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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:
SarcasmMode · 22/09/2016 20:34

I tend not to flush during the night if it's just a www but obviously do if it's something else.

Not a rule though - just me.

Swirlingasong · 22/09/2016 20:35

As a teenager I had a friend whose mother was weirdly obsessed with how often you washed, especially how often you washed your hair. Washing too much was considered a moral failing. If you stayed there you had to ask to have a wash and were not allowed to wash your hair. I used to be invited for a week every summer to keep her daughter entertained and used to wash myself in stages secretly when I went to the loo and hang my head out of the window to spray dry shampoo so that no one would detect it! The same mother wouldn't let her children wash at all if they had a sniffle. Poor kids used to quite literally have stinking colds.

Ineedmorelemonpledge · 22/09/2016 20:35

Idreamofpeace where these your friends? Grin

mommybunny · 22/09/2016 20:37

It's still a house rule now, two people can only sleep in a double bed together if they're married.... Bonkers!!

My mother still has that rule, and she did when I was with then DF(iance now DH) and in my 30s.

waterlily200 · 22/09/2016 20:37

I thought the no flushing thing was normal. We did it when our little one was young but just for wees and only family. She was a good sleeper but her room was right next to toilet, didn't seem worth the risk. To be fair though we wouldn't have gone mad if it got flushed so not really a rule.

October2014Baby · 22/09/2016 20:47

My mother.....
No drinks/food upstairs (or in fact anywhere but the kitchen) EVER
Clean and dry the bath/shower after every use and before you leave the bathroom
Don't use the towels hanging up in the bathroom (the coordinating ones), use the thread bare towels kept in a cupboard in the kitchen
Everybody to use the same facecloth and towel!
Don't sit on the sofa before covering it with a throw. When you've finished, remove and fold the throw and plump and smooth out any wrinkles left in the fabric of the sofa.

Needless to say my childhood was far from relaxed! I don't take my kids there much either.

KP86 · 22/09/2016 20:48

October, one towel for the whole family? Yuk, it must have been soaking for the last person!

October2014Baby · 22/09/2016 20:50

KP, It would have been if we'd all been ALLOWED a shower........ or could have been bothered to wash and dry it. She's a nightmare.

raspberrysuicide · 22/09/2016 20:51

What if you have a poo in the middle of the night....are you allowed to flush then?

Wildernesswandering · 22/09/2016 20:52

My first boyfriends mother would make tea but add water from the tap so it was tepid. The tea had to be drunk quickly, almost down in one whilst standing up by the kitchen sink. The cup had to be washed up immediately and put straight back in the cupboard. I found it so strange but they looked at me as if I was mad when I asked if we could take it through to the living room!

5OBalesofHay · 22/09/2016 21:00

I once went round to a new friend's house for coffee. She made me take my shoes off, and offered me slippers from a basket! Why would you do that?

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 22/09/2016 21:03

I've just implemented the ' drying the bath tub/ shower EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU USE IT' rule as our small bathroom can't cope with the steam and I'm sick of using HG spray all the time!

TattyCat · 22/09/2016 21:10

paxillin your mother's sister's husband's brother is no relation to you! Not an uncle or an uncle-in-law. HTH!! Grin

piggypoo · 22/09/2016 21:14

When staying with DH's parents, we are not allowed to use the bath mat, you must pick it up. put in on the radiator when showering, dry your feet, in the shower, step out onto the carpet, then replace the bath mat back, dry :)

mommybunny · 22/09/2016 21:14

TattyCat, wrong thread Grin

ispymincepie · 22/09/2016 21:16

Mil makes you squeegee the shower after use. Woe betide anybody who forgot (or refused Grin)

TopazBurns · 22/09/2016 21:17

I love this thread & reminds me of when we used to visit my grandad for our holidays every year. We'd stay a fortnight, bless his heart putting up with us lot. This was in the 1970's and he kept an open fire going every day with a kettle hanging over the fire, spuds cooked on it & side door for bread oven.Anyhow (I'll get to my point) I was a young teen & had to wrap my used sanitary products to put on the fire- I was so embarrassed that I flushed them instead.
I blocked the drains & my dad had to unblock them (to his credit he never said a word about the stuff he got out)

