What's the strangest thing you've seen in someone's house that they thought was 'normal'?

[00100001]

I'll go first.

When I was 7, I went to a friend's house, and had bright red mashed potatoes for dinner.her dad always put food colouring in food. She thought this was normal, a d everyone had coloured mash.

@8misskitty8

Down the road from me is a 1st floor flat with a lifesize cardboard Elton John complete with star glasses stood at the window. A bus stop is directly opposite and on occasion people have commented about being stared at by that man at the window 😂

I have a life size cardboard cutout of David Beckham in my living room and one of Cliff Richard in my bedroom 😂😂

I used to have a friend , who’s mother was completely ott with her home , complete show off with it as well …… she had cream carpet and used to keep a bucket of white socks in the kitchen that you had to put on before you entered the living area ….. used to piss me right off .

As a child we only ever got our groceries in M&S I used to cry as all my friends would have things like coco pops, Fanta, Twix, Cadbury's etc but we never did we always had the M&S version (back then they only did own brand)

I used to get so excited going to my friends houses eating their biscuits and things like walkers crisps!

Bit late to the party, but - thinly sliced cucumber in a dressing I believe to be vinegar, water, salt and sugar is fairly ubiquitous in Hungary. My in-laws live there, that is how I know. I love the stuff, always order it in restaurants, where it often comes with a dollop of sour cream and a dusting of paprika.

It's called uborkasalata, that is cucumber salad, or ubisali to aficionados. For some reason much better than the typical Gurkensalat in Germany, which lacks acidity and sometimes contains oil or mayo - brr.

Missing Budapest now... nostalgia is clearly why cucumbers in vinegar are getting air time here.

@sadeyedladyofthelowlandsea

The story of the rescued duckling at serious work conferences has, IMO, won the thread. Well done!

Any chance of some duckling footage / photos?

I went to a friends house as a teen. They had their old pet cat stuffed on the living room coffee table and every surface had fox skins with the heads still on. Turned out they were keen fox hunters.

I went to a friends house for her birthday and her kicked out other friend out due to her name spelling ahSATAN backwards. She was honestly like the mum from Carrie.

Her mum that’s meant to say.

TheRebelle well yes, the forbidden is the biggest treat ever!

@NigellaAwesome I don't have any photos of it, but I bet she does! I'll have to ask her. There was a definite split between people who just blithely ignored the little quacking duckling gently spinning around in the bucket, and those of us who had to move to the back of the room because we got the giggles. Her husband was in charge of carrying the bucket.

She didn't warn me either that it was in the bath when I went to use her loo, so I just sat down, and then heard this little 'quack' next to me. That was unexpected.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

I'm gonna have to add a twist and say the weirdest thing someone did in my house: during a party a friend decided to cut her hair with a pair of nail scissors. like it was the most natural thing to do. it looked shit

(she was sober)

Um, I may or may not have done this I was definitely not sober though!

If it was in Wales in the 90’s, I’m glad to be back in touch 😂

Her husband was in charge of carrying the bucket.

Can't personally related to the cucumbers in vinegar nostalgia because my mum was from another country and we had salad with dressing and cucumber was just chucked into that.

However it did remind me of the Enid Blyton Famous Five stories where the cucumbers in their sandwiches (along with lashings of ginger beer etc) were dipped in vinegar. It was mentioned a few times here and there.

I used to do some cleaning work for a family friends cleaning business during the school holidays when I was doing my a-levels. One of the customers lived in a big manor house in the countryside, and when you walked into the grand hallway the walls were covered in taxidermied heads of animals that had been shot in Africa by the couple who lived there. Must have been about 30 heads covering the hallway alone. There was a huge whole stuffed Buffalo, a couple of stuffed cats and a hyena dotted through the house too, not just the heads. it was all pretty appalling and there were photos of the husband scattered around the house posing with the animal carcasses. 🤢 It was genuinely the elephant in the room - we never mentioned it to them and they never said a thing about it either, even though actual impala heads were staring right at us. At 17 I'd never seen anything like it, and haven't since. Dread to think how many animals there are up on their walls now.

Cucumber thinly sliced, ‘pickled’ in vinegar (soaked in a small bowl for a couple of hours) was a lovely addition to salad when I was a kid. Mum was Black Country bred if that’s any relevance?

Never had it with a roast though. Or as PP said cucumber with mint sauce. I’m going to try both now

Nazi memorabilia? Family porn watching time? Pets made into slippers? Fucking hell! Thank god the weirdest thing in any of my friends houses was furry carpet wall tiles. Oh, and a sliding accordion partition door to the downstairs loo, that could be a little awkward as there was no lock and it was right off the living room

@disculpeI have not RTFT all the way through but may have to check on cucumbers - friend of mine's parents had a side table made out of an elephant's foot. I did not like that.

