Quirky house rules prompted by bitter experience

No willy fights, they are not swords.

Never ever let the toddler try to empty his own potty.

No going down the slide naked. Four year old with a friction burn on his bum was not a fun experience!

I'm sensing a theme with my rules!

Theworldisfullofidiots - yes! Another house with the 'one cuts and one chooses' rule. Saved a lot of bother!

Had that in our house, but my brother would hit me later if he'd cut and I picked the bigger piece.

Sit the on the toilet in the approved fashion, not backwards, squatting with your feet on the seat. On a not-unrelated note - no iPad in the bathrooms, especially propped on the toilet cistern while you squat backwards on the loo to watch it and shit on the floor,

I don't mind loud sneezing, but I have a rule that "bless you" is only said once, especially around people with hay fever. Otherwise we get this exchange:
Person 1: Ah choo!
Person 2: Bless you.
Person 1: Ah choo!
Person 2: Bless you again.
Person 1: Ah choo!
Person 2: Bless you AGAIN.

Anyone who says "bless you again" to me might get sneezed ON.

Theworldisfullofidiots - yes! Another house with the 'one cuts and one chooses' rule. Saved a lot of bother!

No more than one very loud sneeze allowed.
If you do two. You get the evils.
Three and you'll get twatted over the head by my hand .

Oh and if you do sneeze once loudly you must say sorry or excuse me!

No clothes airers allowed in the house at all.
Especially the ones that open out into a big circle
We have a washing line and radiators.

Now and again dh will spring that shock on me.

Reminds me too much of my mum trying to dry her washing in front of the only fire .

Aargh!
Why does he do it,

When making ready brek in the microwave remember to add milk please.

One person cuts and the other gets to choose.

Mummy (ie me) is banned from cutting DS's hair after the infamous ear cutting incident of 2016
Thank goodness it's not just me.... He STILL goes on about it - and he's 44..!

It was a bargain, and you did have a bag for it, too.

(One of my favourite scenes in the whole series ).

Yes, all of those, and also strictly no more swords on shopping trips in to the capital :)

From my childhood, no washing the boy next door's hair by getting him to put his head in the toilet while you flush.

for sharing out stuff, whoever is in charge of portion control gets to choose their portion last.

you can guarantee that everything is split evenly then.

Another Vorkosigan rule must be 'Be careful what goes down the drains - no bug butter!'

Just rereading 'A civil campaign' at the moment. I can't wait for the butter bugs to arrive. !

cordeliavorkosigan

Bedbugs? I thought your your house rules, based on bitter experience, would be about butter bugs...
No armsmen to dress only in underwear and boots and fight with tubs of bug butter. Make sure the cages of the butter bugs in Vorkosigan livery are locked at all time. And no making butter bug sauce for important dinner parties!

oh one more:
after any travel all suitcases must be unpacked in the bathtub with each item shaken over the tub and drain to ensure that any stowaway bedbugs are seen and go down the drain, not into the beds... we have never seen one.

( friends had bedbugs for a year and this is now a bit of an obsession , and happily mainly a harmless one)

CLASSICS definitely.

we have:
no balloon games in the room with the bunk bed (bad experience)
tickling stops when the person says to stop, same with cuddling, fighting, etc
no tickling or racing or jumping or messing about on the stairs
no food except at the table (we get "HEY! [houseguest] is eating in the LIVING ROOM!")
no scooters, bikes, roller blades, heelies and skateboards inside
all our other ones are even more boring

We have no bare bums on the sofa as well as:

no naked children in our double bed AND no children-who-have-just-come-in-from-the-park/garden/woods-in-muddy-clothes our bed

not at the top of the stairs (shouted at least 100 times a day most recently when 7 year old DS was perched right on the edge reading with his back to the stairs! WTF place is that to read?!)

no toilet, money or Donald Trump talk at the table!

If someone whinges "It's not fair, s/he has got more!" (they don't) I will take some of the complainant's food, give it to the other and say "That's true!".

toomuchtooold if someone shouts "mine is bigger", the other one has the right to swap if they want. But they can turn it down in case the one with the smaller one tries to play the game.

No speaking in unison. DD and DSS make every request in unison like they are auditioning for a remake of The Shining so now there has to be a nominated spokesperson

This has made my day

Oh also, no gloating. Is that controlling of me? I have twins and they compare constantly so when they were about 3 and a half I taught them what gloating was and said it was not allowed. It kind of helped. In a way.

We used to have conversations that went
Toomuch hands out some sort of food
DT1: look! Mines is bigger! It's bigger than yours! na na na na
DT2: aaaaaaargh

now they go
Toomuch hands out etc
DT1: look! Mines is bigger! It's bigger than yours!
DT2 (smugly): mum she's gloating!
DT1: no I'm not!
DT2: yes you are you're gloating! Mum! Mum!
DT1: aaaargh

Don't eat stuff in the garden unless you've been expressly told this year that it's for eating. DD2 prefers grazing my peas/soft fruit to actually eating dinner and that's fine but she will also eat stuff that isn't ripe yet, the berries off the Amalanchier (edible but yuck), hawthorn and buckthorn (give you the runs) and let's just say I'm really glad my neighbour's yew tree is a male one so there's no berries for her to try. She's bloody 5, it's taken way too long to make this one stick.

If anyone objects to your singing you have to stop or leave the room (tbh I fall foul of this one more often than the kids)

No going out into the garden in your pyjamas
No pants = no dinner (I think this is quite a famous MN one though)
No "booing" before 9am (otherwise the buggers come and frighten the shit out of me when I'm in the shower and I think they're still asleep)