30 Unusual And Disturbing Things These People Saw At Someone Else’s House
Interview With AuthorYour home might be your castle, you might know all the ins and outs and nooks and crannies, but it takes a visitor with a fresh set of eyes to show you how peculiar your home and your lifestyle might be! What you think is completely fine and acceptable might turn out to be very odd indeed, when viewed from an outsider’s perspective. Don’t believe us? Hopefully, these stories will change your mind.
Today, we’re featuring two threads shared on the r/AskReddit subreddit, one started up by u/LiterallyEkam and one by u/User_Not_Found_78457, about the weirdest, most peculiar, and downright bizarre things people have seen while visiting people’s homes. Things that are so far from normal, it’s mindblowing they didn’t realize what they were doing was stranger than strange.
Hold on tight because we’re about to go down the rabbit hole, Pandas. These thrilling tales look like they belong in The Twilight Zone, so Bored Panda reached out to Ekam, aka u/LiterallyEkam, to have a chat about their viral thread. They were kind enough to answer a few of my questions. Scroll down to read what they had to say and why we shouldn’t be so quick to get rid of all of our quirks.
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Slept over at a friend’s when I was around 10. She was the only girl in her family, and had five brothers (whose ages ranged from like 4 to 15).
Everything about my friend’s room/sleeping situation was normal. But her brothers’ room was bizarre. They shared one big room, with three bunk beds. Each mattress a fitted sheet, a pillow, and nothing else. No top sheets, no blankets, no comforters. Also, the boys didn’t have pajamas. They all just slept in the clothes they had worn that day - with their shirts tucked into their pants, and belts on, too. Their room didn’t have a door, and neither did their connected bathroom or their closets.
Turns out they were fundamentalist Christians, and the boys’ setup was meant to prevent m*sturbation.
I was going to say "what the utter fk" too
Load More Replies...Well this is the perfect way to turn those boys into weird creepy perverts or sexual offenders later in life :(
She's going to have to deal with all the fundamentalist Christian sh*t about her gender soon enough. Don't tell them about the masturbation so she can escape that part of their non-sense
Load More Replies...And ignorance, and war, and persecution, and genocide.
Load More Replies...This just makes me feel sick. It's a basic human right to have somewhere warm and comforting to sleep. Which is denied to so many. This family had the means to at least give those boys a warm, comfortable place to sleep, but chose to humiliate and neglect them because of their own extremist views.
The authorities would be investigating this very odd setup in my country.
As soon as I saw "fundamentalist Christian", it all clicked together. No religious zealotry is quite as backwards and damaging as that particular branch of "fundamentalism"!
They let the cat walk on the table during meals and eat off of people's plates.
When I gently nudged the cat away from my plate the mom went off on me for "interfering with the free will of a sentient being". I was terrified. She was screaming and furious. I was maybe 10 at the time.
I ADORE my cats and do give them tiny tastes of safe people food. They are well cared for and have free run of most of our house. But they aren't allowed on the damn table. (Which means they only do it when we aren't looking, lol.)
Oh yuck. I once visited a cat breeder that I wanted a kitten from and she had coffee creamer in an open container on the table and the cats would jump up and lick from it. And then she'd get coffee and use the creamer from the container! I did NOT get a kitten from her.
Especially seeing as coffee creamer isn't good for cats, as they are usually lactose intolerant.
Load More Replies...the irony is obviously lost on her by telling you to not interfere with a sentient being is exactly what she is doing
Some people seem to believe that cats can't be trained to understand the word ''NO''. Now say you've taken in a stray who has no idea that a stove top can be dangerous......Most cats also know their name, which can be a life saver if you need to call kittie in the house when your neighbor's pitbull has escaped.
Our cat joins us for Sunday lunch. We set a place and he sits in a chair eating cut-offs from the roast. We use a plastic plate because he sometimes gets excited and drags it off the table. We've also taught him to sit before he gets food. And he asks for a cat treat by meowing twice so it sounds like he saying "biscuit". He's the politest cat I know.
My little parrot eats at the table with my husband and I, but not in front of company. Birdy’s trained to eat from a plate and clean his mouth on a napkin. His table manners aren’t perfect - he bangs his plate when he wants more food, and he’s not above stealing from my plate if I get up to get something from the kitchen!
Still sounds like your little parrot has more manners than a lot of people so you're doing great!
Load More Replies...I would say “I understand your position and I respect that. As a sentient being it is my free will to give this godddamn cat an uppercut if it tries to take my nuggets again”. But she was only 10 so…🤷♂️
I visited a elderly lady and she gave me a cup of tea and a piece of cake. She put my plate on the floor for the dog to lick clean, then put the plate in the cupboard without washing it.
A sentiend being who just licked it's own butt minute ago.I love cats, but I do not share food with them.
My friend and I all went to our rich friend’s house to play. Then they said they needed to do something and would be back in an hour. So we all just played in the room and waited. Turns out the entire family had lunch and just locked us up in the room so they wouldn’t have to feed us. Once we found out we all felt hurt and decided to never play at their house again.
Why is it that the people with the most available to share are the most determined to keep it all for themselves?
That's how they end up with the most stuff! Sharing means they have less.
Load More Replies...Now I'm used to skipping lunch, because I don't eat much. But locking children in a room without food? Vile. Absolutely vile.
This is how many wealthy families are, they have no understanding of sharing equally.... even if it's your last bite. Same with tipping, working folk tip better than rich people.
In their opinion if people don't like it they can just get better jobs. But then they'd have no one to walk on.
Load More Replies..."And this, my kid, is how we became rich. Be as stingy, selfish and petty as you can, never offer anything to anyone outside the close family, and you'll rule the world".
I once went to party with buch of people. They invited lady from very rich family. She was fine, friendly, until we decided to get some snack. In our group, everyone bought something and shared with others. She did not buy anything, just pulled everything on table to herself and ate it, like she way here alone.. We went to buy another food- and situation repeared. Before evening ended, she threw up, nauseous from all the food she ate. She tried to take leftovers home and was dissapointed that we didn't left much. Didn't spend a cent entire evening. I later learned she was known for this behaviour.
this isn't entitlement this is literal child negelction like locking people up in their room just because you don't want to feed your daughter n freinds. WTF is wrong with people
I think it was only the other kids who came to play was excluded.. horrible ppl.. our parents would have starved and served the guests first. Even if they showed up unannounced..
Load More Replies...Redditor u/LiterallyEkam revealed to Bored Panda the inspiration behind their question on r/AskReddit that netted them over 66.2k upvotes. They saw an incredibly bizarre situation while visiting a friend and this got them thinking about how we all see things very differently.
“The event that inspired me to post the question was when I saw something I would not consider normal at a friend's house. I saw my friend kiss his dog on the lips and when I asked him about it he thought it was something other people did normally,” they told me.
Obviously, the redditor found this behavior very weird (and odds are that many of you Pandas do, too). “I had seen others kiss their dog but not directly on the lips in the way I saw. I found this peculiar and I wanted to find out if others have had similar experiences.”
According to Ekam, they never expected their thread to get so popular. “I didn't think there would be many people who had such interesting stories,” they complimented their fellow Reddit users for being honest and sharing their experience with everyone else.
Went to friends house as a kid. Sitting at the dinning table for lunch. House phone rings. Everyone falls to the floor around me including the mum and dad. I'm the only one left sitting there. The dad informs me that I now must answer the phone. "Hello... Johnson's house". I hold the phone out to the dad. "Ummm it's for you". Everyone laughs. I am so uncomfortable. The next time that phone rang. I was the fastest to the floor I can tell you that. Such a fun loving family. Loved going around there!
LOL I would just answer the phone and have fun with that! "I'm sorry they can't come to the phone right now, there's been an earthquake..."
Then you must have been a much more witty child than I was
Load More Replies...This one is indeed the best for positivity. A nutty family having fun together. Great.
Load More Replies...This happened to me, not it literally sense. But.... I was at my sister's inlaws house for the first time. 6 members in family, landlines phone rings nobody answers, rings again no one answers again. This happens 4th time and I'm like " why isn't anyone answering the God darn phone inspite of it being at arms length. Brotherinlaw answer " can you hear it?" Me " ofcourse can't you?" He response "then time next it rings answer it", and like on cue it rings again. I answer on first bell and the caller is a credit card payment recovery officer. Apparently their landlines is used only for credit cardpaymenys or loans payment number, otherwise mobile phone. Smart.
Yeah but then they should have turned off the ringer so that it's quiet at least.
Load More Replies...This post was the only one that doesn't seem wrong like the others. I like it
Friend’s amputee grandpa demanded to watch everyone in the bathroom when they went. He had a mirror so he could watch you. When I didn’t fall for that, they put shampoo in my hair so I’d have to take a shower. Noped the F out and called my mom. Friend didn’t think it was odd.
