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

My mum was puzzled by this, and her friend explained that her son had to have the boxes arranged around his place at the table, so no-one could see him eating.

DS used to do this, though now he pretty much refuses to eat with anyone else at the table. He has autism.

Funnily enough Minou my brother went to Beamish and he said it was exactly like our old street, including the fucking freezing metal bath infront of the fire and Methodist embroidery all over the walls.

Just jumping on the mum and dads double bed and 1000 porn mags falling out.

I remember being pretty shocked when I went round to my best friend’s house when I was 8. She shared a room with her brother who was 10 and every single surface in the room was covered top to bottom (including the ceilings) in massive posters of topless women. Proper page three style glamour girls. I didn’t know where to look or what to think.

Seeing as baked beans are a theme, i was also surprised when another friend’s mum served us spaghetti bolognaise for dinner “because your mum said it was your favourite”. Expect it was just a tin of cold baked beans on top of spaghetti. I had to do my best polite face and try to eat the lot despite finding it repulsive.

@barkandcheese My Mum had that bloody plastic stuff all the way through downstairs, if it flipped up and you trod on the reverse side, it was like standing on nails .

I've remembered another.
My mum took me to see her very old great aunt and uncle. They lived on a farm.
The house and there was no running water, no electric, no central heating etc.

Anyway I was one if those annoying children that wanted to pee all the time and asked to go to the toilet. I remember my mum looking at me and in her eyes I could see she was desperate not to visit the loo.
I soon found out why.

We went to a barn, in the middle was a door suspended from the ceiling. Not sure why, because there was no cubicle attached to the door!.
When you opened there was a cardboard box with a hole cut out. Then a trench had been dug through the floor of the barn. Newspaper hung from the back of the door.
I didnt need the toilet after all.

My friends dad used to just be asleep in random places, once in the middle of the kitchen floor and the family all just stepped over him like it was the most normal thing in the world. The first time I saw him lying in the hall, I thought he'd fallen down the stairs and died, my friend thought I was insane. We lived on a street where kids were always in and out of each other's houses, the parents knew we were about, but he still thought "this'd be a nice place for a nap... nothing more peaceful than a gang of 9yr old tramping over me..."

When I was about seven I had a friend I used to play out with sometimes. She had to stay outside after school and wasn’t allowed inside until bedtime, apart from to have her tea, because she had a baby brother and he wasn’t to be disturbed. Even when it was really cold outside, she wasn’t allowed in. I never saw the inside of her house.

As a teenager I went to my then boyfriends house for tea. I was about 17 from memory.
His parents were quite lovely aside from the fact they referred to themselves as 'Mum and Dad'.
'More tea Dad?'
'Thank you Mum, biscuit?'

It was bizarre. I dumped him.

@MorrisZapp oh my God you just reminded me , as a child our hairdryer that my mam had since before meeting my dad was kept in the original box in a sideboard in our sitting room and had to returned after use . The weirdest thing I saw in a friend's house was I needed the loo and the friend said they'd no loo roll the mam said it's ok there's loads of newspaper there to use . I was horrified 😂

Is this thread destined for Classics?

My best friend's mum wasn't allowed jam etc (due to sugar rationing )in the war. So we used to love piling round her house because unlike our parents (this was 60s , era was still quite austere and we had to scrape the jam on very very thinly). My friend's mum used to say 'Have as much butter and jam as you like, we weren't allowed it in the war' . We used to take it a bit literally and our slices of bread almost dripped jam.

I had a childhood friend whose mum worked with my mum. We ended up at the same secondary school and by the 6th form were in the same group of friends. Parents were separated and mum very sensible, her house completely average and normal. Her ex-husband came back on the scene when we were 16ish, I think he’d been in prison but it was never mentioned. Anyway he was a drug dealer. Bought a massive 5 bedroom executive home type place and grew weed in the attic and would host parties for all of us. It was so bloody weird. The house had no furniture in it at all, in none of the many rooms...

