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.

[Miggymoggymugwumps]

The Singing Ringing Tree, supposedly an imported TV show suitable for kids.... I found some of the the characters absolutely terrifying. Even now I shudder just thinking about it!!!

[CoodleMoodle]

A horrible ET piggy bank that sat on my window ledge. DM says I loved ET but I only remember being terrified of it. Still won't watch it now and this was when I was about 4!

And a painting of Elizabeth I that I did at school. DM stuck it up on my wall but she stared at me and I hated it. One day I closed my eyes tight, yanked it down, folded it as small as I could and stuffed it under my mattress. I still remember the adrenalin pumping as I psyched myself up to do it! I was about 7 or 8.

And one of those jump scare GIFs of a ghostly figure suddenly appearing. A friend of mine sent it to me in an email and I couldn't sleep for ages. This was in high school

[flowercrow]

the brackets that held my bedroom shelves up. Their screws were eyes.
the donkey head peg that held my dressing gown on the back of the door.
A fox on the poster on my wall.

[LaGattaNera]

Downward escalators and going on the tube when the IRA were bombing London.

[SassitudeandSparkle]

I used to be frightened of a large wooden display cabinet in a relative's home, because it used to make strange groaning noises (probably just the wood expanding and contracting). Cabinet is still in the family and even my DD has said 'what's that noise' although it groans less frequently now in our more stable temperatures. It's infamy has covered four generations so far and I still don't trust it.

[Giggorata]

We had a really sucky plug hole on the bath. It used to make the most appalling loud noise. Terrifying.

Likewise, the old noisy Goblin cylinder hoover, which had a really scary open hole on its rear end, which I was certain was going to suck me up in some way. This was preschool, btw. The only remedy for this was to leap up off the floor into the nearest armchair and go “aaaaahhhh” back at it as loudly as possible. Hoovering must have been fun for my DM.

Electrical substations with huge humming transformers.

Operating theatres. You could see right into one at the back of the hospital, including the fabled huge round overhead light they had in those days.

Rabies. We lived on the south coast, so possibly heard more about it, as it was supposed to be rife on “the Continent”

Jellyfish, not so irrational.

Spiders of course and none too keen on crabs, either.

The ginger beard man.

[ChrissyHynde]

Escalators , especially when you had to step out in to it to go down , still makes me nervous even today !

[babswindsor]

The wallpaper in my bedroom, it had great big flowers on it that looked like faces when it was night time.

[MakeYourOwnFuckingTea]

Welephant the fire service safety mascot.

[FireCrotch]

Walking on piers when you could see the seawater through the gaps in the wood slats.

[DrCoconut]

I had a ball that I played with in the garden. One night I had a dream that a creature lived in the ball. I was scared of it after that. I was only a toddler though.

[Jenniferturkington]

I was terrified of the bit where two train carriages join together. They used to be big and yellow, and there was a gap. I remember screaming to my mum not to make me walk through ‘the yellow bit’.

[DrCoconut]

My mum tells me I was terrified of the munch bunch on tv when I was very little. I can remember being freaked out by the moomins too, specifically the one about the apocalyptic comet.

[Howtodeal]

I had a plastic bucket with pictures of gnomes on it, it was kept on top of the wardrobe for sone reason. Always used to think the gnomes could get off the bucket and 'get' me.

Also (less lighthearted), my dad died when I was about 11 in quite unusual circumstances. Not long after my mum woke up screaming in the night saying he was sat in a chair in her bedroom all decomposed and slimy (with hindsight, probably not the sort of thing she should have shared with me). After that, and unknown to her, I appropriated a sharp bread knife from the kitchen and a plastic glow in the dark cross (no idea where I got that from!) and slept with them under my pillow for ages so I could protect us from the 'ghost/spirit'. But didn't really sleep as I couldn't. In one way it makes me laugh now, in another I'm horrified that any child would have to go through that.

I was also scared of the cupboard at the bottom of our 1970s room divider for some reason.

[Awwlookatmybabyspider]

Crutches or mummies as I called them Back story is
My mum broke her leg when I was around 4 and obviously was given crutches. Anyway I was playing about with them and my mum said. Don't touch them Spider they're mummies so for years I thought they were Egyptian mummies. You know how children's minds work and became terrified of them. I couldn't look at them.
I was also petrified of The street light or (Billy wind as i referred to him as)that lived outside my bed room window. He was a big tall bloody orange thing. I was convinced he was going to come and get me and scoop me up with his long arms and take me away to scary lamp land.

[Awwlookatmybabyspider]

Excellent thread BTW

[Awwlookatmybabyspider]

"The hoover until I was around 8".

I'm 42 and still terrified of the hoover

[thesockgap]

Escalators - after that terrifying ad where the little girl's rag doll got caught in one and chewed up!
Open-riser stairs, was convinced I'd fall through the back.
Similarly, piers / boardwalks etc, thought I'd fall through the gaps. Which were at most 2mm wide!!
And not me but my son when he was little: terrified of doorstoppers - the kind that you screw in to the skirting boards. He had a real fear of them for some reason!!

[lastnamefirstfirstnamelast]

The smell of external/outdoor emulsion/ paint gives me this really weird feeling of dread. Has done since I was about 7.

I hate hot water bottles.

Anyone doing the butterfly swim in the pool! So loud too!

[TimeIhadaNameChange]

Sleeping.

Presume it was a combination of my father dying when I was young, so I was well aware of what death was, and our family prayer which contained the lines:

Should we die, before we wake,
We pray to God our souls to take.

[MakeYourOwnFuckingTea]

We had a really sucky plug hole on the bath. It used to make the most appalling loud noise. Terrifying.

Our sink in the flat my parents had til I was 6 did that and when you looked down the plug hole I swear I saw a birds eye looking at me.
I was also scared of an ET toy my mum bought me. It had this glowing chest and you could pull it's head up so it would speak. I buried it in the neighbours flower bed.
Strangely I was scared of serving hatches. Most homes seemed to have them and you could see people moving around through the gaps. Dad had to put a curtain over ours.

[Kernowgal]

Slinkys
Moomins
Still don't like dark windows

We used to take a particular route to see friends when we lived in Reading. In a rural section, there was a bit of scrubby woodland with a metal deer sculpture set back from the road. It had big staring eyes and I'd always look out for it and then wish I hadn't.

[spinabifidamom]

I was so little at the time. I was about 4/5 years old then. One night my mom was babysitting for the family across from us. I was so tired that I was curled up on the couch and promptly slept until about midnight.

My dad had definitely detected a ghost in our apartment. He even filmed it on his camera. It was spooky. Not to mention creepy as well.

I remember crying. For years I had horrible unwanted nightmares about what had happened. My parents immediately referred me to a therapist. Several years later I am feeling better.

[PourMeAnotherOne]

Big, yellow JCB tractors. Bouncing up the road with their hideous, metal teeth ready to munch me up whole.

Fucking terrifying.