What the actual actual f**k f**k f**k f**k f**k?!!! What the f*****g hell! Excuse my language but what the actual downright utter, absolute, bona fide, fuckity f*****g f**k
Load More Replies...I need to get off of this website before my last braincells mutiny
I hope the second and third phone call was to the police and CPS respectively. (child services)
One of the first times I met my husband's family, I was over at their house and husband gestured for me to sit down and be comfortable. Their house was really very cluttered. Not quite hoarder cluttered, but close. They had a couple of couches facing each other and then some other chairs. Not knowing the 'rules,' I sat on one of the couches, which had a lot of stuffed teddy bears on it. OMG, you would think I had sat down on live bears. There were probably 20-30 small - medium stuffed bears on this couch. Husband's mother and twin brother both visibly reacted as if I had damaged the bears. (Not antique bears either). That was when I was told that the couch was for the bears, and only for the bears and that no one was allowed to sit on the bears' couch. Just the bears. The bears all had little beaded necklaces with their names on them to tell them apart because they were all the same brand and style.
couldn't they have a (cub)oard just for them? I'll see myself out.
Load More Replies...Sounds like she failed to run away and doubled down instead. Send a prayer
Load More Replies...I was on board until "the couch was for the bears"....I mean it was weird before that but I was giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I actually know a couple of adults who fill their houses with stuffed animals. They are nice and perfectly sane, good people, they just have an odd hobby. One likes to sit in rhe lap of her giant teddy bear, and who can argue with that.
What is the Teddy Bear holding in his lap?? 😁
Load More Replies...They never said the husband was in on it. Just the mom and twin brother. For all we know the husband might be the only sane one.
Load More Replies...I was very curious to get Ekam’s take on why people don’t recognize peculiar behaviors for what they are and what we can do to take a more objective glance at our own daily habits.
In Ekam’s view, it’s all about building habits that we no longer think about. “I think that people grow up seeing and doing these behaviors which they perceive as normal because they are used to it,” they told me, adding that some folks might simply not have been taught that it’s something other people do.
Ekam said that expanding our social circle and experiencing different lifestyles can help us get a different perspective on our own lives. “The only way to be self-aware of our quirks is to spend more time around other people and learn their behaviors.”
Just because we’re different, however, doesn’t mean that we should automatically aim to readjust to what we see as ‘normal’ and usual. Doing so would mean that we’d give up what makes us unique. What makes us individuals. What makes us… well, ‘us.’
“I don't think people should aim to iron out their quirks. It's what makes us different, and unless it's damaging to others, we should accept each other for it,” Ekam said that the only habits we should consider changing are the ones that actually harm others.
More of an attitude. I remember waving the cigarette smoke away from my face and her dad saying not to because it was "rude". I was prob 8 or 9 at the time and I grew up in a smoke free home so someone blowing smoke in my direction wasn't at all normal to me. And worst, somehow I was the rude one.
this depends on when you grew up...ones upon a time people would just smoke everywhere and it wasn't weird at all...inside with kids and all...although I cringe at 70's movies with people smoking inside the hospital
This is certainly what I grew up with, but there were also rules, like don't blow smoke at people, and if a guest is uncomfortable with the smoke, you stop smoking inside while they're there. Trouble set in, where I'm at, when laws were enacted to protect people from second-hand smoke - it was like half the state went tribal with it. Even my kindly old great-aunt got militant about it.
Load More Replies...Nowadays when cigarettes are 10$ a pack or more. It feels rude not to inhale that free lung cancer. Luckily though I quit a month ago. Very expensive and damning habit.
Yes, I used to get that a lot when I first came to Spain. People would smoke at the table while you were still eating, and to add insult to injury, call ME rude for waving it away! It's taken years and a huge shift in awareness for people to stop smoking right on top of non-smokers.
I was in a fight with a woman that was sitting next to me at an outdoor cafeteria and was holding her cigarette next to my face because the smoke was annoying her friend!!! So she decided to annoy me! And when i spoke she had the nerve to tell me to move! I threw the cigarette off her hand and we were very close to hitting each other before the waiters interfered!
Load More Replies...I see all smokers are out in full force downvoting anyone who says something against it. Either way, doesn’t change the fact that it’s a disgusting habit all around and I want no part of it. Stay very far away from me if you smoke.
I smoke(unfortunately) I started way too young and then made increasingly bad choices. So I fought other worse addictions first but now I want to tackle smoking. I hate it but Its so hard to stop. Anyways I completely agree with pretty much everything non smokers say about it. It stinks, it's gross, and the least we can do is try to be polite about it. I don't believe in smoking around my children or anyone else's, even if they do. If I smoke in public I am sure to step far away from everyone so that they cannot even smell my cigarette. It's just the respectful, right thing to do. I made the dumbass choice to pick up a habit that destroys my body and that was my mistake. If other people have never smoked or quit than I am happy for them and it's not right for me to expose them to my smoke.
Load More Replies...How dare you make somebody else realize how inconsiderate they are to their guests!
I find that is a common mind frame of smokers. At least in my region. There's no smoking regulations that are often ignored and you're the rude one if you tell them to scram. They'll mock you if you cough or show any respiratory distress. Doesn't help that the local news did a skewed story saying "too many people are unnecessarily diagnosed with asthma and given puffers." Thanks. After that people really didn't take anyone's respiratory health serious.
My friend had ANTS in her bed. They were crawling all over the headboard, pilows, sheets, blanket, just everywhere. she got offended when i started to kill some of them. remind you, we were having a sleepover. never again.
I had a sleep over with a friend when I was younger and her house has roaches and mice EVERYWHERE. I faked being sick and called my mom to come get me.
I never had any experience with roaches until i went overseas. I heard a noise like thumpy thump thump. This bug sounded like it had boots on. I didn't know what it was never seen one before. Got an awful shock. Horrible things
Load More Replies...That poor girl probably felt so self conscious at it being pointed out 😔 I don't think she was offended at the ants being killed, moreso that her friend wouldn't have found her bed to be "acceptable". Sad situation all around...
Did you read about that story where a woman had several dead and alive ants in her ears? It turned out she ate cookies in bed, the crumbs got in her ears and attracted the ants. Wonder why I had to think of this so suddenly....
I wonder why i had to read that before i go to sleep!!!!
Load More Replies...It must have had crubles on it as well, otherwise why would the ants go there? Crrrriiingeee
There's nothing worse than getting crubles in your bed.
Load More Replies...That's why I never eat in bed. Ok, I lied. That's why I vacuum my bedroom daily. Ok, not true either. That's why I make sure to get all the crumbs out of bed. That's it.
Here's an "I was that family" story. My Godmother (who was practically an aunt) ran a fairly successful daycare out of her home in the 90s. She was a first generation immigrant to the US, whose parents came to the New England area from Ireland. My two younger brothers and I spent a lot of time at her home and I was generally the oldest child there. When I was about 8 years old, she started to have me make her her favorite drink. Gin and tonic. She drank these ALL DAY, while running her home daycare. At age 8 I knew...how to mix cocktails, that forks were better for stirring than spoons, and that large plastic bottles of gin were cheap and low quality. This went on for years, on pretty much a daily basis, until my family moved out west. My Godmother kept her daycare running until she died (I'm sure of health problems relating to alcohol). I was 15 when she passed and I'm in my 30's now. I honestly went most of my life thinking NOTHING of it until I became a father a couple of years ago. At which point I was like... "How the f**k did anyone let her have a daycare?"
is good to learn a trade early, there are probably plenty of daycare centers that'd need a good bartender
You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a daycare center with a good bartender.
Load More Replies...Gaelic's, we have the ability to be drunk as a skunk and still function with full compos mentis. We're professional drinkers.
For a good portion of my growing up years I thought the glass of water she always had on the tv tray next to her hair rollers was to wet her hair. A lot of years later, realized you don't need two glasses of "Water" to set your hair in rollers.
Makes sense to me, but my dad was this type of functioning alcoholic. He actually drove better half in the bag than dead sober since he paid extra attention and didn't speed, otherwise he had a lead foot. And for the record he was a truck driver both local and long haul. Just had to remember never to take a sip from his thermos.
However, at the end of the day, we really should be putting our own comfort and happiness first, not that of our guests and acquaintances. At least according to relationship and dating expert Dan Bacon, from The Modern Man project. Recently, he told me that it’s impossible to please everyone with the way you have your home designed and organized, so instead of stressing about this, we should be unapologetically ourselves.
