What objects do you remember being scared of in childhood?

[wanderings]

Rationally or otherwise? Some of mine were:

Seeing a toilet with the seat up - it looked like an open-mouthed monster, and I remember it being at my eye level too.

Shoes with buckles, especially when someone else was fastening them on to my feet, because I couldn't get them off myself. Velcro ones were OK though.

Lifts, especially the old-fashioned ones with metal gates instead of sliding doors, now quite rare.

Balloons. Even now they bring me out in a cold sweat, because they might burst.

[Mum2OneTeen]

Yep, the pressure cooker!

Still can remember with horror the night that its rubber plug thing shot out, followed immediately by an explosion of lava-like stew that stuck to the kitchen ceiling. Still have an irrational fear of the beasts now.

[Elderflower14]

We had a stone kitchen floor and when the milk pail was brought in and put down on the floor I used to scream the house down!
Also the Ladybird versions of Rumplestiltskin and Chicken Licken....

[BreakWindandFire]

A relative had a vase full of peacock feathers and it terrified me. The 'eyes' just followed me around.

[dancinfeet]

I was also scared of the pressure cooker, and escalators, especially the wooden ones found at some of the tube stations.

[NewName54321]

Daleks, Cybermen, any Dr Who monster really.

Stepping over the gap between the platform and a train, especially a tube train (the first time I ever went on a tube, someone sprayed perfume or deodorant across the doorway and, being only small, I got a face-full of it.)

Dad's soldering iron. Actually, I wasn’t keen on anything hot and unpredictable - the fire when the coal or wood started spitting, matches or hot cooking fat.

[BevBrook]

Escalators
Mirrors. So many things can go wrong with mirrors. Your reflection moves when you don’t, it doesn’t move when you do, you see something in the mirror but it isn’t there in real life, you see something in real life but it isn’t in the mirror, or of course your reflection reaches out of the mirror and pulls you in. Best to avoid them really.
Also the picture of the troll in the ladybird version of Three Billy Goats Gruff. I used to turn over two pages at once to avoid seeing it.

[BevBrook]

Oh, also piers, and a tape I had of Johnny Morris reading Thomas the Tank Engine stories, it was the one about Henry getting walled up in the tunnel, I didn’t even like to see the tape in its case.

[Lilsquish]

The hoover. Until i was around 8.

my dad would hoover my room for me (much to my elder sisters annoyance!)

[GoodbyeSummer]

I was afraid of being dragged into the plughole with the water so always got out of the bath before pulling the plug out and I refused to get in the shower.

[wanderings]

@spiderlight Viewmaster it was called, I had one, although nothing particularly scary to put in it. I remember finding the 3D effect unnerving though.

Also this poster by Munch, which was in my parents' bedroom. I'm glad it wasn't in my bedroom! I didn't like the girls' expressions.

"Brushes" in letterboxes. My parents used to take me delivering leaflets, so I came across plenty of them.

I never saw them as a child, but I think I would have found the "stairs to nowhere" in the Rotherhithe tunnel in London quite creepy.

[HippyChickMama]

Clowns, dolls, ventriloquist dummies and Punch and Judy (still am scared of all of those)

Lifts, after getting stuck in one that broke down

Escalators, after my sister fell on one and her skin got caught in the sucky bit at the top

Men with beards, Santa included

[AnElderlyLadyOfMediumHeight]

The ATV ident

[TheKnackeredChef]

The BBC test card showing the girl with the clown. Scared the living crap out of me.

The huge pampas grass the people down the road had in their garden. I would cross the toad to avoid it.

Hearing planes going overhead at night. I was convinced they were nukes coming to kill us all. I blame 'Threads' for this.

[tillytop]

Beyond maybe your Bertie Bassett did move? There's a number of videos on YouTube about moving dolls! Disclaimer > I didn't search for the videos myself, someone told me

[UselessTrees]

Mr Pop.

The ticking timer and anticipation of the face popping up and chucking all the pieces out was too much for me. I had to go outside the room when it was being played.

And escalators and mirrors.

[Idratherhaveacupoftea]

Lifts and the Underground, I'm claustrophobic.

[misscockerspaniel]

Lorries with cement mixers on the back - I still give them a wide berth.

[spiderlight]

Viewmaster - that was it! Thank you, @wanderings.

[TheKnackeredChef]

Jesus. Now I'm scared of Bertie Bassett.

[DaniC18]

I'm scared of going down stairs after falling down concrete steps and splitting my head open at 8.
Also nervous around hot frying pans that spit hot oil due to getting hurt as a kid.
Hate porcelain dolls as my mum bought me them for Christmas and birthdays and covered my room in them.they used to terrify me as I hated 'being watched'

[thenewkitchensink]

Anything dressed up, eg mascots or Ronald McDonald.
The borrowers.
Mirrors.
Getting on the school coach for swimming lessons as the tyres were bigger than me.
Casualty theme tune.

[BlackNoSugar]

Balloons that had gone down and were all wrinkly. No idea why, but it was a childhood fear that turned into a phobia. I'm still terrified of them.

The moon.

Anything with a hole in it that could get bigger - fine with the middle of records, or a sponge, or a colander, but not a torn tissue.

Bits of paper blowing in the wind.

[foxotterhare]

A poster of flowers on the bathroom door. I had a dream that a lady of the same colour shimmered out of it and stood there shimmering and making weird noises.

A sloping ceiling. I thought it looked like a house for a little man.

The plug hole. Obviously.

I often think children are not well equipped to be cautious and scared of the real dangers in life. I would walk along the edge of the hay loft, play chicken in the bull's field and and climb over double barbed-wire fences without a second thought.

[pinkmagic1]

Lifts and hot water bottles!

[InterstellarSleepingElla]

Tinned sardines....

(Yep, seriously )