Another friend’s mum clearly hit her, and having had 15 years of extensive safeguarding training since being a teacher I am aghast that nobody noticed or seemed to care. She used to come to school with black eyes and chunks of her hair pulled out, and cuts and bruises and we didn’t question it. I had a sleepover at her house once and realised From the terrible atmosphere that her mum was not nice and always made excuses to not stay over again after that.

A friend at school I got on with so well had a strange mum, in modern day terms maybe she was shy, had anxiety, maybe autistic. She had very rigid rituals - plastic covered the main walking areas, the sofas, the dining chairs and there was a rug covered in it too. I really remember the smell of it!!
Whenever I was over, she'd only talk to me via my friend ie
"Katie, would your friend like a drink?" Whilst I was stood right there
"Katie, tell your friend about the rules with shoes"
"Katie, make sure your friend uses the downstairs toilet, not the upstairs" etc etc

She served dinner really specifically- arranged on the plate with precision and we were not allowed to talk whilst eating, or make contact- more 'Katie, make sure your friend doesn't misbehave at the table or else she won't be coming back around'

Her cooking was honestly delicious though and I remember desperately wanting more of the chocolate fudge cake she gave us once for pudding but never dare ask of course!

I spoke to my friend about it and she just shrugged. At home, my own mum said I was rude to discuss it as it was obviously the way she liked to do things and who was I to question a grown up?

The mouse chopping board 🤢

hmmm not much but one friend had a bathroom with no lock and i walked in on her mum on the loo

i went to this other girl's house once and saw her dad throw her cat in the air like, really threw it. i only went there once.

when i was an early teenager probably 13/14 i remember meeting a friend of another friend's parents at a dinner who was, looking back on it, most definitely a bit too keen on chatting me up.

Mine are a bit ordinary. Stayed for two weeks with a friend on a school exchange trip and her parents were at. each. other's. throats. All the time. In later years I discovered this was the norm for them, but I'd never seen anything like it. My parents argued, sure, but not in front of people from outside the family.

Did a one-off babysitting job in my teens to help out a school friend. Two kids, aged about 7 and 9. Bigger house than my parents had, mum and dad dressed to the nine, 'well spoken', fancy car. The house was like a tip. I went to the kitchen for a glass of water and the 'clean' glasses were all opaque with dirt. Piles of junk sliding off every surface. The 9 year old girl looked embarrassed and apologised for the mess.

When I was about 13 went to a friend's birthday party. On reflection me and my Mum think her Mum was probably am adult film star.
Her birthday cake was a buxom women's chest in a corset.
I remember excitedly telling my parents afterwards thinking if was hilarious, funnily enough I never went to her house again.

At a friend’s house, whose Dad was a local vicar. Went to their (only) bathroom to use the loo. Door was unlocked and the Dad was in there having a bath, obviously completely naked. In his haste to cover his genitals, he only succeeded in flipping them up and exposing them more.

I know that sounds dodgy but I think it was a genuine accident! Poor guy. And my poor friend was totally mortified (as was I!).

Roadkill brought home to eat. Lovely family though.

I had a friend whose dad was an undertaker. One playmate, she took us into the 'shop' next door. No dead bodies, but lots of coffins to look at.

My mum became friends with another school mum, whose son was in the year below me in the infants.

We used to go round there sometimes on the way home from school. One day, we were invited to stay for tea. When my mum laid the table, her friend handed her 3 cereal packets.

My mum was puzzled by this, and her friend explained that her son had to have the boxes arranged around his place at the table, so no-one could see him eating.

I've often wondered if he continued this into adulthood.

I love this thread, people are just bonkers.
I am so sorry for the ones who had a rubbish upbringing; abuse, neglect, or just not a good one. I hope things are better for you now.

A bath full of hamsters. Every time I visited, over many years.
This was a house with at least 10 people living there and I can't recall any other bathrooms.
It was ace, I loved it. Like a little hamster farm.

Some of these stories are quite disturbing, and some are just sad.

My parents amongst others collected the wine glasses with the petrol tokens. These glasses were put on display and were considered the household's best glassware. I do think it was a time for "luxury". Maybe fuelled by the American soaps