"A man’s home is part of what people initially use to judge his social status and character. However, how he behaves and acts with the people who come over to his place says so much more about him," Dan told Bored Panda that our homes and how we act greatly contribute to how people look at us.
"A man might have a perfectly tidy, well-designed, and stylish home, but be very nervous and try too hard to impress people who come over. So, rather than seeing him as a cool, confident, successful man they can admire and look up to, most people just perceive him as a nervous, insecure guy with a nice place. Alternatively, they may see him as a guy who tries hard to please others with material things because he's insecure about himself and doesn't feel good enough in their eyes,” Dan explained to Bored Panda.
I'm going to say Medium Rare chicken. Had dinner at my friends house when I was 10. They said the blood made it delicious, I tried to politely ask if I could microwave it a little longer, which offended them and resulted in a lecture of how they ate people during WWII in Romania and how lucky I was to have medium rare chicken...
You also get the privilege of spending lots of time on the porcelain throne at best.
If not the hospital or morgue. Salmonella isn't something anyone would ever want to get.
Load More Replies...We're not in WWII in Romania now are we? If the chicken ain't white I ain't taking a bite.
During WWII in Romania people eat much and well, Romania was a rich, happy country and German soldiers (Romania's allies until 23rd of August 1944) were sending home a lotta food not available in the Third Reich. Our BIIIG problems started after WWII, under the Soviet occupation, andthey last during all the communist regime, until 1990...
I get the feeling these people might have been Romas or other "undesirables". Some people ate well, I am sure, some didn;t and some other were sent where eating was no longer a problem.
Load More Replies...That can make you extremely ill. If you know better, say no thanks.
I'm surprised a 10 year old knows that actually! I don't think i knew that at that age but i would have found it weird for sure
Load More Replies...I’m a very old man, and it’s just now that I’m realizing how many complete whackos there are in this world!
My grandparents told me stories about WWII, it was hard for my grandpa on the battling field and they are corn at some point since they didn't have or find anything else. Definitely not people. Why on Earth would you threaten children with what was going on in Romania 60-70 years ago?!?!
Ah posh. Thats probably the same kind of tale like "when I was your age, I went to school on foot. It was x miles in knee deep snow, uphill, both ways!"
Load More Replies...
They had a room where they would just let their dog crap on the floor. It didn't look like it was cleaned often.
Yeah..I stayed at a house in Sydney earlier this year and they had a similar room but for three pet cats. It had one small litter box and the poor cats just pooped in a line along the wall. So...beyond words gross.
Same thing, woke up to watch cat pooping on the bed.
Load More Replies...
I am doing part time freelance nursing atm. One of the cases i attended was a rather large house in the middle of nowhere for an elderly man. When i was let in by his caretaker, i saw the old man lying in a box which was disguised as a bed. I was told it was because the family knew he was on his last legs and eventually he will pass on so the box was his pre-coffin for the undertaker to take to the parlour and its a norm for their family to do this. Creepy but that wasnt even the worst part, while i was waiting for the antibiotic drip to complete, i looked out the window and saw the backyard of the house, all the coffins of deceased family members were all above ground and you could open the window to see them in the coffins,preserved from the day they died. They were only lowered into the grave once the decomposition begun despite the preservatives. Apparently, it was part of their beliefs and family traditions.
Isn't it illegal to burry someone anywhere else than the graveyard? in my country at least it is.
In my country this preserving and keeping in the back yard would be illegal too
Load More Replies...Honestly i dont mind the above-ground coffins, but putting a live person in a pre-coffin is horrible
I just feel bad for this man, not sleeping on a mattress and a proper comfortable bed in his last days. Yes, you could add padding to the wood (shudder) but it's not the same. Hard and possibly a tight fit as well. Whether or not he was aware that his family thought these were his last days, he should have been made comfortable.
Perhaps this is as close as the could get to giving their loved ones a sky burial? I can imagine that if that you believe the soul needs to reconnect with a sacred realm and it is important to you that you last act of generosity is to feed other life, the idea of being pumped full of toxic chemicals and shoved into the dark earth below the layer of active life must be dreadful. Ditto the thought that your death adds even more pollution and increases deforestation if cremated. We should not be quick to judge others' funeral beliefs: They bring enormous comfort to both the dying and their families.
Part of being a good host, however, means letting others speak. We shouldn’t be hogging all of the attention when we have guests over. "Remember that most people care more about themselves than other people. So, allow people to talk about themselves, rather than always trying to be the center of attention,” the expert said.
"Also remember to not try to oversell yourself or your place, to hopefully gain people’s approval. Be confident and secure in who you are as a person and let your surroundings provide additional clues about who you are and how you approach life."
The expert stressed the fact that we should always do whatever we want when it comes to our homes. We have to feel happy where we live, not focus on trying to impress everyone. So while some people might thrive only in tidy and perfectly clean environments, others can be confident in more of a messy home.
So my friend's family has a shrine for her grandma, when I first saw I was like “oh, she probably passed and this is a way to commemorate her” (since we also have a little “shrine” for my grandma). I was on Facetime with her later on that night when I got home and asked about it, and turns out that her grandma is VERY much alive and healthy. She explained that she thinks her family is a cult with her grandma as the leader and idk every time I go to her house I freak out just a tiny bit
RIGHT?? I am getting some strong "Midsommar" vibes here...lol
Load More Replies...Maybe her grandma is the greatest person alive and needs to be worshipped.
I grew up as a Jehovah's witness and my mom pushed me to be friends with people within the religion. One girl was only allowed to talk to people within the religion so she was homeschooled. She was was allowed to watch one movie or one tv show a day rated g-pg with approval. Three of us, aged 16, watched Lion King 2 then her parents made us go to bed at 730 in the summer. She also wasn't allowed to have any posters on her wall as that was viewed as idol worship. Her parents came in to "approve" our prayers for the night. I left feeling super bad for her.
This is just torturing the kid...no posters...approving prayers...7:30?!?!
I had to sing 7 songs, read 7 psalms and do 7 approved prayers whenever I misbehaved. Asking too many questions was considered as misbehaving because you were now labeled as a troublemaker. Once I graduated high school, I moved away for school and never looked back
Load More Replies...It's a cruel cult. There is a YouTube channel called Telltale that is run by a former JW and he talks about a lot of things related to the JWs and other cults.
Being an atheist, I have never had the experience of living with a religion. But this level takes it a bit too far.
I made friends with a woman who was a Jehovah's Witness as i went to her flat to learn to read music. She was a violinist and had no problem with me being an adult learner. I didn't mind her talking about her religion at first but it soon became ALL we talked about. I would come in, pay for the lesson and then have her spend most of the lesson time talking about her religion. I soon left and the friendship ended as she told me that she could only be friends with someone who was part of the Jehovah's Witness religion or willing to join. I was not. I have an uncle who is a priest. If I need to talk to someone about God, I'll talk to him. I don't need to pay someone to do it. Especially when I am there to do something else.
Hm, yeah, my mom used to be a Jehovah's Witness with her sisters because her mom, my grandmother, made them participate in the religion. My mom doesn't like to talk about it much, but she has countless stories about her experience during her time in the religion. She says it was very cult-like in many, many ways. We're evangelists now :p
Ha this is weird because today I just learned my best friend is in this cult.
My friend had nine siblings, and whenever we ate at their house, he always told me to 'protect my food.' He literally covered his plate by surrounding it with his arms. His brothers kept stealing food from the younger ones, and their parents didn't do anything to stop them! It was just normal.
I grew up in Utah and some of the kids I went to school with had BIG families. Like upwards of 20 siblings big. They ALL guarded their food like this.
That's...rather depressing. Cant imagine not being able to enjoy my food in peace for fear of my family taking it.
Load More Replies...When he goes to take food off your plate, stab his hand with your fork/knife/chopsticks. Even if he needs to bleed, he'll learn the lesson. If he doesn't stop, stab him properly when no one's looking. He'll eventually learn, or be dead.
Ross: "I grew up with Monica - if you didn't eat fast, you didn't eat!!"
My wife is from a 4 sibling family. When I met her, eating was a race. If you didn't eat fast, the food would be gone before you were full. Things slowed down to the point that now our kids take 45 minutes of grazing to eat.
"If you enjoy placing a lot of importance on your home because it means a lot to you, then do that. If you only see it as a place to live and want to focus your attention on other things, you should do that. You can never impress or please everyone, no matter what you do. Just look at celebrities as an example. They have millions of people who love them and millions who hate them,” Dan said.
"The same applies to your home. You will never make it, furnish it or arrange it in a way where everyone loves you for it and wishes they had it. Some people will love it, others will like it and some will hate it. So, just enjoy doing what you want to do. That’s the only way you’ll truly be happy."
