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

I had a sleep over when I was 12 at a girls house who was a bit of a loner. I lasted about an hour before I borrowed their phone and begged my parents to come get me.

She had seven huge dogs which her parents allowed to urinate and poo anywhere and everywhere they went without cleaning it up. I had thought the carpet was brown but soon discovered it was trodden in faeces and food, since they’d scrape their plates directly onto the floor - regardless of what it was - for the dogs to eat.

I was told this quote proudly by her as she gave me the tour.

Even in her bedroom there was dog poo on the bed and fleas everywhere. Anyway, my parents told the school who must have informed social because the last I remember of her she suddenly left our school. I’d still see her parents around town occasionally, but didn’t see her again and I often wonder what happened...

Not quite a child but at 17 stayed over at a mate’s house - she forgot to tell me her parents were clothes free at the weekend! Put me right off my breakfast!

So many to name but the one that stands out most was going to a friends house and finding his mum naked on the landing! No one blinked an eye, even the children, I was gobsmacked so she put a bra on to help my discomfort my parents banned me from going back!
Another one where the parents had a spot at the table for their dog, it would sit on a chair and put its front paws on the table and eat the same as them from a dinner plate
DS (11) has a school friend who shares a bed with his dad and his mum and sister (15) share a bed (possibly a cultural thing?) but he said it was awkward going into the bedroom to watch tv seeing all his dads things in there!

Going to a friends house for tea after school and finding Grange Hill was banned in their house! @Stabilos was it my house?

This might be me , my mum wouldn’t let us watch Grange Hill and we had to wait behind the gate if people were playing out !! I asked my mum about the Grange Hill thing , she denied all knowledge.

Being told off at my BFF's house for using a knife to spread jam on my bread. I was told it was bad manners not to use the back of the spoon.
This was a Mrs A. My friend was polite and demure, but her family were weird. They all had mispelled names. A normal name but spelled wrongly.
I was also soundly rebuked when my pickled onion shot across the table. I had never eaten a pickled onion in my life and was horrified.
They often had offal for dinner and I was told that sister, Delissa ( see what I mean) was an expert in stuffing hearts because she was a nurse. I had a mortal fear of both meat and surgery and luckily was not offered one.
Mrs A was highly critical of my mother and once told her to grow up. At this time my Mum was looking after three children had a full time job as well as a house to manage.Mrs A seemed to stay at home all day boiling washing.Mr A worked on the buses and spent his time moaning. Mrs A also said I was spoiled and my Mum was spoiled. If my friend was needed to do something she absolutely HAD to do it or she was in terrible trouble.
My Mum often fed my friend nice meals and we had a lovely time at my house. But she always had to leave at 5pm and that was that.End of.Mrs A said she didn't like us feeding my friend as she would feel obliged to give me a sandwich or something.They had plenty of money as there were four working adults in the house.
We were never allowed indoors except to eat a scary meal in the dismal sitting room. I never saw my friend's bedroom ever.
My Dad was always very kind to my friends and used to take them home in the car or pick me up. Whatever was needed.
On one occasion I was late coming home and a horrible fog came down. It was about a mile's walk and I was only a little girl.
They would not take me home or walk me home or even let me ring my father.
I was literally terrified, it was a really thick fog, very dark and I couldn't see a thing.I didn't even know if I was walking in the right direction. Even worse there were footsteps behind me, When i got home I was crying and hysterical and my mother was furious with Mrs A.
Mrs A. finally managed to ruin our relationship which she had planned all along. She really wanted my friend to spend the whole time looking after her very odd but sweet little sister.
I was baptised Catholic and Mrs A said she would have no Popery and Catholics all went to church to lick a ping pong ball. I kid you not.
I never saw my lovely friend again.

I was terrified of Mrs A. I still think of my friend who was very sweet and talented and wonder if she ever escaped such ignorance and unkindness.

I know someone who used to get locked in their room at night. No idea why and I refused to sleep over in fear I'd need the loo in the night.

My earliest memory [around 2} was watching my biologic father break a broom over my Mothers back.Weirdest thing was 50 plus years ago a school friend showing me her horse hair mattress had a mouse nest with mice in.

My mum didn't let me drink at meal times either. I still to this day have a problem eating food that's too dry, I have to have lots of gravy etc. She always said I'd use the drink to wash it down and not chew properly.

When I was around 6 or 7 I went to my best friends house, her (slightly older) brother was making milk and squash....together, in the same cup. The thought of it still haunts me to this day

I always find it odd how people live behind closed doors!

Even now, I have to go into people's homes to work. One family I know, from the outside, totally normal, well dressed etc etc. Their house is a total shit hole. You would never know from meeting them. Their table is that sticky/dirty I find it difficult to do my work.

From my childhood, I had a friend who wasn't allowed to watch Grange Hill or do anything vaguely normal for a teenager. Her room was like something from the 1950's. Very very odd family.

I often think about two houses I visited as a child.

One friend was always showing up at my house and she’d pester me to make sandwiches for her and eat as much as she could when she came over. I never thought about it as a ten year old I just thought she must just really like food. When I went to their house it all made sense. Eight children in a tiny little house with no toys or books, just very empty, apart from their beds. Dinner was always a plate of chips and nothing else. They had to eat in silence too. I didn’t know and as I started talking they all stared at me.

The other was as a teenager, I went to stay at a friends house. The mum was drunk sprawled out of the sofa, the fridge was empty apart from a pint of milk. There was no dinner. No heating. No hot water. The place stank of dog. Really overpowering. In the loo was a poster on the back of the door of a naked man, posing.
When my dad came to collect me he said I must never go there again. I couldn’t understand why he was being so mean but I get it now. I feel so sorry for these people growing up like that.

