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

I went to stay over at a friend’s house when I was in my teens. It was a very large, modern open plan bungalow with pale carpet throughout. On the floor the parents had laid walkways of clear plastic runner everywhere, including the bedrooms, and woe betide you if you walked on the carpet. They also had a bookcase full of those faux leather, “gold” leaf reader’s digest books. I went to take one off the shelf to look at but was told not to in case I broke the spine. The books were for decoration not reading.

i was about 9/10and it was very late 80s early 90s and had a friend/neighbour who had 9 in the household(2 adults,7 kids)

they were poor but well loved house and happy

the dad used to limit a toilet break to 1 sheet per time,always the cheapest paper you can buy

he had a lock on the door so you needed a key to get in and he would then hand you a sheet

there was 4 girls and i moved away at 11 so no idea how they coped with periods and runny poo days

Once one of my friends came and fetched me in the park and dragged me over to our other friend's house to show me the giant jobby sat in the middle of their kitchen floor. There was neither a pet nor a toddler in the house to blame it on.

Ooh I had some friends with seriously odd parents.

-cold food house. Cold baked beans, cold custard cold rice pudding. Lots of corned beef as well. But you could also just have a bowl of crumble without fruit and we were allowed to sit 3 of us in the front passenger seat and they had thousands of pug dogs.

• naked dad house. Naked dad was a concert musician and had zero boundaries. If he needed to pay his violin at midnight then he did, it was all very hippy. And he slept naked, which was a bit of a surprise.

We used to spend loads of time inside other people's houses, without our parents. Although it was an experience I'm not sure it was always a good idea.

Growing up I had a friend who was Chinese. Her parents had moved to the UK from a little village in China but she was born in the UK.

Whenever any of us went round for dinner we all had to eat with chopsticks, even though none of us had a clue how to use them! I ended up leaving most of my dinner on the plate. They had a drawer full of cutlery but for some reason it was not allowed to be used, even for the visiting friends!

They also insisted on speaking Chinese to each other and my friend at the dinner table, even though they spoke perfect English! So anyone visiting would sit there being ignored and if friend tried to speak to anyone in English she would be yelled at by her parents (in Chinese though so we never knew what was said!)

I’m all for embracing other cultures etc especially if you are a guest in someone’s home but it was bloody awkward!

We remained friends for many years but after the first couple of dinners I made sure I only went round when her parents were out!

Not that weird but one friend had no TV ! This was in the 70s ,and I was genuinely amazed TBH .Couldnt understand it .Her Dad was a Teacher at our School and said once we had done our homework we would all play a board game together!

Aged about 8 I was playing Animal Snap with the girl who lived next door to my nan.

When there were two pig cards, I shouted out 'Pigs!' and her mother came over, all cat's bum mouth, and said, 'That's not a word little girls use in this house'.

I was .

My primary school best friend’s Mum was a teensy bit bonkers. She had middle class aspirations despite definitely being working class so she always cooked strange meals. I remember wondering wtf cous cous even was at the time and she ate bizarre animal organs such as pig heart . She didn’t believe in shampoo so my friend’s hair always looked a bit greasy and always smelt like tea tree oil which she would constantly douse it in to avoid headlice. My friend wasn’t allowed to spend any of her Christmas or birthday money at all, it all went into savings which I thought was crazy as a (pretty normal) child who spent it on absolute crap.

She definitely controlled her poor husband as well. One day he hadn’t come back from the pub quickly enough so she called him up literally screaming and crying down the phone saying they had been burgled so he’d rush home . At the weekend she made him do various unnecessary DIY, their house always looked a bit like a building site.

OMG this thread is so interesting

I was bemused when I went to a friends house for dinner and they served their baked beans cold, I didnt like them cold.

Mine is from the mid 1950 era. Walked home from school with my friend on a hot summers day. She lived on the same council estate as me. Her front garden had a rickety old wooden trailer in it. We went round to the back of the house,and her Mum Dad were sitting in the garden on the grass, smoking and having a cuppa. Her parents were jolly and friendly,and shouted hello to both of us.

Friend and myself went in the back door to get a drink of lemonade,and there were her two small brothers and a younger sister,sitting on the floor eating some biscuits,it was only a very small kitchen.And in the corner there was a large lovely horse,eating some food out of a tin bucket.

The parents used to go round the houses with their horse and cart,collecting stuff that people threw out.

@loserssaywhat
Fuck, that sounds like hard work!! A hot bean gooey dripping sandwich. I’ve got to give you credit for not choosing just cheese on toast!