My brother (about 6 at the time) came home from a friend's house upset and confused and my mom figured out that the kids' parents had been watching p**n openly in front of the kids. Needless to say, he wasn't allowed back.
Okay I know I’m commenting the same thing as I did on another post but WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKITY F*****G FUCKY F**K F**K HELL? WHAT KIND OF- I-IDONT UNDERSTNAD WHAT-WHY THE F**K-
Load More Replies...That's one to report -- or at the very least, have a conversation with the kids' parents about. Watching porn in front of minors is a classic grooming technique. If the parents were doing it on purpose, that's super concerning. If they're naive, hopefully a conversation will knock some sense into them. You don't do that. They're putting their kids at risk.
Hit the nail on the MFing head! That is NOT appropriate behavior in any way, shape, or form. That's most definitely worth a call to child services.
Load More Replies...Was going to comment that, and is a potential red flag for physical sexual abuse.
Load More Replies...Kids should NEVER, NEVER, a thousand times NEVER be exposed to porn! It gives them totally unrealistic ideas about sex and encourages them to try certain activities before they are old enough, both physically and mentally.
My first sitting job was for a boy and a girl, ages 6 and 4, respectively. The house was disgusting. They kept taking off their clothes and humping each other and shouting while they were doing it. I would get them dressed, but they kept doing it over and again. When my mom picked me up 3 hours later, I was visibly shaking and couldn’t even speak. I was only 12, and didn’t even understand what they were doing. I can’t even imagine what their parents were exposing them to. Reading this gave me flashbacks!
Jesus, those children must have been horribly sexually abused. And you must have been so terrified and overwhelmed. I hope they were rescued and received lots of love and support and space to heal from whatever they went through, and I hope you've been able to heal too from witnessing such disturbing trauma symptoms in younger children when you were still a child yourself
Load More Replies...I would have HIT. THE. CEILING. Completely inappropriate and gross....
Um, that's actually strait up considered child abuse and DHS should be involved.
Saw my friend spit in their house, straight onto the carpet. I didn't go back.
OMG I knew a guy who used to do this, it was horrific. When I'd look disgusted he'd say "it makes the carpet grow". Weird people be weird.
Ew I had a girlfriend in middle school who did this at her house and others'! I was so grossed out by that behavior 🤢
They let the dogs and cats into the basement to go to the bathroom even though they had a fenced in back yard. The whole house smelled, even the kids when they went to school.
I know people that do this and I honestly don't understand it. I have 4 cats and 2 dogs. My life is filled with cleaning up animal messes. I know how bad my house smells when I get sick and skip just 2 days of "pet maintenance". I won't even go in said people's house. I don't want to know.
I don't know who I feel worse for, the animals stuck in that filth or those poor kids who are also stuck in that filth 😔
I have one cat, two litter boxes. Clean them every day. Don't understand people that think cleaning a litter box is a weekly or monthly chore.
On an unrelated note, you should get another cat. Cats aren't solitary animals and need company of another cat at least...
Load More Replies...That sounds like my mother in law's house and I assure you, you can absolutely smell it from the street.
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Had a friend who’s family lived on a huge property and kept cows for the property tax exemption, not odd.. he told me to come by and get some purple ringers he collected for me.. invited me in to meet his parents and I swear to god, there was a fullsize cow chilling on one of their couches in the livingroom. That sight was way more wild than any of the hallucinations later experienced. Really nice people though lol..
Once the house didn't smell and the place was clean...can I pet the cow? Lol
Our pasture was attached to the back of the house, basically built the fence so that it was attached to the house itself. The back of the house was the Master bedroom and the bed was put under the window. So, we would snuggle up in the bed, open the window, and our horse would put his head in and lay it on the pillows. So movie night was always spent in bed with popcorn and carrots. I miss sleeping with a horse head on my pillow, and not in the God Father kind of way, the adorable kind of way.
Purple ringers are mushrooms grown from cow manure if anyone is wondering.
When I get an bigger apartment I'll kick the dog out and bring the cow in
There have been multiple times when my family had to keep a calf in the kitchen, but only newborns when the temperature drops low enough to kill them. Bad ice storms tend to freeze calves' ears off.
I had a friend when I was 13-14 who’s family didn’t speak at all when they ate dinner. The first time I ate there I tried to make conversation and got a super weird glare and shake of the head from the mom. After dinner was done everyone would just go back to doing whatever. I remember thinking at the time while I ate in awkward silence “why would anyone want to eat like this everyday? I come from a family of 8 where dinners were chaos so maybe I was conditioned too far the other way.
That was actually a tradition Iin parts of Britain and Ireland, I think it died out during the 20th century. But yes, not that long ago, there were places where everyone considered it rude to talk over a meal.
No wonder their food is so bland, you can't ask people to pass salt
Load More Replies...Right?! I have always admired my ex MiL and the fact that every single evening, at 6 pm, there was a fully home cooked meal with several sides waiting on the table for her husband, kids, and whoever else happened to be there for dinner. Conversation was the entire point of having everyone around the table together. A dinner in sullen silence would be absolutely depressing.
Load More Replies...Similar thing when I was a kid. First meal at a friend’s house, I’m yakking away and thought my friend was oddly quiet. When he finally responded to me, his dad snapped, “Richard. The table is for eating, not for talking.” I knew Rich for years after that. His dad was a f*cking a**hole.
In my house, if you're under the age of 18, you don't talk when eating. At all. Doing so would actually result in punishment. Up until literally right now, I didn't know that it was weird to have dead silent meals.
Wow. Yeah, this is one of the first times I am learning that people eat in silence. On purpose. Is there a reason?
Load More Replies...I lived across the street from such a family, whose two daughters I was friends with. Ate dinner there once. Not a single sound at the table except for chewing. It was creepy, especially since my parents were academics, and dinner table conversation was always lively and interesting.
it's common in some places to eat quietly, you are suppose to just eat, sometimes to get kids to eat the full plate...I think it was more common some more religious households, until mid 20th century.
Look, every family have their rituals and habits. Fine. But if your ritual is perfectly silent dinnertime, the least you can do is tell a guest beforehand, not shake your head in disapproval. They had to know that their little ritual is not shared by 99.99999% of the population.
Misophonia. It's my foolproof excuse for not ever being around other people when they eat, unless they'd like stabbed in the face with a fork.
yeah I have that too but it is super specific - namely, people smacking their lips. Fortunately no one in my family does it.
Load More Replies...I'm 71, and grew up in a house in the north of England where talking during meals was forbidden.
in my house, it's diffiuclt. my dad grew up not talking during meals but my mum grew up talking through meals, so he gets annoyed because she talks, she gets annoyed because he wont. i like to talk during a meal, so i just talk to mum and try to leave dad alone as much as i can.
A friend in high school had all the normal pictures in the hallway. Family in various places/vacations etc. But there was one of his dad on a pier with a fishing pole. On closer inspection hanging at the end of the pole, like a large fish he had just caught, was HIS MOTHER! Fully nude and hanging upside down. Just like a fish. My friend refused to talk about the picture.
If it was the friends mother that's really funny. If it was the dads mother that's sick
There has to be a story behind that, and it probably involves Photoshop.
15 years ago. Visit a friend house who live in san Francisco around 3rd street (bad neighborhood area) . Upon entering pass by the kitchen 4 gas stove flame was in full blast not cooking anything, no vent, you can literally see a big burn hole in the ceiling all the way thru the 2nd floor room. His mom was upstairs one of those rooms far away from the bottom floor kitchen, watching tv in full blast. Long story short. They are basically using their gas stove as a centralize heater for the whole house. Im a certified fire safety director at my work. This almost gives me a heart attack.
I had a friend whose family left the oven on and open in the winter to heat the kitchen; I asked if they left the fridge open in the summer to cool it
This is, unfortunately, not that unusual. Lived next door to a woman who did this. I moved out ASAP.
OMG - reminded me when I lived in a very old Chicago house with those gas heaters. They are basically gas stoves with gas burning behind a grill. I was so scared of them that I'd rather sleep in my coat than turn it on myself. Always had to rely on my roommates to do that.
Went to a sleepover at this girls house and her mom was obsessively taking pictures of us all night. At one point, we were watching a movie and my friend passed out and her mom , I s**t you not, pulls out a huge newscast-type heavy duty camera and starts recording her daughter sleeping for a solid 5 minutes . I have trouble sleeping and so that night when us kids were in the bedroom to sleep, I was on the floor, just staring at the wall in the dark. I was facing away from the door, laying on my side. I hear the door creak...some footsteps and then the darkness of the room lit with a sudden flash. I got up just in time to see the door close. I know it was her mom taking pics of us. The weirdest part to me is that it was about 3am when that happened...meaning the girl's mom either had an alarm or just stayed up that late in wait....
