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

I had a ( warm, loving) but very basic council house life.
When I was mid to late teens, I got invited to friends houses which were much , much grander than mine.
The first one I went for tea and her mum treat her like a two year old...we were 15. it was so embarrassing
Then the sleep overs, huge houses, plenty of dosh, again mum spoke to Dd like she was 8 we were 18
My room was her brothers room, he was at college..there were no curtains at the windows and it was freezing

Mum never Put in an appearance in the morning, not even sure if friend did..couldn’t wait to get back to my halls
Same happened in an even bigger country side house..again no sign of mum in the morning

My mum would’ve made my friends so welcome..there’d have been a big cooked brekkie in the morning and she would’ve treat me like an adult.

Weird. Just weird. All these women grew up to be dysfunctional in one way or another.

My great-great-aunt had an actual elephant's foot umbrella stand. It stank but she loved it so there it stayed until she died. I remember my grandad prising it out of the carpet with a garden spade and a great deal of satisfaction

Best friend used a fridge as a wardrobe. Was brand new as well. 7 kids in a 3 bed flat; parents slept in lounge and kids just in whatever bed they fancied that night. The mum swore like a trouper: I lived a street away and heard her from my house. Always other kids staying over too. I stayed over loads and l loved it.

She probably thought my house was odd as we let our bird fly about all day. But funny enough the bird only poop in one particular place which was covered in kitchen roll and then changed after each poo.

We may well be an odd family to visit: DH and I have separate rooms. One of our spare rooms looks like a hoarders room as we still haven’t unpacked boxes from moving in (3 years ago), but the rest of the house looks lovely lol

I was friends with a 10yo (I was 12) whose parents were in their 50s/60s and quite old fashioned to boot. She once phoned and asked me to go over one morning, then it became apparent she hadn't asked her parents and she was terrified she would be in big trouble. I remember hiding around a corner while she said good morning to her dad and then hastily hustled me out of the door of the flat. Poor kid.

Later on, I dated a guy who was the eldest of 5 children. I remember recounting the weirdnesses of his family with amazement; they all travelled places for days out together and actually spoke to each other! They appeared to like each other and played board games, a lot! The mum appeared to enjoy the company of her children! My family and I were in agreement that they all sounded terribly strange. They're my parenting goal now

I do remember going to a friends house who was from Pakistan. The house was like a souk! Scarves everywhere, wall decor, etc. Her mother was shocked I wouldn't drink tea (I was 11) and surprised how much Dairy Milk I shifted!

Was best friends with a girl from aged 11-15.

Her Dad would bath with the door open so we'd all see everything when we came over to stay for the night (she had the biggest bedroom so we'd always be at hers) but friend insisted he'd always done this.

I stopped going because it made me too uncomfortable being 15 years old and seeing my friends Dad's knob floating on bath water as I passed the door 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Somanysocks totally agree with you - normal for the seventies. Anything weird, you just didn't comment, it was just something you hadn't seen before but maybe that was your fault...best keep it to yourself.

In my friends grandparents house,
We was allowed to sit on the stairs, But never in the front room...

Occasionally we was allowed in the kitchen
I always wondered what the front room was like

Thats pretty common among older people in my area, ChocChipWookie

I had a friend whose mum always served baked beans or tinned spaghetti cold with salad cream and who would never be seen in anything other than tweed skirts and brogues, all year round.
A friend of my parents would remove every cushion and seat pad off the furniture if you visited and would vacuum around you during the visit even when you hadn't had anything to eat (my mum always said you'd be lucky if you were offered a cup of tea!)
The plastic runners protecting the carpets were commonplace in the 50's and 60's as were plastic covers on dining room chairs as I remember.
And curtains made of strips of coloured plastic in doorways to, I think, keep flies out of the house?

A school friend who was overly close to her older brother, if anyone's seen the episode of friends - they were like that

It was the early 80s and I was 10 or 11. A primary school friend invited me round for tea. We got a bit bored playing with her toys so she asked if I’d like to see her dad’s shed. I was a bit bemused as we went into the garden to look at a shed, but she obviously thought there was something in there worth showing me. When we went in, it was floor to ceiling decorated with page 3 and other similar pics and calendars. Don’t remember seeing any tools in there either.