Nothing major but being round my friends (who was an only child) and her parents having massive rows, with her mum shitfaced on wine slurring every word. Always made me feel super uncomfortable but I adored my friend.

My ex said that he once went round his friends house and his dad had a load of nazi memorabilia in the living room. He didn't understand what it was at the time until they learnt about the world war later on in primary school and thought his friend dad up until that point had framed pictures of his grandad

My best friend lived in a massive farm house type house. I stayed a few times. She had a small ensuite shower room in her bedroom (normal) but she also had a fully working bath in her bedroom, behind a curtain. I was very confused.

I suppose my weirdest one was going to the party of a girl in my primary-school class whose dm was, ahem, a lady of the night. I had no idea at the time, but clearly some other mothers did because quite a few girls were not allowed to attend. My own dm would have been entirely clueless and thought that it was kind to go as this girl was obviously neglected.

Anyway, the mother's profession was the least of the party's issues. Half-way through the party (and I can remember this most clearly) a group of men turned up at the door and all sat in the sitting room grinning and pointing and swiping at the girls doing musical bumps etc. I remember feeling uncomfortable and glad when it was time to go home.

Many years later with the Rotherham business I thought about all this and thought that my parents would have had a fit if they'd known about this party.

@aroundtheworldyet apparently it is standard but I just put the beans on the toast and ate it like a sandwich lol

I went over a friends house for a birthday bbq when I was 7/8, they were all naked in the garden (the dad was wearing a apron as he was cooking on the bbq), I can’t believe my parents left me there with the naked people.

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

One lovely family I knew used to stand for the BBC News, hand on heart (as for the National Anthem). They'd all run in from different rooms, stand for the theme and headlines then sit down to dinner. Never questioned it at the time because I'd heard of people who did stand for anthems etc. Bless them.

@loserssaywhat
Um, how do you eat beans on toast!!?? I use a knife and fork. I thought that was standard.

This is such a sad one. I’d almost forgotten it until I read this thread. I was about 12 and went back to the house of a girl in my class. I knew she lived alone with her granny because her mum was an actress and was on tour. No one ever mentioned a dad and I didn’t think to ask. They lived in a massive house but most of the rooms were unused because they were full of junk and furniture and my friend lived between the kitchen and her bedroom two floors up. It became clear that her and her granny had no shared language (not sure what language the granny spoke, maybe something East European). Granny did the shopping and left food in the kitchen and my friend helped herself and did her own laundry etc. There were framed posters of her mum all over the place and I was shocked because they made it very clear that her mum was a stripper (looking back I think she was probably a burlesque dancer but I didn’t know that phrase back in the 1970s).

At the time I envied this girl because my mum was incredibly rigid and controlling and she had so much freedom, but looking back it must have been a very lonely life. In the 5 or 6 years we knew one another I don’t think her mum ever came home.

In the early eighties, when I was 15 or so I went round to my middle class friend's house for tea and her Dad came home from work and cooked us a very nice dinner.

It absolutely blew my mind. My dad had never so much as made a cup of tea in our house; my mum waited on him hand and foot and if she wasn't around, I cooked for him. I had never seen any of my male relations or family friends cooking either.

I remember going on about it for ages and my mum getting a bit pissed off with me.

The weirdest thing I saw was the entire family sitting down to eat beans on toast with a knife and fork.
It's not that weird but it was weird to me because we were probably savages lol

I had a friend who had a massive house but lots of the rooms were shut up with cloths over the furniture and not used. Her dad used to sleep downstairs on the snooker table.

@Patroclus
If you are ever in the area, visit the Beamish museum in county Durham. They have recreated 1890s terraced houses exactly how you describe.

Mine is: I was about 16 and my mum begged me to hang out with her friend's son as he didnt have any mates. So I was invited over to his house for tea. They were extremely wealthy.

He had his own living room, so I assumed we would just have pizza in there while watching tv. But no...

I was led to his OWN dining room, the table had been set up aka downton abbey style, crystal champagne glasses etc. Me and him had a full 7 courses meal and attended to by a butler and a waiter.
It was so super awkward trying to chat to him because I kept seeing the butler giving us the side-eye
The mum kept popping in saying "are you having a wonderful time, darlings".
She really made an effort, but it was completely wasted on 2 16 year olds!

sat on top of the cake was a cat! OMG! That's hilarious!

This is the single most absorbing thread I've read on Mumsnet for AGES.

I am suddenly intensely grateful for my boring childhood and my boring parents!