That is weird as s**t. Maybe just trying to take pics, but still creepy, especially of someone else
Yeah my imagination went wild and none of my assumptions is something positive or legal
Load More Replies...This is absolutely weird and strange behavior...however, without further information, I'm not sure I'm ready to read too much into this beyond "mom wants pics for posterity". Childhood slips by so very fast and if this was before we all had cellphones with cameras built-in, preserving those memories would have taken considerably more OBVIOUS effort than, say, holding your phone straight and tapping on it surreptitiously while the kids play on.
Yeah some people are just like that. When I (rarely) had sleepovers, my sister sometimes used a whole roll of film just taking photos of me and my friends. Which is weird but now she's the sort of person who takes 100 photos of what she did in a day.
Load More Replies...Just an idea that immediately popped into my head - has she maybe lost a sibling or even an older child before? And later regretted not having each and every moment on film to always remember? Things like that can make people act strange...
I read this as obsessively recording her daughter bc she might not get sleepovers due to a lack of friends. I thought it was sad, actually.
Load More Replies...This happened when I was like, 6. I needed to use the bathroom at a friend’s house and he led me to his parent’s bathroom. The place was filled with crap of all sorts. Boxes, magazines, an inflatable pool, lots of other stuff. You could barely get in there. He pulled out a drawer from the installed cabinet by the entry way and said to pee in there. I thought he was joking until he went ahead and peed in there himself. I couldn’t argue with that, so I too peed right in there. Then he shut the drawer and we went and played more ninja turtles. I have no idea what became of that drawer/house/family.
Sounds like the dreams I have when I actually have to get up and pee. 🚱
This reminds me of that "Mom found the piss drawer" image. I can smell that damn picture!
When I was in high school, a friend asked me and two other friends to his house for dinner. His mom served homemade bean soup, which was very good. Toward the end of the main course, she brought out chocolate cake for dessert. She cut each of us a slice and plopped it into our bowls... in which we each still had about an inch of soup. Us guests exchanged puzzled glances, but the family dug right in, so apparently chocolate cake soaked in bean soup was an ordinary thing for them.
Yes, true, but why not wait until they'd eaten all the soup? There was an inch left!
Load More Replies...Coming from Italy I was horrified when people would just take food from their plate and add it to mine. We just didn't do that, but I got used to it with time. Cake over bean soup would still be my very hard line in the sand.
Not sure I will be trying chocolate cake soaked in bean broth any time soon lol
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Using a friend’s bathroom, ran out of toilet paper. Looked for a new roll under the sink and was HORRIFIED to see that used tampons were put into a paper grocery bag and just...left there. Had to have been years worth. There are no words.
Had a woman rent my basement off me, for weeks this awful smell kept permeating through the house from downstairs (the AC/heat unit pulled air from the basement and pumped it through the house). Finally I cracked because the smell was making me nearly vomit. I walked into her downstairs apartment (without permission, my bad, just couldn't take it anymore) and found her bathroom trashcan LOADED AND OVERFLOWING ON THE FLOOR with used sanitary products. The smell was months of rotting period blood. She didn't think anything of it, thought my horrified reaction was hilarious. Promptly told her skank a** to leave.
Oh dear, I'm sorry. It's wrong of you to enter without permission, but on the other hand that's a huge sanitary problem! Putrefying blood will attract all kind of flies, roaches, bugs, rats and pests in general. No. Just no.
Load More Replies...I worked in the same building with a lady who "lost" her tampon for over 8 months. The smell coming off her would linger in the break room. Then when the smell got to its worst she ended up in the hospital. That's when she found out about the tampon. She proudly told everyone about it too. She also lived in her car behind the building we worked in. It was a crazy place to work at... she switched to pads. How do I know? She told us and one of the bathrooms overflowed cause she was flushing her pads. Yep....
Oh come on. You'd smell that the second you entered the bathroom, maybe even the house.
they smell like iron (imagine old nails. The smell must've been "rusty"
I read this and thought "Oh, that's not too weird", until I had found that I skipped over the word "used"... ew.
We looked at a house where the current owners had small stone statues of angels next to every door and window. You had to move the statue to get through the door.
They said "we are Christian people".
We didn't ask.
That seems to be the explanation for a lot of the weird behavior on this list.
That's pretty much the standard excuse for bizarre or extremist behavior in the US: "I'm a Christian, it's my right!"
Load More Replies...Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and don’t blink!
Load More Replies..."All right; truth is, we didn't arrange them that way. We actually keep moving them to the curb, but they come back whenever we leave for the day. Or turn our backs on them. Or blink."
Imagine if they were Christians who actually read their Bible, and the angels were biblically accurate.
Lol. They probably wouldn’t be recognized as “angels” considering that every time they appear in the Bible they preface all their words with “Fear not.” Also the Bible states that God created humans in his likeness but no such words are said of angels so they probably would look like animals/aliens.
Load More Replies...It probably helps keep the resident ghosts from moving freely around the house. Makes sense
One of my Ex's collected her finger/toe nails in little glass bottles. She put them on display over her bed.
Why....just why? What's the end goal? Be a guess on "Weirdest Collections?
It is a pagan and even occult practice to keep nail clippings and hair clippings and to dispose of them in a particular way. There are so many ritualistic and beliefs pertaining to fingernail clippings you would be surprised. In this case though, hoarding them like that, either she is going to dispose of them by burning or burying and just has not yet or....she has a compulsion.
Load More Replies...When I saw the picture I was like, "Oh great, pasta, this can't be too bad.'. This is not pasta, people! Not, I repeat, not, pasta!
I had exactly the same, and felt so disturbed when I discovered those are toe- or fingernails. Ewwww....!
Load More Replies...Maybe she was a Discworld goblin? (Google "Unggue" if you haven't read Terry Pratchett books)
I had a friend in HS. We're still friends today actually. His mom was a hoarder. There were little pathways throughout the house but it was filled, from floor to ceiling, with junk. In the hallway to the bedrooms, she had stacked every newspaper she ever got. They were tied up in bundles. When you walked in that hallway he would caution to not touch the papers because if a row fell, it would take a couple hours to dig yourself out.
Potentially one of the best comments I’ve read on BP, well done.
Load More Replies...My mom's a hoarder. I felt the anxiety of a hoarder just looking at the stock photo. Hoarding is a mental illness. I hope OPs friend is okay.
Mine too! And there is really nothing you can do if the person don't realise the problem! It takes all your energy and eventually you don't even wanna live in the house! I've moved out but one of the darkest periods of my life was when I was living around all this stuff helpless
Load More Replies...Reminds me of the Collyer Brothers. Too much about them to write here, so Google it.
The woman who lived next to the gas-stove as a heater woman was a hoarder like this mother. Again, I moved ASAP!
I had a friend in high school whose mother was from Jamaica. His family would colon cleanse together every year. I guess it was customary from his mom's culture. So literally they'd take medicine to make themselves s**t their brains out for a day or two every year. Notable mention- they only had one bathroom.
In my family it was a spoon of castor oil every Friday night tm clean us out for school Monday morning!
I've had to take bowel cleansers for colonoscopies and you literally can't move away from the bathroom because if how violent things get!
Ahhhh, I see you have had some sugar-free gummy bears as well ;)
Load More Replies...Unless one is scheduled for a colonoscopy, there is absolutely no reason or health advantage to a "colon cleanse", let alone those using silly ingredients like coffee or such. People, it's a scam, at best, and can be dangerous if you do it wrong. Your body is designed to clean your colon. That's what happens when you take a s**t.
😳 I don't know which is worse, this or the Reddit "poop knife" story 🔪
I had a client once who was from Poland. Older woman. She did the colonics and said the first time she ever had one done she was five years old. What got me was when she said "the butt is the last frontier." I was speechless.
I had a friend in middle school whose family was really into trophy hunting, something I didn’t know until I went to a sleepover at her house. Animal heads everywhere, but the weirdest part was she didn’t have sheets on her bed, just animal fur. She slept naked on the fur and had no idea it was weird. I faked a stomach ache and had my mom pick me up.
Everyone used to sleep in just furs! Many centuries ago. That was totally normal, if you'd been visiting some Medieval aristocrats.
Some cursory acknowledgment that they’re bringing their child up slightly different on the part of the host‘s parents would have been nice. It’s not ok to make children intentionally weird.
Load More Replies...dunno? maybe some people like animals and prefer them not murdered?
Load More Replies...A roughly 4 feet long python roaming free around the room at a gathering with guests. Snek was chill as heck but still…
Is the name of the snake "Snek" or do you just spell snake as "snek?" Because I'm now and forever calling snakes Sneks.
