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

This thread is remarkable. A true classic. In turns both hilarious and utterly heartbreaking. It's a slice of social history.

All those people who ate "raw" sausages - are you sure it wasn't liver sausage? It was really popular in the 70s and 80s. It's a bit like pate but more solid. It came in a sausage shape and could be sliced for sandwiches. It was my little sis fav which is weird cos she's vegan now!

Binterested
On my French exchange (1984, Vichy grin) we had dinner one evening and once we’d finished the main course we turned the plates over and had pudding off the other side of the plate - within the ring on the bottom of the plate. I’m still hmm

You would love my family . My mum is french and what we do is, finish main meal, clean the plate with a piece of bread. Then use the same plate for the cheese and then the pudding!

About 13 and went to a friend's house. She was on her period. She was expected to walk through the house with her sanitary towel and put it in the wood burner in the living room. She had to tell her parents the days she had her period so they could mark it on a calender. It was in the living room and clearly marked for her period days for all to see

On my French exchange (1984, Vichy ) we had dinner one evening and once we’d finished the main course we turned the plates over and had pudding off the other side of the plate - within the ring on the bottom of the plate. I’m still

TakeMeToKernow
@minou123
I know someone who grew up LIVING IN BEAMISH!!

That is amazing. I'm quite jealous. My dad became like a 10 year old at the olde fashioned sweet shop
We also queued for 1 and half hours for the fish and chips because they were cooked the old fashioned way.

This thread is such a mixed bag! I can’t remember anything specially wild except when I was about 19 I was round a friend’s house, we’d been at school together since primary but I’d never been to his house before. Around 2005. In the loo, there was this really dated, cheesy early 90s style family portrait of the parents, my friend and his sister, one of those soft focus ones with everyone gurning gently. It was on the wall facing the loo. So when I went for a wee, they were all just staring at me! I just found it such a bizarre place to hang a family portrait but in hindsight I wonder that was the point and it was supposed to be funny!

I went into a friend's house (also a neighbour) when I was around 12 and there was a stack of porn magazines in the hall. He said that his Dad was taking them to the hospital that evening when he visited another neighbour who had just had an operation.

Not as a child but I went to pick my son up from his friend's house one day. It was a lovely very large detached new build. I was asked into the hall and every wall and even the staircase stringer and newel post were covered in pictures - posters and magazine and newspaper pictures, large and small - of Hugh Grant.

One friend who's house I visited allowed their chickens to roam in and out of the house and even into the carpeted living room. The house was filthy and she once visited ours and said "we have the same floor in our kitchen!" And I'm not exaggerating when I say you couldn't tell cause there's was black with muck!

Her mum baked and decorated her other daughters wedding cake in that kitchen

When I was a kid, I wasn't often allowed to go to friend's houses, but my Mother would choose who she would allow me to have tea with. It was never an actual friend. She was a horrible cow though so no surprise.
Anyway, at about 9, a new girl joined and she had a brother who was 13. They were from Scotland and my Mother decided that she would be my new friend (despite me being very happy with my current, long-standing friend, despite the witch trying to split us up over the years, we're 38 now and still friends).
Anyway, went to this girls home after weeks of our mother's talking.
It was the creepiest, dirtiest, coldest house I've ever been in. All the curtains were shut- she wasn't allowed them open- and what furniture they had was very dark and Victorian.
It was like something from a horror film. The Mum sat and drank the entire time I was there, her brother was a creep who shut me in his room when I was looking for the bathroom (you had to walk through his bedroom and down a step to get in) and was telling me until I flashed my knickers I couldn't leave, he let me out when the girl heard me crying.
I asked to go home and her mum said no as she had bought dinner in especially as it was what English children liked. A tin of beans and a packet of crispy pancakes. I can't smell beans to this day or then without my stomach turning so I tried to eat round them.
Her dad came home and he was so loud, big huge guy he was. He went ballistic about the beans and crispy pancakes, and complained that I had left some on my plate.
My Mum collected me and made me say thanks for having me over, the Dad acted all sweetness and light to her!
I cried all the way home and got a clip round the head for "telling lies" about the family.
The girl ended up in some gang at about 13, she never came to school after that but she was a right bully so we were chuffed. I read in the local paper her and her creepy brother had ended up in prison for murder after someone ripped them off for drugs.
I think we were probably weird as well though as my mother was such a witch to people and had no worries letting people know she didn't like them, kid friends of mine included.

Ohhh I've remembered another, friends dad worked at Heinz and he would bring sacks of tinned food home for them, only problem was none of them had labels, they would happily tip out whatever was in the tin, sweet or savoury heat and eat. It was a revelation to me as in my house pork chops meant it was Tuesday and egg and chips meant it was Friday!

Mine are very dull.

In reception I used to go round to a little girls house to play and her mum would often give us 1 potato waffle as a snack. I'd just moved from Italy and had no idea of English childrens tea foods - I thought potatos were dinner and why was it in the middle of the afternoon and so small. I never commented though, just ate my waffle.

Another one is some friends and I went to visit a boy at his (big posh) house in the country to hang out and his nice mum made us a tray of chopped up salad veg for a snack - He was 15 or 16!

My mother had a friend who was married to a man who did narration for BBC natural history programmes. They lived in a huge house, on a hill overlooking a lake, which was filled with objects collected on his travels - ostrich eggs, coco de mer, stones from the Simpson desert where he was despatched to film the first rainfall in a few hundred years, maori shields, aboriginal art, photos of cave paintings....
He would explain to me and my sister what these things were, how they linked to other things.
Not weird really, more utterly magical.
He and my Mum's friend divorced and that was that, but that house founded a lifelong curiosity and fascination with the natural world.

