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

[Creativemode]

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.

Stayed at a then boyfriend's parents and they made me sleep in a sleeping bag over a fully made bed to save washing sheets!

I kind of understand this. If you have lots of people staying over for only one night regularly, I wouldn't want to be changing bed sheets 3 or 4 times a week to accommodate that - it's hard work and time consuming. And 'temporary' girlfriends/boyfriends? - I wouldn't worry so much about imposing weird rules like that!

The no flush thing and also someone once saying we try to stick to 1 sheet of loo roll for a wee and 2 for the other, I think I was only about 15 at the time so went in and used about 15 pieces out if protest!

Just remembered another one.

Visited a friend from uni who's parents were away on holiday. Got there and he explained that his parents didn't like strangers in the house, but they did have a caravan out back and I could stay there. Apparently they thought it was normal to invite visitors and then put them in this caravan for however long. He did let me sneak into the house once. It seemed normal enough which was quite a disappointment at that point.

I have bathroom slippers and then kitchen slippers. the rest of the house is carpeted so I don't generally need slippers. Also a bathroom is apparently saturated with germs every time you flush the loo. Am I veering into Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners territory.

laughing at the one where guests have to fart outside, my mum used to insist you had to fart in the toilet until she experienced a mild bout of ibs and realised that some people don't get a warning when they need to fart.

Well, if there is a disease preventing private farting, yes. But the pp's husband managed to go to the loo for it each time. For him not to do it would have been rude, he clearly was able to.

I am loving this thread. Have spent the last hour and a half reading through.

I have a similar story to some on here: when I was a kid I stayed at a friends house whose mum made us eat everything off our plates. In the morning she asked if I wanted cereal for breakfast, I replied yes. When I was a kid I hated milk on my cereal because I didn't like it getting soggy (can only just bear milk on my cereal now but have to eat it straight away). Anyway the cereal had been sitting in the milk for a good 5 minutes before we sat down to eat. I said I didn't want it but the mum said I had asked for it and now I have to eat it. I was crying but she forced me to eat it anyway!! I was literally crying for half an hour and gagging on every mouthful.

Christ on a bike 🚲, I never realised there were so many real life Dentons in the world!

And some of this stuff isn't just weird, it's outright abusive.

My Bil does not have heating on in middle of winter so I have to sit there in my coat as have Reynauds and just freeze . I so don't get why people would not put heating on and be so cold just to save money - fairly miserable rule

I went to a house and the mum insisted that everyone kept their shoes on inside, to stop their socks getting dirty.

I went to another friend's house, and she used to put her sanitary towels into the fire in the living room in front of everyone. She wasn't embarrassed at all though.

Remembered one. When I was around 16, my friend's parents owned a pub and did Sunday lunch. They needed serving staff and so asked whether I would work there - I was experienced so accepted. Did this for a few weeks and mainly seemed to serve the (extended) family each week.

In and amongst this, my friend invited me for dinner at her parents house, during the week. We sat at the table and her mother (who knew me quite well and had done for some time, in and out of 'work') said "Martha*, does your friend want vegetables?", as she was dishing up each plate right there at the table. I didn't know where to look, but answered her anyway... Weird.

*name changed

Ah my MIL was classic. If my oldest, then a toddler crawled across her carpet she had a large square of polythene, she'd scoot along the carpet under him...

She was incredibly mean with money. (Not that she got off her arse and got a job long after her kids had grown up). She'd literally stand by the thermostat, when she got central heating, like a sentry - making sure no-one shifted it from sub-arctic.

If you had a bath she'd stand outside the door asking if you were still alive (apparently a neighbour about 1000 years earlier had died in the bath).

My DP briefly lived with his parents in his mid 20s. The rule was that he had to be in by 10pm as they locked the front door. That's ok, he told them, I have a key. But oh no... apparently their key got put in the inside of the front door lock at 10pm. Why? Just why?

Recently he had to stay with his parents for a night. He had just that day been discharged from hospital but was made to sleep on the sofa despite there being two spare bedrooms because the spare rooms are "for the grandchildren".... despite the grandchildren not living there or sleeping there that night, and there being plenty of time to change the sheets afterwards.