It's an internet/meme-thing. Snakes are "sneks" or "danger noodles".
Load More Replies...My uncle is 50 years old, he is retired and a millionaire. He never had a girlfriend. He spends his time with video games and prostitutes. His house is filthy, the smell is unbearable. In that beautiful house of his he has over 700 devils. Plush devils plastic devils glass devils big devils small devils. You name it he has it. It's all over the place on tables shelves and on the floor. He loves them.
Yes, I'll go back to house with the angel loving freaks, thanks. It didn't seem like it was filled with a smelly pervert
They walked around nude at home 24/7. He invited me over to play nintendo after school. When he had gotten in, he stripped down butt naked, and went to make a sandwich. Everyone else was already bare ass and loitering.
He should have told you his family were naturists before inviting you over.
I guess he didn't think anything of it, was all just normal for him
Load More Replies...Better than the house where all the boys had to sleep in their clothes with no covers. Much better.
Weird but I guess they're nudists or just really comfortable in their skins. Also, less laundry I guess? Lol
must be the weirdest thing watching grandpa's wrinkly ballsack dragging across the floor
The skull of their beloved dead family cat was sitting on a bookshelf. “Oh, that’s our cat, Felix!”
A friends mother has a human skull sitting in her living room with a dollar bill stuffed between his teeth. Apparently she knew the guy.
"that was the last dollar bill he slipped in my thong, why do you ask?"
Wasn’t when I went to their house, but when I rode in the car with them! Everyone in the car had to wear a bike helmet while we were driving. Not THAT weird, but I’ve never seen another family do that.
Everyone using the same bathwater. I was made to bathe in the same water the grandpa, sister brother, other sister had used. The parents went last.
Before you ask no it wasn't on a property, this was in a house with electricity and a shower.
This is how everyone used to do it, in the days before we all had indoor plumbing. It saves on both the water bill and the heating bill. So maybe they just didn't have the money to do it any other way.
It's disgusting, you would be cleaner not bathing and just change into clean clothes.
Load More Replies...We did this growing up in Ireland. The hot water tank only held so much water and it took HOURS to refill, so we had to share bath water. I learned to tolerate obscenely hot bathwater so I could always go first.
My mom, sister and I used to do this. Mom didn't have a lot of money and heating up water in that old, slow water heater was expensive. :(
Very environmentally friendly. My grandmother would put me, my sister, and our two cousins all in the same bath together and she only filled the bath a tiny bit. Washed our hair once every 4 days. Even as teenagers we all bathed at the same time. Though only two of us would be in the tub at any given time while we all chatted and got ready together. Normally it this happened on Sunday mornings before church.
Wouldn't it be more hygienic and effective to just wet a towel, put some soap on it and clean yourself? Why this obsessiveness with bathing??
Their living room had eight sofas in it. The room wasn’t that big and there was no other furniture. It was like a maze. Was told it was for the bible study they hosted at their home.
Yeah, compared to the other religious entries in this list, this one is perfectly harmless
Load More Replies...I once had a living room with three sofas. The house wasn't very large. One of the three was a sectional, so it was more like four sofas. The room basically was a square of sofas. We were young. The sofas were free. We didn't know to say "no." Eventually, one of the housemates moved out with two of the sofas. The living room suddenly felt much more open -- and much less like someone was planning a surprise intervention meeting at any moment.
My childhood best friend lived with his grandparents, his grandfather was a clock maker (he mostly restored them.) Their large 2 story houses walls were covered in old restored grandfather and cuckoo clocks. Each one had a small sticker with a number so he could keep track of them all, the highest number I saw was over 700. I would say 25% of them were wound so every hour you were treated to a symphony of clocks. I didn’t appreciate it when I was a kid but those clocks were fantastic pieces of workmanship.
I went to a gathering at a woman's house with hundreds of cuckoo clocks — all operating. Some of them sounded every quarter hour, some at the half, but they all went off on the hour, and they weren't all keeping exact time, so it was like five minutes of racket. All conversation stopped, waiting for the final "cuckoo." The woman was also into quack medicine.
A friend makes/repairs grandfather/grandmother clocks. They’re all set at slightly different times. We don”t visit often.
When I was seven, I went over to play with a new friend and she asked if I wanted a snack. I said sure and we went into their playroom where there was a mini fridge just stacked with candy, full bars of everything, and she casually tossed me a pack of Rolos. Now, the house was a manufactured home— not a trailer perse, but definitely not like the usual house either. I know this doesn’t indicate how much money the family had, but this was not in an upscale neighborhood or house. I marveled at A.) the largest amount of candy I have still to this day ever seen and B.) the fact that she and her siblings all just had free access to it at such young ages. She was surprised at my surprise and asked what did I keep in my snack fridge. I told her I didn’t have one of those, and then it was her turn to be absolutely gobsmacked at the idea that I didn’t have a mini fridge full of candy just at my disposal and whim.
I've learned that it's not uncommon for some families with financial issues to absolutely spoil the children. The parents worry so much about the children being ostracized for their financial situation, they swing hard the other direction and excessively grant every possible demand made by the children that they can. (P.S. If you're a parent, learn to say, "No." In moderation, your children will thank you later.)
it wasn't until my son was grown did he learn that we weren't always strapped for money when he asked for something. my mom spoiled this first grandchild whenever she was around which, while i loved her being so over the moon about my son, didn't like her giving him everything he wished for. so, there were many times that i ''couldn't afford' something for a little while. he told me later it taught him the value of saving. on the other hand, my grandson rarely if ever asked for anything so this didn't work for him and i was hard pressed not to get him something when he did mention something he asked or mentioned.
Load More Replies...I never understood not letting kids have access to all the snacks in the home. Not that we had a mini fridge for them, but snacks were always kept in places my sister and I could get to them when we wanted, saved my parents from having to get them for us. 99% of what we ate was homemade cause we were too poor to eat out, including fast food, so I guess since the vast majority of our diet was healthy and fresh, parents never felt the need to limit our access to snacks. Though the snacks themselves were limited since we only got a little bit and it had to last us the week until the next trip to the grocery store.
I was raised the same way. Mom always had healthy stuff like fruit, cheese, & homemade cookies for us to snack on when we got home from school, or on weekends, in the middle of the afternoon between lunch & dinner. Ice cream was for dessert after the evening meal, sometimes with homemade cake, or pie. Candy was a special treat that we got once a month or so.
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Serve ice cream with their hands.
You mean like, digging out scoops from the container with their hands, or giving you a bowl with their hands?
At every meal, my ex's parents would set a plate on the table for the Dog. The dog would sit in a chair and eat at the table with the people.
My dog has a place at our dinner table. She has impeccable manners so it's allowed.
I like this if you can pull it off successfully. Wouldn't like the training period, though. But maybe the dog did it himself and was gradually allowed to?
A framed hole in the wall. My friend had a mental breakdown once and punched a hole in their living room wall. Their mother framed it.
Of COURSE there's a stock photo of a framed hole in the wall on the internet!
Just like the above post stock photo of the jar of finger/toe nails
Load More Replies...If I punched any wall in my house, the only holes would be in my knuckles.
A fist came out of drywall next to my head when my friend's brother punched the only free spot along the way to his room (he had the room in the back - a large room was parted into two smaller ones, with the drywall-hallway leading to the brother's). They didn't frame it, but fixed it within a few days.
i mean, if your gonna have a hole in the wall, might as well make it seem fancy...
My dad, an alcoholic, had a nasty temper & one time he was arguing with my mom at dinner. She left the table & went to the kitchen for something, and just as she cleared the doorway, he grabbed his dinner plate & pitched it at the wall. Just imagine wallpaper that was pale green with little dark green pine trees & a plate full of spaghetti sticking to it at around 5' up, then sliding down to the floor. Mom refused to change the wallpaper or paint it, & she even drew a heart around it with red lipstick, & an "I love you too". It was there for about a year, til Dad decided to renovate the dining room & tore that wall down!
My great aunt has had these toddler sized old ladies dolls scattered around her house for as long as I can remeber. They are ultra detailed, with human hair wigs, outfits that get changed semi frequently. They're dolls her late sister had made, so they are sentimental I suppose... But she sets them up in chairs all around the house. One of them she calls by her sisters name and is always sat up in a rocking chair in the living room. The more horror movies I watch, the creepier they become.
An older friend of mine was into dolls too. Sadly she passed away this year, but ten or so years ago when I used to visit her at her home she took me up to see her doll room. It was a spare bedroom with nothing in it but dolls, floor to ceiling, new and old, creepy porcelain ones and clowns and some life-sized ones-- there were hundreds of them. Maybe she sensed that I wasn't a doll person (cue speechlessness followed by nervous laughter) because she never took me in there again, but she did gift me several porcelain dolls when my daughter was born.
