Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What's the weirdest house rule you've ever experienced as a house guest?

750 replies

Creativemode · 21/09/2016 14:49

Just that really.

Mine is someone that wouldn't let me flush the toilet incase it woke their children.

Also another wouldn't let me go upstairs to the toilet incase the stairs creaked and woke their children (there was no downstairs toilet).

I had a school friend that wasn't allowed fish and chips in the house because of the smell.

OP posts:
FeelingSmurfy · 22/09/2016 02:26

It always makes me laugh that the boiler cupboard in villas in centerparcs have a sign on the door saying nobody is allowed to sleep in there!

They are strict about number of people matching beds anyway, and if there was somehow an extra person then wouldn't they choose a sofa or something first?? You have to wonder what made them start putting those signs up!

Not an unreasonable rule, but one that makes me Confused

EttaJ · 22/09/2016 02:48

Wow how dumb does someone have to be to flush a nappy?!

AcrossthePond55 · 22/09/2016 02:49

No weirdo stories, but DH spent his career working in a wastewater plant. Some of the stories he'd tell about the things that found their way through the plant were incredible. Bottom line, if it will fit down the loo/drain they've found it. Drugs, jewelry, household items, clothing, you name it!

somekindofmother · 22/09/2016 03:03

I don't flush at night as I have bladder issues and go 3-6 times most nights and it wakes dc2. every. single. time.
I'd never tell anyone that irl tho cos it's a bit gross lol and certainly never impose it on guests.

I've never been anywhere with weird house rules!

cariboo · 22/09/2016 03:14

My nana and grandad, bless 'em, had some very strict rules. Every morsel on your plate had to be eaten, nothing wasted. EVER. And bath water was restricted to a few inches. My nana would come and check.

Rainbunny · 22/09/2016 03:24

I had a friend in school who's parents had divorced and she lived with her father, step-mother and her younger two step-brothers. Whenever I visited and stayed for a long while we would only ever eat toast for a meal (fine by me as I was always on a diet as teeneager :(... ) One day looking for something in the kitchen I opened a cupboard that was stuffed full of snacks, biscuits, chocolate treats etc... My friend panicked and told me to close the cupboard and not touch anything, it was only meant for her step-brothers to eat! My friend mostly ate school dinners with me so she wasn't getting any of these tasty food items herself and her complete terror when I stumbled across this stash was genuine. I realised my friend was a real life fucking Cinderella in some ways!

I'd witnessed her dad's short temper towards her before so I was already aware to walk on eggshells around him. Who the hell gets yummy treats in every week for the younger kids whilst forbidding the elder child to have any?? Like some of the other posters experiences - she and her children have zero contact with her father and step-mother and they don't understand why... Sorry that wasn't exactly an example of odd house rules so much as a real life cinderella situation.

FeelingSmurfy · 22/09/2016 03:24

This thread does make you wonder what other people would say about your home!

We don't really have rules, we may have general understandings like the chairs we normally sit on, but it all goes out of the window if we have a visitor. We are just all about comfort and quite laid back, crumbs can be hoovered up later, mess can be tidied etc. The house is clean and tidy but it's also lived in, it's a home not a show house

Omgkitties · 22/09/2016 03:29

Before me and DP moved in together I would spend the majority of my time sleeping at his house. Once his mum was in bed you had to use the downstairs loo although the creaky stairs are move likely to wake her than using the upstairs toilet and weren't allowed to use that bathroom for anything, even though it was the only shower, until she woke up at around 10/11ish. She would go nuts at DP when i first started coming and hadn't got used to the rules yet and kept using the toilet but a year and a half later when BILs girlfriend started staying over she didn't even bat an eyelid when they used the toilet. Apparently they showed her that it was much quieter to use the upstairs toilet than go downstairs. Hmm Wish I'd have done that 18 months earlier.

sashh · 22/09/2016 06:53

When I was a kid one of the houses we lived in we didn't flush at ight, because I was in the room next to it and it woke me up, then spent 20 mins doing noisy cistern filling etc so I couldn't get back to sleep.

Three people using the loo after I'd gone to bed would mean I lost an hour's sleep, even if I could get back to sleep after that.

imnotreally · 22/09/2016 07:10

My exDH once flushed an entire packet of baby wipes down the loo. My DD had emptied an entire packet all over the floor and he swooped them up and flushed them down the loo before I could say anything.

He then spent a good 2 hours unblocking the drains Grin

BabyGanoush · 22/09/2016 07:53

This thread is the other side of the coin of the "your house your rules" mantra so beloved by MN! Grin

Gwenhwyfar · 22/09/2016 07:57

"I actually cannot see anything wrong with 4 weekly collections apart from the need for a bigger recycling bin"

The problem is the smell if you have "bathroom waste" in there. Especially for those of us with no access to an outside area.