I stayed over with my BF when I was 13, turned out it was so we could baby sit her 2 young brothers while her Mum went out. I woke up in the middle of the night to hear sex sounds coming from her bedroom and it wasnt with her Dad - he worked away on the oil rigs. He came home the next day and they were very intimate, kissing and cuddling all over the place and I couldnt believe the Mum could do this.
She also had me peeling potatoes for tea and shouted at me when I said I wasnt sure how to do it.

Another timne I went round, I was chatting with my friend when her Mum stormed in and she demanded if I knew about Parents evening. I was scared but managed to say yes I did and when it was. At that, she belted my friend across the face and chased her upstairs, all the time smacking her while shouting. Then she calmly came downstairs and told me to leave as my friend was sent to bed!!

Bit odd a friend that was also a neighbour didn't have bedcovers, her and her Teo siblings slept in sleeping bags on their beds no other sheets just a plain mattress. She also sat back to front on the loo....as in facing toward the cistern.

Another one was a friend who shared her room with her dads old moth eaten looking collection of stuffed owls, I was petrified and never went back again.

I randomly was at my aunts house and went to call for the neighbours kids. I must have only been about 4 so why I was allowed to do this I don't know, my mum would never have let me. I went into the house looking for them and the dad came out of the shower and chased me out in a towel. He was so cross. But I was only 4!

Another thing I remember when I was much older about 18 is going to my Turkish friends house and his dad brought a whole sheep in and started to dissect it on the table! He wasn't a butcher - he was an accountant!

This is one of the most interesting threads thank you op

I have a few one that sticks in my mind is staying with a friend - she was my age about 8 our mums knew each other from playgroup. Her mum was an eccentric very posh but dressed like Bet Lynch with loads of bangles. I went to stay one weekend and we went out with her mum and stepdad (who I adored). They went off into the woods and we were told to watch the car. The mother was very cold towards my friend unless she cried but her stepfather wasn’t he seemed far more caring

I think it was the same weekend her mum gave me her dead fathers shaving kit. It’s silver, has his initials engraved on the razor handle and soap brush and in a beautiful leather case it obviously was expensive (I still have it and the half used soap stick) she said she wanted to give it to me as she knew I would look after it which I have but it’s such a personal item and bizarre that she gave it to me. She also gave me some of her glass beads. I also remember walking past her mother’s bedroom and I glanced in and the stepfather was in his dressing gown and only his dressing gown they both laughed when they realized I had seen him full frontal and he quickly covered up and I stood there embarrassed

I wonder how much we do remember and how much we fill in the gaps

We had no carpets, no central heating and all second hand furniture. We had one gas fire in the living room which was the only source of heat in the house. My parents never spent any money on the house at all and I was always very ashamed when friends came round. Everyone was made welcome though. Strangely, my siblings and I always had good clothes and shoes and food was plentiful

Aside from the carpets, this was my childhood home. All friends were welcome and they loved to come. I think we were lucky x

When I was a kid back in the 60s my friends mum used to stand in front of the fire, lift her skirt and warm her bare bum.

I do that, but only in front of family and the cat

So many of these posters grew up in the 70s with me.

Shocked when asking J what she was having for tea ( we weren’t rich, worse off than J) that she said “egg and chips, it’s Tuesday” further questioning confirmed their menu was 7 things only, the same dish on the same day of the week.

Never forgotten it.

Another day going to BFs house. Council house. Mum ten years younger than mine, no carpets, five kids, overwhelming smell of baby sick, no furniture other than a ripped pvc sofa.

Heartbreaking.

Bit odd a friend that was also a neighbour didn't have bedcovers, her and her Teo siblings slept in sleeping bags on their beds no other sheets just a plain mattress. She also sat back to front on the loo....as in facing toward the cistern.

Another one was a friend who shared her room with her dads old moth eaten looking collection of stuffed owls, I was petrified and never went back again.

Spurlingpipe
It sounds like you had a fabulous childhood xx

Not exactly weird, but certainly unusual. I mentioned earlier my friend's Easter egg hunt, during which the Easter Bunny supposedly visited; one year, I took part in this hunt. (It gave a new meaning to pretences such as leaving a mince pie out for Santa!)

We children were taken into the garden with our baskets for eggs, sat on a bench, and given carrots to hold out for the bunny. The parents pointed out that the lawn was bare of eggs, and told us that the bunny was very shy indeed; so we would not be able to see him, but we could talk to him. We were blindfolded, and told us to listen carefully for the bunny. After a short while, we could hear the bunny on the lawn, moving about and hiding the eggs. The bunny then took our carrots, crunched them up and spoke to us in a squeaky voice telling us each to look for a certain coloured sticker on our eggs, so we knew which egg was for which person. After that, we were allowed to take our blindfolds off and start hunting.

I don't think my friend actually believed the bunny was there, but this ritual was weirdly fun!

Oh I’ve got a few!

1. I was getting ready to go out on a Friday night as a young teen, as a friends house. The mum of my friend came in and started screaming at my friend for borrowing her YSL concealer. She then snatched it off her and slapped her across the face!

2. Another friend who was lovely, and her family were so normal to the outside, had a full room full of dolls, and no one was allowed to touch them. Porcelain dolls for the most part but they had two shelves full of gollywog dolls!

Having to peel potatoes at a friend's house.

I was the weird one who was only allowed to turn the TV on for a specific show, and it went straight off afterwards! But I don’t think I’m the friend from page 1, because we had the TV guide that came with the Sunday paper, not the Radio Times.
One friend I had as a teenager had a TV that you had to put pound coins in to work it!