Sentimental I suppose. My condolences to you about your friend.
Load More Replies...hahaha, my mom has a lot of dolls like this. Her and her friend loved collecting antique dolls. She has a room full of dolls on shelves which are quite pretty (Im very used to them), but it just so happens to also be the 2nd guest room. My uncle came from out of town and refused to sleep in it, and said they shouldn't be facing the bed. And that's about when I realized how it must seem to other people.
My mum has one that belonged to my grandma, it wasn't old or anything, 1980's plastic, it had been left in the sun and the black painted pupils had faded to red, I stayed in the room with it when my boiler broke and I had no heat, that thing was staring at me with its red eyes, I had to throw a blanket over it.
My friend’s mom walked around the house in just her underwear. No shirt, no bra, just her underwear...
This happened to me one as an adult. I was working as an assistant for a man who did auctions, helping him get on the 'net, etc, and I looked up only to see walking behind him his wife who had just returned from work. (We were working on his laptop, in the kitchen) my eyes must have gone very big. He says "she's naked, right? " I said " almost" all she has on was a pair of transparent nylon panties and a see through bra lette thing. Now she was around 400lbs/28.5 stone. I'm a big girl. But honestly, it took her awhile to go by. Kind of like one of those Macy's balloons. I was astonished!! I from then on had a rule. No more in house consultant for that one. B
A lot of people use 'underwear' to mean 'underpants'
Load More Replies...My family was a bunch of nudest at heart. Only put a shirt on if guests were over. I remember how intently my father watched the news when my grandmother, cousins, and aunt all came for a week. Just a bunch of half naked women of all ages running from one room to the other getting ready for whatever we were doing that day and one lone man suffering on the sofa and waiting until it was safe to look up again.
In America a lot of people think of "underwear" as just underpants
Load More Replies...I’m a guy, so maybe this is a stupid question,but, isn’t a bra underwear too?
In the US underwear means panties/knickers. We only consider it to be that one item - not just anything worn under your clothes like a bra.
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I had dinner at a friend's house once, when I Was like 7/8 and they didn't allow any drinks at the dinner table. I had to stand in the kitchen and drink my water when I asked for it.
I'm sure this rule came about due to excessive drink-spilling by the kids and one day mom and dad had had enough!
i should make this a rule because i have a 9 yr old will purposefully spill drinks at the dinner table
Load More Replies...I experienced the same at a friends place as a kid. The mother was a home economics teacher and believed eating and drinking at the same time was bad for digestion. We weren't allowed to drink anything until half an hour after we ate. I was dying I was so thirsty!
Nutritionists still say not to drink within thirty minutes of eating for some patients.
Load More Replies...Some people believe that the digestive juices get diluted by drinking while having a meal. And that too much to drink can make you full too soon.
Kids fill up on drinks and don't eat their food. Actually proven. My grandma did this to us kids, my dad did too and now I do it to mine. 💁♀️
Yep, I've seen this happen - kid gulps down a glass of milk, soda, or juice, then refuses to eat their food.
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My friend's house featured a life sized cutout of thei sister (who was away at college) that was moved into a different place every time I was over.
We have one at work of an old coworker who retired. Hey. If you miss someone you miss someone. Don't judge us for it. He's still alive. He just made everybody smile when he was still working here.
And now theirs stock footage of people posing with a random cardboard cutout
Not sure if that's endearing or just too weird. But harmless, right? (Right?)
When I was about 13, I babysat for a family who had a stack of Hustler and Penthouse magazines in each bathroom, just laying open on the backs of the toilets. The kids said, 'Oh, those are Dad's magazines,' like it was no big thing. Then they said, 'Mom keeps the grownup toys in her room. They're funny — want to see?'
Eh, I find the toy comment at least less awkward than my teenaged babysitting experience. I was babysitting a 5-year-old girl with a ton of energy. After many random games, she ran into her single mother's bedroom, announced she wanted to play cops and robbers, and emerged with pink, fluffy handcuffs on her wrist. It took me a while to find the key. I wish she knew those were "grown-up toys" and not to touch.
I was playing in my parents room once and found a very unfortunate Polaroid album and some “weird toys.” I wasn’t allowed in my parents’ room but they weren’t home that day and I wanted to see what was in the box under their bed. Please, parents, lock up your toys 🥲😂😂
Load More Replies...Looking at lovely naked ladies wasn’t considered pornography in my upbringing. Sex toys on the other hand were. I didn’t know they existed until I was grown up. Fun story: a teacher of mine mentioned an interview he’d read somewhere and couldn’t remember where. I nodded and said, yeah, read it too: Playboy.
Exposing kids to such mags is very bad for their emotional and moral development. Hustler especially encourages boys to view women as sex objects, and girls to view themselves as sex objects.
I went with a few friends to one of their families' houses for a birthday party when I was like 15. After eating, we settled in to watch a horror movie, and I looked around me to find that everyone in that family was sitting in the exact same "crisscross applesauce" position, slowly rocking back and forth. Something about it was extremely creepy.
Yeah. I sit like that all the time. But the chance of an entire family??
Load More Replies...Well, now I've learned a new term for what I've known as cross-legged, or tailor-fashion.
I grew up with it being called "Indian style" which is obviously quite inappropriate these days. I suppose that's why the crisscross/applesauce thing came about. Incidentally, I'm from the same city that now has a no-name football team due to that same issue. :)
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My grandparents have had a human-sized mouse on their stairs for as long as I can remember. It has a bonnet and an apron and wears a long floral dress and I’ve honestly got no idea where they got it from and why.
My mom had one that was a bear or something that covered a vacuum.
Load More Replies...They probably didn’t get it. It showed up on its own accord. Now it won’t leave and makes threatening noises if you touch it.
It's pretty cool how BP is matching them up, except for the one about the woman with the mannequin torso on her kitchen table...that one missed the target!
Load More Replies...I have a great aunt who has one very similar to the one in the picture. It's a broom.
My aunt has one too! Hers might be a bunny but it's dressed very similarly and about 4 feet tall
She had half a mannequin on her kitchen table that she dressed up. Just the head and torso no arms and legs. Said it was because she liked some movie and this woman in a box that had no arms and legs. The same girl had a man blowup doll that she dressed in clothes and buckled in her passenger seat in case someone wanted to car jack her. We called him Dan Dan the Rubber Man. She brought him in work so he wouldnt melt in the car. She was weird
It's sadly not that uncommon for single women drivers to have fake, male-looking passengers. Fortunately, it's getting less common. I personally know someone who is roughly 65 now and for 40+ years now always travels with a dummy in the passenger seat when she's alone.
When I was a kid the neighbors tv was always at 75 percent volume or higher. They'd literally sit in the living room and scream at each other over the tv on blast.
Nope. Can’t handle consistently noisy households. I’d never go back.
One day many years ago my friends and went to several open houses in West Hollywood to see how people with a little money lived. The third place we walked into featured framed photos of the owner with Richard Simmons in every single room, including the bathroom. I guess the homeowner lost a lot of weight 30 years ago and was forever grateful. Richard’s eyes seemed to follow you wherever you went in the house.
Learn to read before jumping on your high horse. There's a big difference between 'a little money' and 'little money'. Nobody with an open house in West Hollywood is poor.
Load More Replies...An old school friend of mine invited me over to eat. They ate noodles with sugar. That's it. With a glass of water. He told me they are eating this pretty often.
I once put sugar on pasta at a restaurant thinking it was the cheese. It turned that it wasn’t that bad.
Vermicelli with sugar and sometimes also milk is a common food/dessert in some cultures. The way this was described makes it sound awful, but it's actually a very tasty dish. I used to look forward to it when we had it.
I used to eat plain cooked spaghetti with sugar abpnd milk and enjoyed it.
When I was like 10 i had a friend that had a room that was just filled to the ceiling with trash and they just started playing in it.
I shared a house with a bunch of people who regularly set their farts on fire. I don't know why. They just did. Even when they were not drunk. This appeared to be normal behavior for them.
Ever since i heard that farts were flammable, i wondered if anyone tried that so with this post, my question in answered
My ex husband LOVED lighting his farts on fire.
Load More Replies...Many, many years ago I worked at a fairly prestigious law firm as relief receptionist & general office assistant. During my first week of training, the office manager was showing me the old case files in the storage room & pulled out one of the more interesting cases they had. This guy working in a factory where there were open flame heating elements had bent over to pick up a tool & farted. A big, long one. The fart caught fire, the flame shot back to his rear, & his clothing caught fire. He sued his employer. There were pictures. 😣. Oh, and he did win a huge settlement!