BabyGanoush · 22/09/2016 07:58

Just thinking, I have a rule about poo-filled nappies going in the outside bin.

some guests think this is weird and chuck them in my kitchen bin. I guess they are used to the smell? I hate it!

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 22/09/2016 07:58

Bathroom waste and old chicken and other meat,curry etc blerk!!

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 22/09/2016 07:59

I was reading about Oxford as they were one of the first to go every other week and now they have a terrible rodent problem.

limitedperiodonly · 22/09/2016 08:06

At a friend's house to do homework, I put my books on the table. She screamed at me to get them off in case I scratched it. We had to work on the floor. Her dad was a bully who had all kinds of rules.

At another friend's house you weren't allowed to have a poo in the upstairs loo, only the downstairs one. One day her mum hammered on the door and demanded to know whether I was doing a poo or a wee. When I answered 'wee' she said: 'Sorry, I thought you were my daughter. But just remember there are no poos allowed in there.'

pictish · 22/09/2016 08:18

Dh used to insist that all poo-ey nappies were wrapped and went straight to the outside bin. He couldn't handle the lingering smell and even the faintest whiff would have him gagging.

woodhill · 22/09/2016 08:24

4 week waste is ridiculous and it's not like they will reduce your CT bill. We are lucky ours is weekly which I believe it should be for everyone.
otherwise more fly tipping and rubbish in public bins.

Hotlingbling · 22/09/2016 09:01

If you flush at night from the very beginning everyone gets used to it and can sleep through it. It's the same with vacuuming when the baby's asleep. If you do it from newborn they will get used to it. I cannot stand having to tip toe around because the baby is sleeping.

ToriaPumpkin · 22/09/2016 09:28

Having raised two children exactly the same way (in and out of rooms at night to put washing away, getting on with things around them/while they're asleep, flushing toilets in the night) I can categorically state that doing something from newborn will not get them used to noise and some children will still wake up if you drop a pin a mile away. Thank you DC2.

Having said that, we don't really have any rules, people can come and go as they please, flush any toilet whenever they want, help themselves to drinks and food and put whatever they want in the bins (most of my friends bag any nappies etc and despite two weekly collections we rarely run out of space in the wheelie bin) I do ask them to not let their children run around upstairs while my youngest is trying to sleep and to take shoes off upstairs but I don't think either of those is particularly unreasonable.

My MIL on the other hand... A whole house full of trinkets, ornaments and random piles of shells that you are not to touch. Drinks are monitored and commented on (I swear I drink more wine there now simply because it took so long to get the courage up to get a second glass in the first place) coasters rule the world (despite her using the exact same table for my kids to draw and paint on) and a friend of mine who stayed there with me for one night said she felt she couldn't let the shower enclosure wet.

Original poster
Creativemode · 22/09/2016 09:39

I agree toria I didn't do anything different with my two.

You literally cannot wake ds1 up. We've found him in our bed having snuck in and you just can't wake him. We built his bedroom furniture with him asleep in bed and he didn't stir.

Ds2 otoh wakes up so easily.

I should have said though the one family that wouldn't flush the loo had school age children. It was my senior school friend and her two sisters were like 8 and 10 so no chance of waking a baby or toddler!

OP posts:
thoughtsaslongascigarettes · 22/09/2016 09:41

OH also has a relative that hates hair and begged us to make sure there was no hair in the shower anywhere..I was so paranoid I'd miss a bit

This is a rule in my house Grin

FruVikingessOla · 22/09/2016 09:57

My mum had a house rule which was two plain biscuits to one fancy biscuit. But you had to have the two plain ones before having a fancy one - and if you wanted another fancy one, you had to have another two plain ones first.

This only applied to all children and Mum & Dad - visiting adults were allowed biscuits of their choice - and the fancy biscuits were only brought out on special occasions or when we had guests for afternoon tea.

I think this probably stemmed from (a) although we weren't poor, we weren't massively well-off either and (b) Mum & Dad were both adults during WW2 so lived through rationing and scarcity of luxuries.

biscuitbadger · 22/09/2016 10:32

We have a relative on a water meter who has me walking on eggshells. I've been told off for getting a drink of water before. (I had to run the tap for a minute to get the water to run cold.)

Once I needed to wash my feet and thought I'd sit on the side of the bath and just carefully run a tiny bit of water. She followed me up and asked me to stop that and wash them in the bidet instead. That was pretty odd.

BoffinMum · 22/09/2016 10:50

If you are in a room or leave a room the door must be left open, unless you are in the loo in which case you must leave it closed at all times.

That is my mum's rule.

We also have to do extreme shower wiping but to be fair it does keep the thing nice.

Swipe left for the next trending thread