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

@bintang
Yes I am sorry. That’s not normal. I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s just not what most people worry about. You can clean the vents very easily! Why would the nozzle get separated?

My friend wasn't allowed to watch Grange Hill either! Although (bizarrely) they were allowed to watch Neighbours and Home and Away. The kids also weren't allowed to cross the road (we were 10!)

Was this my house? My parents used so much cotton wool they could’ve opened a branch of Boots.

@MorrisZapp I keep my hairdryer in its original cardboard box... so that the nozzle, and hairdrying-brush don't get separated from it. Is that weird? [shocked] Seems common sense to me. Also, because it's boxed, you don't get dust in the vents.
I've always done this- had a hairdryer from being 7 years old. (Ok- our house was the weird house- that hairdryer was a birthday present, for my 7th birthday That was par for the course for my parents )

A stash of porn in the bottom of a wardrobe!!

Surely if you run short of loo roll you use kitchen roll/baby wipes, even facial wipes before resorting to cardboard tubing...WTF?

I'm completely horrified by the number of people who think this thread is great craic.

To me it feels mainly like a list of ways in which women and children have been abused.

I remember visiting a friends house as a teenager and her family were obsessed with spreading information about the dangers of dented cans. Every time I visited they showed me examples and had terrible stories of death through poisoning.

I went to a birthday party (8-9 year olds) where the activity was making pickled red cabbage, a jar of which we took home in lieu of a party bag.

Leeches?

We frequently did the cardboard tube loo roll thing. And newspaper. Didn't seem wierd at all, just annoying!

I always have spare packs in the cupboard, I don't think we have ever run out of toilet roll!

Is this one of those threads where if you never went to a bizarre house then you probably were the bizarre house

This is a great thread and I nominate it for classics

Some terrible stories here

It occurred to me after reading this thread to ask DS1 if he'd ever found anything strange at a friend's house. He shook his head, then said "Well I suppose there's Anil's house with all the leeches"
I queried this several times but he's quite clear on the point! He's nearly 9 so could just be winding me up, admittedly....

We were having a sleepover at my friends house, when suddenly her older brother woke up the entire house, screaming in agony, as though he was being murdered! Then came the emerald green vomit and complete panic whilst waiting for an ambulance...

And that...

Was how I found out that if a boys testicles get twisted, (medical emergency), it renders them absolutely helpless!

I was a tomboy, and hadn't put much thought into the anatomical differences until that night...

I love how sheltered some people's lives are and the things they find surprising... Like the poster shocked at the waste of cereal milk

In a similar very lighthearted and not-that-weird-but-has-always-stuck-in-my-head vein... One of my friends from primary school always ate toast for tea (the whole family), and they used to butter the bread BEFORE they toasted it!! I remember being gobsmacked and rushing home to tell my mum what a brilliant idea it was. She told me not to be so stupid

My first boyfriend's house; his whole family were very hippy and he had lots of siblings who ran wild around this big old Victorian house. I went to use the toilet but there was no toilet roll... I mentioned this to bf and he said 'oh it's fine just use the cardboard tube'. Turns out their toilet roll runs out fairly frequently (being a family of 8), so to make it go that little bit further they would rip up the cardboard inner tubes into pieces and use that to wipes their arses. No wonder their toilet was frequently blocked house was rented too, a landlord's nightmare!

Being given the option of cold or hot baked beans.What sort of monster eats them cold?!

I was lucky I suppose. I was once given a small bowl of baked beans and half a slice of bread for tea at a friend's house. When they came to mine it was egg, chips and beans, with as much bread and butter as you wanted. I always had friends wanting to come to tea.

Also went to another house where all they had was one small wrinkled apple in the fruit bowl which my friend was not allowed to take as she had already had her fruit for the week. It was a family of 7 children, 3 were earning, as were both parents. I went home hungry. She used to come to mine for breakfast.

One other girl, she squatted on the floor to play or pick something up, we were playing on the floor so I was at the same level. I will always remember her knickers were ripped to such an extent she may as well not have been wearing any, we were probably about 10. They were so obviously poor it was very sad. My lunch sandwich box always had a few extras, or an extra apple.

LetsSplashMummy I wonder if he had narcolepsy

When ds1 started high school he brought a new friend back home with him.
I overheard his friend say "wow you have pillow cases"
That made me very sad as it was only 5 years ago

I remember being round my best friends’ house when they were raided by police .
I practically shat myself !
Turns out her brother was a drug dealer and they found quite a lot of drugs stashed in her room as the bastard had hidden it among her videos under her bed

It's amazing how many dads out there who will not allow talking at the table. Where does this come from?
My dad also tried to get us all to eat in silence, but he lost that battle

Riveted to this but such an emotional roller-coaster. Heart breaking stories interspersed with hilarity and the downright bizzare.

I don't have any tales as I rarely got invited to friends' houses. We were the 'gyppos' (we weren't gypsies, but we lived in a caravan, mum was a bit hipppy and also a little mentally unwell, apparently we couldn't live in a house because the bricks were too oppressive!) and people didn't like their kids mixing with us.
I did however have a friend who lived up the road and occasionally her mum would let me sleep over and I'd get to have a bath, that was amazing!

That reminds me... When I was 4 or 5 it was just mum and me in a little caravan on a farm. Mum was friends with an elderly man in the village we lived near, she would go and cook him a Sunday Dinner, help with his gardening and he would give me a bath. There's a photo somewhere of me in his bath. We thought he was very kind. Only as an adult did I wonder about letting an unrelated man give child a bath and it has just now occurred to me that he may have taken more than one photo of me in the bath (and kept them?!). Pretty sure he never did anything to me, but it is a bit odd.

As a teen we moved to another part of the UK and lived in a two flat with my stepdad and my younger sisters. I used to bring friends round and my mum and stepdad would give us booze, let us smoke weed and take drugs. We'd all sleep under manky old sleep bags and duvets in the lounge! The friends thought my house was great! It was always chaos, with random odd people visiting (to buy baccy or drugs or just get drunk) and no rules. My youngest sister used to bunk off school in year 9 and bring her friends round to smoke weed, they all loved our house too!

Love threads like this. Place marking

Can't get over how many of us saw naked parents. Bloody awful!

Eating soup in a glass. With a straw.

Some of these are gold!
Although now I fancy marzipan cat cake ..