My dad is a metallic engineer and flushes the water for 5 minutes each morning. He says that in an old building, you can never be 100% sure what is down there, so better to be on the safe side.

It was because if we were letting my horse in the garden to eat the grass and you left the back door open he would go down the hall and into the dining room and eat the apples out of the fruit bowl. My mum used to go mental at me!

Horse in the house! Love this.

We just had family staying with us and I'm pretty sure they could write a book about our complicated rules. Meanwhile we are really, REALLY happy they have gone and wish we had made a few more rules.

• No paper in the toilet. It goes in the bin. We live in Thailand, in a house, and the plumbing just cannot cope with it. So, you flushed toilet paper and nothing bad happened so it must in fact be fine? Nope, and it only took having to unblock the toilet once or twice before we got this. Our son grasped the concept at 2.
• Take off your shoes at the door. And don't put them on the dining table. -
• Wash your feet when you come home. And don't put them on the dining table!
• Don't put books on the floor, or dump your shopping on the Buddha head. - - Don't pick things up with your toes.
• The aircon. Close the doors and windows when you turn it on, and turn it off when you leave the room. Definitely turn it off when you leave the house. It would have been lovely if you could have turned it off before leaving the country.
• Close the doors. Close the windows. If you do not do this, and you get eaten alive by mosquitoes, you will get limited sympathy.
• Please, please don't yell and rant at your kids at the top of your voice in the garden. In the street. On the train. In a restaurant. Yes, people are staring. Yes, they're deeply shocked. No, they don't get that you are educating your child about manners and not being selfish.
• Cover your body when you go into a temple. Please don't moan and whine about being forced to cover your legs and shoulders; there's NO way you'd go to a church in hotpants and tiny vest tops.
• Don't count out your taxi fare to the nearest coin. Consider the occasional tip.
• Don't haggle so rapaciously that the vendor looks ready to cry. Don't lie and say you can get it in Paris for 1 Euro. She doesn't care, she just sort of wishes you'd fuck off back there.
• Would you please tip our helper when you leave as suggested? Yes, we know you think we are spoilt and you are just sooo not used to having someone else do all of your work. Yes, we do pay her a decent wage. But since you didn't make your bed once, threw all your towels on the floor, and regularly handed her vast piles of muddy washing which she returned to you the same day spotlessly clean and ironed... We figure you are getting used to it. So, cough up.
• We share all food. Some of it, we eat with our hands. You don't have to share yours with us (hell, if you want to eat an entire family serving of green curry, be my guest!), but please don't make snarky comments and look down on us for doing so.

Yep. We are very hard to live with.

Actually I've just realised I have one rule that guests may think nuts: sitting room bin is for recycling only, kitchen bin is for everything else.

IT'S MY FLAT SO MY RULES.

Reading your post I was beginning to wonder if we're cousins, nebulae, but my Mum was always fair about her biscuit rule - in that she and Dad also participated!

Chingchoc, they can't have travelled very much!

I lived in South America fot years, and these kind of visits can be so cringeworthy

I guess these people are no longer your friends!

Only strict rule I have is no nuts allowed in my house.

My sister (one who hates me) regularly flouts this rule and can't understand why I get so angry when her Ds gets sticky peanut butter on handles and stuff. I've had to ban her from visiting because of a very serious nut allergy. Showed her the epi Pens we keep on stand by and she shrugged.

It's causes some tension but I can't help feel like she's doing it on purpose.

^^ your sister sounds like an absolute arsehole!

My mum can't stand heat and thinks 14 degrees is a perfectly good indoor temperature. I can't cope with the cold and get ouchy and miserable within an hour.

Luckily, Dad re-read Dr Spock when my ds was born and it said it was important newborns are kept warm, so now they make the house a civilised temp just for us, don't want the baby getting cold. Dc1 is 8 and dc2 is 4, but still need warmth!

Not citrus- how old is your mum?