They don’t do it after getting a blistered ass hole like an acquaintance of mine did. Burnt of her Merkin as well lol
They had a huge outside trash can in their kitchen…
They kept their Christmas tree up all year with ornaments, but stored it in a walk in closet. It was their only Christmas decoration, so it only took a few minutes to decorate for Christmas.
We wrap ours up every year, with the decorations and all, and store it away. Take it out, fluff it up and good to go.
One year my mom left up the Christmas tree and decorated it for the different seasons/holidays. It was pretty cool, actually.
I actually know someone who specifically built a Christmas Tree Closet. It is quite brilliant.
Haha my grandma used to do that with her tree, but it went up in the attic!
So these can be summed up into a few categories: (1.) Families with less money than OP; (2.) Families with a different culture than OP; (3.) Child abuse
(4) Crazy with no obvious harm [but possibly other manifestations], (5) Just simply quirky and don't give a f. I'm thinking of the cow on the couch, the college-student cut-out, the angel statues, the dog sitting at the dinner table, the snek, and so on.
Load More Replies...Has anyone known any folks who still set a place at the dinner table for a family member who has died. Plate, silverware and glass...no food, just the setting? I have a relative who does this and I find it disturbing, so I just wondered if other people do this.
i kno someone who does this but only on holidays. i dont think its strange but if ur talking about everyday then thats a bit much. my family puts a picture of my grandpa in a santa suit on the tree at my grandmas house on christmas to make it feel like hes there with us but thats as far as we go. ppl have their ways of mourning some r more extreme then others. one of my friends thinks its weird i put the collar of my dog who died 4 years ago on a stuffed animal that looks just like him but its my way of mourning i still miss him. 17 years he was my best friend and i have pictures of my grandpa everywhere cuz he was my hero. mourning is dealt with in many ways .
Load More Replies...whoa, those are some freaky families there; I can't imagine where they learned that stuff, but hope it didn't get passed on to their kids and their kids
A neighbor was interested in an item I had for sale at my yard sale, but they were going to be out of town, and asked if I could bring it over to their house in a few days and they'd pay for it - so I walked over there with it in hand, expecting to make small talk, get the money and go back home. I didn't know them that well, just the usual neighbor stuff - a wave now and then, etc. Stepped inside their house to see an almost 7' tall white plaster cast of a large, naked man standing behind their big floor model console TV, with his "junk" basically resting on top of the TV. I had a hard time not staring at it, and my (female) neighbor noticed - she laughed and said, "Oh, we call him 'Victor' - the model was my husband." Husband was sitting on the couch leering at me at the time.
idk if this would count but my own household. i grew up normally however my mom had a thing about judging ppl. on multiple occassions she would judge my friends. one friend had the goth look, one was black, one had some of their hair dyed purple and one was asian. my mom had something to say about all of them saying how they will have influence over me in a bad way. fast forward a few years of not listening to my mom she loves all my friends just bc they come from good families. my goth friends parents r both well respected ppl in the neighborhood, my black friends father is a heart surgeon and mother is an english college professor at a great college, my purple haired friend comes from a family of firefighters and teachers and my asian friend is top of the class and her parents r both successful business ppl. fast foward after college my mom was afraid of my cousin bc we found out he was gay. she stayed that way for awhile my dad just made faces about it. how i grew up normal and able to respect all races and all types of ppl i will never kno. i believe i was more influenced by my grandparents who loved everyone no matter who they were. my mom is better now and doesnt have issues or judge ppl as harshly anymore but she still has her upper class mindset. im just happy she more open bc it makes my life easier and makes her life less complicated since these days u can say the wrong thing very easily. back wen i was a kid the way she acted was rude but today it would b a horror show. im so happy i didnt end up some entitled upper class white girl. if it wasnt for all the friends i made and my grandparents i probably wouldve been. who knows tho mayb i just wanted to rebel and it turned out in my favor. ill never kno how i became the open friendly person i m but in glad i did cuz i went to high school with alot of ppl who had parents like mine some even worse and they r entitled rich kids still. they have fancy cars a fancy house all that. they show it on facebook constantly. im just different and lucky i guess u dont need fancy things to b happy. im married and have a great life and super happy. i feel bad for all the entitled ppl i went to high school with honestly. they probably dont interact with their family the same way i do. i already kno a few dont even see their family on holidays cuz they dont get along its just sad. and to think it couldve been me if i listened to my mom way back wen.
People can be so weird but some of these were just out right disturbing
I had this one person I knew who's mom was an insane hoarder. They had a full room just of stuff. They had a snake in their mom's room so I asked to go see it and when we walked into her room and it was covered in bras everywhere and hanging from the bed frame.
So these can be summed up into a few categories: (1.) Families with less money than OP; (2.) Families with a different culture than OP; (3.) Child abuse
(4) Crazy with no obvious harm [but possibly other manifestations], (5) Just simply quirky and don't give a f. I'm thinking of the cow on the couch, the college-student cut-out, the angel statues, the dog sitting at the dinner table, the snek, and so on.
Load More Replies...Has anyone known any folks who still set a place at the dinner table for a family member who has died. Plate, silverware and glass...no food, just the setting? I have a relative who does this and I find it disturbing, so I just wondered if other people do this.
i kno someone who does this but only on holidays. i dont think its strange but if ur talking about everyday then thats a bit much. my family puts a picture of my grandpa in a santa suit on the tree at my grandmas house on christmas to make it feel like hes there with us but thats as far as we go. ppl have their ways of mourning some r more extreme then others. one of my friends thinks its weird i put the collar of my dog who died 4 years ago on a stuffed animal that looks just like him but its my way of mourning i still miss him. 17 years he was my best friend and i have pictures of my grandpa everywhere cuz he was my hero. mourning is dealt with in many ways .
Load More Replies...whoa, those are some freaky families there; I can't imagine where they learned that stuff, but hope it didn't get passed on to their kids and their kids
A neighbor was interested in an item I had for sale at my yard sale, but they were going to be out of town, and asked if I could bring it over to their house in a few days and they'd pay for it - so I walked over there with it in hand, expecting to make small talk, get the money and go back home. I didn't know them that well, just the usual neighbor stuff - a wave now and then, etc. Stepped inside their house to see an almost 7' tall white plaster cast of a large, naked man standing behind their big floor model console TV, with his "junk" basically resting on top of the TV. I had a hard time not staring at it, and my (female) neighbor noticed - she laughed and said, "Oh, we call him 'Victor' - the model was my husband." Husband was sitting on the couch leering at me at the time.
idk if this would count but my own household. i grew up normally however my mom had a thing about judging ppl. on multiple occassions she would judge my friends. one friend had the goth look, one was black, one had some of their hair dyed purple and one was asian. my mom had something to say about all of them saying how they will have influence over me in a bad way. fast forward a few years of not listening to my mom she loves all my friends just bc they come from good families. my goth friends parents r both well respected ppl in the neighborhood, my black friends father is a heart surgeon and mother is an english college professor at a great college, my purple haired friend comes from a family of firefighters and teachers and my asian friend is top of the class and her parents r both successful business ppl. fast foward after college my mom was afraid of my cousin bc we found out he was gay. she stayed that way for awhile my dad just made faces about it. how i grew up normal and able to respect all races and all types of ppl i will never kno. i believe i was more influenced by my grandparents who loved everyone no matter who they were. my mom is better now and doesnt have issues or judge ppl as harshly anymore but she still has her upper class mindset. im just happy she more open bc it makes my life easier and makes her life less complicated since these days u can say the wrong thing very easily. back wen i was a kid the way she acted was rude but today it would b a horror show. im so happy i didnt end up some entitled upper class white girl. if it wasnt for all the friends i made and my grandparents i probably wouldve been. who knows tho mayb i just wanted to rebel and it turned out in my favor. ill never kno how i became the open friendly person i m but in glad i did cuz i went to high school with alot of ppl who had parents like mine some even worse and they r entitled rich kids still. they have fancy cars a fancy house all that. they show it on facebook constantly. im just different and lucky i guess u dont need fancy things to b happy. im married and have a great life and super happy. i feel bad for all the entitled ppl i went to high school with honestly. they probably dont interact with their family the same way i do. i already kno a few dont even see their family on holidays cuz they dont get along its just sad. and to think it couldve been me if i listened to my mom way back wen.
People can be so weird but some of these were just out right disturbing
I had this one person I knew who's mom was an insane hoarder. They had a full room just of stuff. They had a snake in their mom's room so I asked to go see it and when we walked into her room and it was covered in bras everywhere and hanging from the bed frame.