Another friend in the early years of secondary school was banned from watching Grange Hill and East Enders, yet her parents let her do a paper round alone in the dark which involved walking across a common where a young girl had recently been attacked. I never understood that at the time.

I had another friend (when I was at high school) who had no carpet in their house and rats running around.

It was similar in our house.
In some homes they are a menace.
In ours they were a delicacy . . .

This thread is reminding me of so many weird things! A friend of mine lived down the road from me so we were in and out of each other's houses a lot for a few years. She had a really gorgeous older brother as well, so I enjoyed going to hers. The only thing was that if she and her brother had words about anything, and they often did, they would start wrestling with each other. They were quite nasty with it and it usually ended up with a sort of stalemate where they were in some sort of headlock with each other, neither could move, and they stayed like that for ages, both bodies locked together. I would be sat there, wondering what to do, wondering if this was normal (I'm an only child so who knew what siblings did...) and then they would part and continue wrestling. So uncomfortable to be there for that, I used to dread it. He was so gorgeous though!

Friend's parents saying grace before every meal

They also had a poster for the local Tory candidate in the window at election time. Blew my mind.

(Disclaimer: this was in Brighton)

I went round to 'play' after school and friends elderly Nan was sat at kitchen table plucking out the fish eyes with a cocktail stick and eating them. Bloody horrific. The rest of the fish was cooked for dinner......

I had a friend whose house was immaculate, her mum was incredibly houseproud and was always cleaning, literally like the 90’s Mrs Hinch. One day my friend came round to mine and my dad was cleaning the horse tack in the sitting room. The next time I saw her mum she asked me, really seriously, if it was true that my dad cleaned tack in the house - honestly, the same way you would ask someone if it was true their dad was beating them or something.

So I think we were that weird family to them 🙈

When l was young (up until l was 10) we lived in a 2 bedroom flat. My grandma lived with us. She had the small bedroom and l slept on a Zed Bed in the other room with my mam and dad.
My grandma died when l was 9. l don't know what would have happened if she'd lived much longer - l can't imagine sharing a room with your parents much past that age.
Also, one of my cousins' dad was ill for a long time. He slept in one bedroom (he was on oxygen 24 hours a day) and my cousin slept with her mother. But even after my cousin got married and she and her husband stayed over at her parents house, she had to sleep with her mother and her husband slept on the sofa. They weren't allowed to share a bed....

For some reason all these things would seem perfectly normal if you were in the 1970's.

My best friend all the way through primary school had what I thought were super cool parents. Allowed her to stay up all night and the mum especially used to take us out all day to big shopping centres and buy us presents. I’d go for dinner nearly every night after school much to my parents annoyance ( I think they were a bit jealous of the cool mum). Dad was always a bit odd and used to sit up in the loft which was just boarded but otherwise a normal loft space in a tiny 3 bed terraced. He had a desk set up with a computer. Only now as an adult so I realise her mum was so insistent on me coming over all the time as she was being badly beaten and he wouldn’t dare do that in front of me because my parents were police officers. Also not sure what the computer in the loft was for but he had a manual job even though my friend said it was his “office”. I daren’t speculate... My friends mum later confided in my mum when I was early 20’s and basically said if I hadn’t been there she has no doubt she would be dead. Needless to say they are no longer together. Really sad

That's interesting, @CactusAndCacti, since I've worked with several clients with ASDs I've wondered if that lad might have been undiagnosed.

Mind you, it was about 1961, so there were probably loads of people with undiagnosed autism.

The boy and I went to different junior schools, so I didn't see much of him after that. My mum stayed in touch with his mum though, and they remained friends for a good few years.

A friend of mine when I was about 14 had a huge 3 storey house and her parents, who were both psychiatrists, used to climb up and over the roof with full climbing gear quite often when I was there. (They were lovely though.)

I bloody hope this thread isn't put in Classics. What a stupid suggestion. Most of the posts are heartbreaking.

Patroclus
It is fantastic and they have done a great job. My dad was taken aback of how similar it was to his childhood home.

There was a little boy who asked his mum what the metal bucket hanging on the wall was for. The mum said it was washing clothes. My dad laughed and said no, it was the bath! He then regaled this little boy of stories of the family washing in front of the fire and sharing the bath water.

I can't remember who said it now but for losing weight reasons it is better not to drink water fifteen minutes before or after a meal, maybe the dad was ahead of his time.