Oh and what about the terraced house in Oxford with a shark through the roof ? At what point in your life do you think - Ah - I know , I'll get a massive shark put through my roof. - Maybe I am just too conservative ( with a small c )

1990, and my friend was heading back to her new boyfriend's place. We knew he liked reptiles but she was taken aback to discover that his bed, in the corner of the room, was raised, providing his pet snakes ample living space underneath with glass walls and heat lamps to keep them warm. The whole flat was full of tanks and terrarium and she said it smelt a bit funny. She reported they slept together as she really fancied him! However the relationship did not last very long.

I was flabbergasted! I have never fancied any bloke nearly enough to put up with that!

@Cosmos123

At a friend's house and it was dessert night. The whole family were excited about their family dessert.

It was rice pudding with a dollop of jam in the middle.

Exactly, what did you find strange? Was it:

1. Rice pudding as a dessert? This has been a common dessert in schools and homes for centuries.
2. Jam in the middle? Many people put jam, honey or chocolate spread in their rice pudding.
3. A family being excited about dessert? Well, is it not beautiful that a dessert can be all the more appreciated due to healthily abstaining from eating dessert all week?

The strangest thing: hundreds of (yes, about 300) decorative ceramic teapots and othe hollow ornaments all over the house, on every shelf, table, cupboard and under the TV and behind the sofa on the floor - AND EVERY ONE OF THEM FILLED WITH HOMEMADE EGGNOG, ready to drink at a moment's notice.

Also, I used to know a guy who bought an empty (used) urn from a charity shop. He used it as an ashtray that lived on the coffee table in the living room. Within it, beneath the thick layer of cigarette ash, he had placed chicken bones. And when asking for it, he would say, "pass me granny"!

@hotbutteredtoasttreat

A new girl joined our secondary school, they were English but had grown up in the ME where her father owned or part owned an oil rig thing. She seemed very posh to me and very upper class and I was really looking forward to going to her house. We were 16, and when I arrived at her house her very eccentric mum was very welcoming and started rubbing her hands together with glee stating she had a very special treat for dinner. When friend asked what it was she very excitedly exclaimed "hot buttered toast!" as if this was the most luxurious food ever. I was a bit and wondering if she was joking or something, then my very well spoken friend bellowed "WOULD YOU SHUT THE F*CK UP!" at her, and the mother replied "oh I'm sorry dear" in a really cheery voice. I was in total shock at this, but everyone just carried on as if this was normal. The hot buttered toast was presented with much joy from the mother, and my friend and her older brother kept shouting, swearing and mocking the mother who just went on oblivious. I used to visit them often and could write a book about the odd things that went on there. On one occasion the mother was sitting in the kitchen sink with her trousers rolled up, and was pontificating wildly about the benefits of Jiffing your knees 🤣

SOunds like the mum had mental health issues, sadly. :(

Thumb I know it sounds like it, but I don't think she did. She was very sociable and happy, but just very eccentric and full of very odd ideas. Over time I came to realize that the family believed they were poverty stricken (they had multi million pound property portfolio) so they had to scrimp on food. Hot buttered toast was one of the three meals they ate, cheese toasties and supermarket value noodles were the other two. Friend got a flat in West London after graduating, but she still insisted that my very average family had more money than hers because we ate from McDonald's once a week and they couldn't afford that . The mum was positively bonkers in a lovely way, but her dc treated her like dirt.

@Cocolapew

Not me but DH. When he was younger he went home with a women who was a barmaid in his local. He asked to use the loo and she asked him if it was a "wee or a poo?". He was a bit but said a wee. She answered that's ok its just the toilet won't flush poo away. He did wonder what she did when she had to have a crap and found out the answer when he walked into the bathroom and was faced with the bath full to the brim of carrier bags with shit in them.

Holy Shit!!

Imagine the smell!

@hotbutteredtoasttreat - well I'm glad she seemed happy, by all accounts. I mean, she might have been whacked out on happy pills to survive the attitudes of the rest of her family, but at least she seems to have got on with life in her own sweet way!

@BasiliskStare

Oh and what about the terraced house in Oxford with a shark through the roof ? At what point in your life do you think - Ah - I know , I'll get a massive shark put through my roof. - Maybe I am just too conservative ( with a small c )

It was done by the artist who owned the house, he loved to push the boundaries.

Love the shark house, lived near it for years