A family friend had just moved into a new home, and when visiting her and looking around, we discovered that the previous owners had left behind a set of newsletter-type magazines, advertising all sorts of services (including 'O', 'A' and 'S' level', and no , they definitely weren't adverts for private coaching, at least as normally defined!) There were lots of pictures of the women advertising these services, no, not of their faces, but of their mostly huuuuuge breasts. Mum's friend, the new homeowner, wasn't quite sure what to do with them, because she didn't want the neighbours or the rubbish collectors to think they were hers! This was before the days of recycling. I think she burned them in the end. I was about 12 and found the pictures a little tooooo interesting!

We had free access to a fruit bowl when I was a child. We asked if we wanted a snack (something like half a 2 finger kitkat) and we were fed four meals at a table. We hardly ever had pop, but we would have squash. We hardly seemed to drink much, and it was usually water. Friends seemed to do the same.

Nowadays, I see streets littered with drinks bottles, parents opening packets of crisps before they've paid for them and things. What has changed?

I had a lovely primary school friend Aged about 7-9 years old, I loved her house, huge house with lots of books and crannies. Her bedroom door only had a bottom half, like a stable door but no top bit, that confused me a lot.

My friend made me French toast and then sprinkled lots of cinnamon and sugar on top!! I was a appalled and refused to eat it. It was 1976 and relatively unheard of in the uk back then.

But the main thing was that they had 3 HUGE cats, a black one, yellow and brown one and a spotted one. Lovely friendly, loved to be cuddled and pet, used to snuggle up on the sofa and watch tv with them. One day they just disappeared, my friend was so upset at school because her parents told her they had run away. Yep they were tiger, panther and cheetah cubs one of whom a scratched the housekeepers arm quite badly so they were taken away.

I had one friend whose parents were crazy religious, she wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter or anything fantasy because it promoted witchcraft and was the work of the devil she read them all at my house instead there was just a weird atmosphere in the house, nobody seemed relaxed ever.

I think we were the weird house! But in a good way. My dad let me and my friends design a climbing frame which he built from scratch and was probably illegal because it was nearly 15ft tall! We used to jump off it onto the trampoline using sheets as parachutes. We also had really high scaffolding that he laid planks across and tied rope to, so we could ‘walk the plank’ and pretend to be monkeys in a zoo. He built a 20ft tipi in the back garden and a beach using some sand and tarpaulin... He also used to let us mix concrete and build things with bricks in the garden, looking back I'm shocked we never got hurt! He is a very eccentric character and my friends always seemed in awe of him.

Some of the awful stories on here are heartbreaking, they make me so angry.

@hapagirl We used to do this when I lived at home, locking all internal doors. It was because we were burgled while we were all in the house one evening and the person managed to make their way from room to room without being detected and stole thousands of pounds worth of stuff. My Dad felt that if the doors were locked and somebody got in through a window, they'd at least be contained in one room.

I went over to a friend’s house when I was about 9. Her bedsheets and pillowcase were covered in old dried blood and when I commented she told me she’d had a nosebleed a few days ago. It wasn’t just a few drops, there were huge stains. Don’t know why her parents hadn’t changed the sheets.
Her little sister also had a friend over the same day and we all played together in the living room. One of her cats shat in the corner and my friend told her mum who said “I’ll clean it up later”. I was there the whole day and it didn’t get cleaned up - gross anyway but especially with 4 children playing nearby?!
At teatime the cats climbed all over the table and ate food off our plates (I love cats and we’ve always had them as pets, they’ve never ever been allowed on the table or to take food though) I was horrified. The little sister’s friend (who could only have been 4 or 5) and I were looking at each other wide eyed in complete horror throughout 😂
Another friend of mine had a dad who was a dustbin man and I used to love staying at her house for sleepovers as he’d always bring us toys that people had thrown out!

My best friend, whose parents were generous and included me in days out etc, wasn't allowed to bath or shower while she was having her period. Didn't really think much of it until I slept over, flooded and had to wash with damp loo roll before we went on our planned trip to a theme park. It was horrible for a 13 year old and I never slept over there again.

Another friend's dad used to sleep on the floor downstairs... he worked nights so we all had to creep over him coming in from school. He had a bad back I think. She also used to collect the wax from Babybels and every year she made a candle for mother's day from it

My DD aged 7 was freaked out by the "Brown and white stuff" her friend put on her chips; we don't add salt at the table and so never really thought to offer vinegar! Poor sheltered DD!

My 5 year old said her friends all decided "you've got a weird posh mum" because I once gave one of them a hot crossed bun ("a raisin cob") as an after school treat.

When my Dsis and I were young, our mum would her snowy white cotton knickers to dry on the handles of saucepans that were on a high shelf in the kitchen. We used to die of embarrassment if we took a friend or a boy home and they wanted to use the loo, which was through the kitchen

Yes, the food threads on here do get quite strange quite quickly.

When I was a teenager I had a friend and every member of her family (herself, her brother and her parents) would lock their bedroom doors when they went out. We never locked internal doors when I was a kid and don’t now. I still think something weird was going on in that house.

I found my friends dad's porn magazines under the bathroom mat in her downstairs toilet once. I was 11

I don't think they do @CruCru. Just read the utter madness of any food-related threads. Within 15 minutes you will have -

• free access to fruit and veg at all times
• fruit is evil, all that sugar
• we never allow any snacks between meals
• children have to ask permission for all food, that just 'good manners'

A whole new generation of weird to make us gasp coming our way.