To ask what the weirdest thing you experienced or saw at someone else's house when you were a child?

Massive steel garden gate bolted to the walls between the living room and dining room with a padlock on.

Also a room dedicated to Elvis, every inch of the walls covered with pictures ect.. The dad also had his hair like him too and wore shirts with the collar up.

Friends relative made me toast over the fire in the living room thought it was weird at first but it tasted amazing with best butter.

My sister and I went to a neighbour's house when we were young and the kids asked if we wanted to see their little brother, which we thought was a baby, but turned out to be an urn under their parents bed and pictures of their sibling who had died. I was bemused at the time but now find it very sad.
I think food is the weirdest thing about other people's houses. I went to my best friend's house in primary school and was given a full stick of celery filled with cream cheese for lunch. I hated celery (still do) and cream cheese. Looking back now I think the mum was always on a diet. My mother is Irish and we always had huge plates of hearty food like stew, spag bol or just meat and potatoes. I was shocked that they thought this was food

My uncle lived on a farm that specialised in artificial insemination of cows. I used to love going into the shed with the 'machine that made the bulls roar' to watch the bulls
Was only later I realised that it was basically a bull wanking machine!

BillHadersWife. What a lovely memory! I'm so gutted that I didn't get to know my grandmother, my grandad never got over it and neither did my dad and his siblings.

When I was young ( in the '60's) we went to mill road to have a look. It was still a bomb site and it was so sad. My dad made good though, he got a really good job and we moved out of the slums of Scotland Road to a lovely semi just off the East Lancs road. My grandad was so proud of his son.

I miss them both so much.

@Footiefan2019
I am from a small town off the East Lancs road beginning with L. We had soup and chips!

I think it’s lovely!

Here's an experience I had at someone else's house which I really liked, aged about six or seven, but lots of people I've mentioned it to think it was really strange, so here it is. In this house, there were lots of pictures of hot air balloons, and they offered me a flight in the "magic balloon" in their garden. They told me that it would only work if my eyes were covered, and the magic would happen in my mind; to help me, they got me to watch a short video of what the view from a balloon looked like, especially when taking off.

They asked me if I still wanted a ride: I eagerly said yes, so they took me into the middle of the very long garden, where I was blindfolded. They made sure I couldn't see anything, spun me round and took me to near the house, got me to feel the back door, and the basket (probably a big laundry basket), and lifted me into it. I felt it being lifted it into the air, and the mum gave a commentary, saying things like "you're going up... up... the houses and fields are all tiny underneath you!" I could feel the basket moving, and the mum's voice sounded very quiet, as if it was far below me. I couldn't see a thing, and it felt as if I really was flying!

The icing on the cake was when I "landed". They lifted me out of the basket, they asked me where I thought I was. I said near the house, as I believed I had taken off from there; but when they took the blindfold off, I was amazed to discover that I was at the other end of the garden, a very long way from the house, and I believed I had "flown" from one end to the other! I didn't find out until much later how they had done this bit of magic.

I remember this whole thing vividly, and I loved it, but lots of people think it's a very weird game to play!

Ice on the inside of the windows was completely normal in my childhood.

@Footiefan1979
Close to East lancs certainly

we had ice on the inside of our bedroom windows

As did we. Me bed was next to the window - and I mean "next to" as in pushed up against.

I woke up on a number of occasions to find that my hair had frozen onto the window.

sharing fish and chips?! Oh no, no, no, this is not allowed!

Two from when I was aged about eight:

1. I went round to play with a boy from school called Adam and he locked me in his wardrobe. Can’t remember why I’d climbed into it in the first place but I never went round his house again.

2. My friend Karen, her two sisters and I were sitting in her lounge when her dad came in and went apeshit, yelling and thrashing around with his belt while the four of us just scarpered in whichever direction we could. Thankfully I didn’t get hit by his belt. Can’t recall what exactly that was about but the image is ingrained. My DH would never behave so violently in front of four young girls...

My goodness, this thread is comedy gold.

I was a child in the 70s and we had ice on the inside of our bedroom windows, I think it was actually quite normal then to only heat the downstairs rooms. we had a rayburn and open fires downstairs as did many families my gran had just one electric storage heater. Central heating was very rare

Not quite on topic but as a teenager I stayed at my boyfriend's parents farm around 1993 and there was zero heating. Our breath was in clouds in bed. It was absolutely perishing. Shaking with cold under the covers but that was normal for him and his brothers.

When I was 6 or 7, going to a friend's birthday party at her house. One of the games was her dad called us up one by one, whispered a question and we had to whisper the answer back. Everyone who got it right got a sweet. I was the only one who got it wrong and didn't get a sweet, I was confused and mortified and the other kids all laughed that I got it wrong. Turns out he'd asked me some obscure question about politics, and had asked everyone else their name. He thought it was hilarious, I think he was a sadist

As a teenager, having soup for lunch at a friend's house and asking for another piece of bread. The dad asked which I'd had already, I said brown. He asked which I wanted now, I said brown . He said i had to have white cos everyone had to alternate so the loaves got used up evenly. I thought he was joking - he wasn't. Why didn't they just buy brown bread if that was what everyone preferred, instead of all eating bread they didn't like!?

I remember once years ago going back to a house after we'd been on a night out, around 10 of us, I didn't know the person who's house it was I think my friend kind of knew him but not well, didn't notice at first but once we'd started to sober up we realised the whole house was like a shrine to The Titanic..... not the actual boat, the movie!! There were framed photos everywhere all over the walls on any units and side tables it was just bizarre!! And there was dried dog poo everywhere too. Weird place, it was at least 25 years ago and I still think about it now

I've remembered another one.

I loved my great aunt, she was a lovely person. But her living room scared the shit out of me. It had stuffed, as in taxidermy, animals in it.
There were foxes, birds, etc. But they were stuffed in really aggressive poses. The fox in particular had its teeth on show, snarling at you.
It became stuff of nightmares as a child.

I had a friend whose house was freezing in winter. There was no heating and they sat with bedding and hot water bottles. I know now they probably couldn't afford oil but back then it was odd because my folks like the house tropical and I'd never been cold indoors.

I’ve just remembered a really weird one, in primary school going to another girls house for dinner and she had loads of younger brothers, maybe 3 or 4, and as we’re sat around the table waiting for our dinner the mum left the room for a minute and the girl explained that they weren’t allowed to eat the skin off the roast chicken but that I would be allowed to because their mum couldn’t make me follow her rules, and all the younger boys were all making noises like chicken skin was the most decadent food ever, and sure enough I was the only one with some chicken skin on my plate when it was served up. I remember strongly feeling that those children were really unhappy.

The childhood innocence of this thread has made me smile; namely the interpretations of certain situations that you made when little. And how you feel looking back on it now. Fascinating stuff.
Some of these posts have made me so sad, and have really stayed with me in the days since reading them. Some adults are completely fucked up. The parents of my childhood friends were indifferent towards me, but I witnessed nothing like some of the situations described. I mean, grown men walloping their kids in front of their wee pals. WTAF?! There are some revolting bastards on this thread.

I had a very stable middle class upbringing with parents who were still married and a clean home with healthy nutritious food every day, I truly had a charmed life and I never knew how lucky I was.

I remember going to a friend’s house before school, it was his cousins house, his mum had left his dad and he and his mum shared a room in this cousin’s house for about five years. At 8am the cousin was smoking weed in the living room and my friend was drinking a can of Stella from a mug (the can was sat in the mug) while his mum was eating her toast. At the time I remember thinking it was a bit strange and that my mum wouldn’t approve of eating breakfast in front of the TV!