I have to shout, loudly, letting him know I'm done and I have to explain a few things to him, so he comes out, still wearing just the diaper, but it's no longer clean. He's shat himself, and it's running down his legs. The smell...
- one place made my trainee throw up as soon as the front door opened.
I've been doing it for 10 years, I love my job, and I love the stories I get out of it!
Craig Reynolds 2 months ago
I worked for a cable company for about 6 years, a few decades ago. The one call I will never forget is a mobile home, the trailer type. I can smell the cat pee as I knock on the door. When I walk in, the carpet is saturated, and with each step, cat pee pools up around my work boot soles. The DVR cable box was not working because it was kept on that cat pee-soaked carpet and shorted out. When I replaced it, it was dripping. I put the new unit on a shelf under the TV stand. They told me to put it on the floor! I refused and explained why. They yelled at me to GTFO, which I happily did. They called to complain. When I explained the situation to my supervisor, he noted the file and said not to worry about it. We did keep trash bags in our van for units that have cockroaches in them, so I used one of those. BTW: Cockroaches were far too common.
#41
Two different houses stick out in my head. The weird parts both involved their bathrooms.
1. They had a floor-to-ceiling liquor cabinet impeccably stocked (anything you could think of) and ordered (all labels facing out) in their bathroom directly opposite their sink.
2. The three walls surrounding the showerheadless bathtub were covered in photos of their adolescent and teen children.
Eugenio Nieto G. 3 months ago
May be the doctor says that they had to put a bar in the bathroom...
Craig Reynolds 2 months ago
That would be one heck of a misunderstanding of a Doctor's orders...
Load More Replies... #42
I used to go to mentally ill people's houses to check on them. I was always surprised I *didn't* see a lung on the floor the way one of them coughed. But the creepiest thing I saw was nicotine goo running down the aluminum parts of the windows and sliding glass door from all the smoking they did.
#43
I was in an apartment after the tenants moved out, they left their junk. I was working there alone. They had a bunch of these heads, but the book really seals the deal.
https://imgur.com/a/4vQgi.
Multa Nocte 3 months ago
Here is the photo that should have been attached: Accompanyi...33fd87.jpg 
What do you think ?
Rebecca O’Donnell 2 months ago
These stories were very interesting, if not down right gross. Makes me appreciate what I have and where I live. :)
Rebecca O’Donnell 2 months ago
These stories were very interesting, if not down right gross. Makes me appreciate what I have and where I live. :)
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