Carmody · 22/09/2016 21:17

My sister and I (aged 12 and 14 respectively) were staying with a very religious aunt. We had been delivered there the previous evening as our mum was having a major operation. In the morning, the aunt announced that she was going to church but we would be staying in the house since we were heathens (or at least our father was) and she didn't want us showing disrespect. She gave us the following instructions: 1) "Do not go into the living room" and 2) "I mean it: do not go into the living room. It's for guests only.". We nodded politely as we sat at the dining room table which she had thoughtfully stocked with our entertainment for the morning: a pile of Country Life magazines, a book called Cautionary Tales and a radio.

About three minutes after she had driven off, we were in the living room which we were disappointed to find had no dead bodies in it. The room was huge with overstuffed sofas, chintzy curtains, stripey wallpaper and a massive TV. "Stuff the radio!" we agreed and switched on the TV which we watched for 30 minutes after adjusting the colour which was heavily saturated and the volume which was far too loud. Then my sister spied a guitar in a corner. It was dusty and very out of tune. We tuned it and played pop stars for a while. Then, worriedly looking at the clock, we put the guitar back in place, switched off the TV, straighten the doily armrests and returned to the dining room just in time to fake interest in the Country Life editorials as my Aunt walked in. She looked at us and, without saying a word, she turned and strode into the living room. I recall mouthing "Oh shit!" as we heard her switch on the TV and then I saw my sister's eyes go as big as saucers as we heard the guitar being strummed...

We were banished to the attic all day. Which was no big deal as that was where we were sleeping anyway!

TopazBurns · 22/09/2016 21:20

Also you should never put grease or oil down your drains, no matter what type of sewage system you have. I use kitchen roll to soak up excess (if there's a lot I pour into an empty glass jar & screw the lid on tight)

I cringe when I see my neighbour pour the fat from his Sunday roast down the storm drains in the road outside our house...

VanellopeVonSchweetz99 · 22/09/2016 21:30

Not me but by mum went on an exchange program to Germany as a teenager in the early 1960s for six weeks or so.
Her host family sent their daughter to my grandparents in Scandinavia.

Mum came back basically anorexic and the German girl left my grandparents v well fed. They were a really poor family and my mum said the most enduring memory was how the German mum boiled massive fatty joints of meat for most of the day for dinner, and then used the fatty water to soak her dried, cracked feet. They also had family baths once a week, my mum was allowed to go first as she was the guest.

hotdiggedy · 22/09/2016 21:37

Not allowed to leave the bedroom until 10am. Not to have breakfast until the hosts had finished and washed up from theirs. No plans to go back again!

bloomburger · 22/09/2016 21:38

No fish and carrots together and other bizarre disallowed food combinations at ILs house. But they serve boiled courgettes with everything Confused!!

Ericaequites · 22/09/2016 21:39

If you have a well, not flushing except for solids saves lots of water.

jessicarabbit0411 · 22/09/2016 21:46

Had just finished uni, I lived in London and my then BF went back to living with his parents. We were going to visit uni friends for the weekend, and I offered to pick him up on the way. I arrived just as his parents were serving up dinner. His mum regarded me as something rather nasty, made me take my shoes off and put some horrible plastic protector things on my feet (like those found in swimming pools).

I was then asked to stand in the utility room while they "finished their dinner" as guests were "not permitted" at the dinner table. It was a boiling hot summers day and I was not offered so much as a glass of water while I waited. For an hour.

After about an hour I resorted to drinking water straight from the tap, my BF walked in just as I was doing so and he gasped "don't do that, mum will go mad."

Our relationship didn't go very far after that, to him it was just "mums rules" but to me it was plain rudeness!!!!! I've never been shut in a utility room since....

topcat2014 · 22/09/2016 21:48

I love this thread, although my eyes welled up as I just remembered darling (late) GM kept the front room for best - we only went in at Christmas or for parties.

It was a 1930s house with bay windows, china cabinets, etc.

It is about five years since she died, at 98 - so really don't know why I am crying now ;(