To ask what the strangest thing is that you've seen in a family home/life...

[purpleworms]

...that to them was completely normal?

I have just seen someone asked this on an AMA on their Instagram. Their reply was walking around fully naked in front of parents/siblings/any family members.

While this is obviously okay for some, if it happened in a home I was visiting I'd be but that's just because it's not the norm in my family.

I'm racking my brains but I don't think I've ever noticed anything! But people have such different ways/customs within their home lives and routines. We all regard our own as normal without ever really knowing if what's normal to us is strange to others!

I think there was a fashion fur sinks in bedrooms at one time.

I had to knock a sink out of our second bedroom when we moved in...a previous house had a sink in the bedroom which we left in, and my mother still has a sink in her bedroom. Maybe it was a 60s thing?

height of poshness sinks in bedrooms when i was little mum cleaned a bungalow and they had a sink in the daughters bedroom equivalent of an ensuite i suppose was the 1960s

I had a sink in my bedroom growing up, we only had one bathroom at the time though, that would have been put in during the early 80's.

Not massively strange, but I was surprised to discover that the boyfriend of a friend of mine (they didn't live together at the time) kept his motorbike parked in pride of place in the middle of his sitting room - at least he'd had the floor tiled with lino tiles though!

There's a rather eccentric couple who live quite close to me whose entire front garden, with the exception of the path, is piled up with all sorts of odd bits of wood. I don't know if they still do it, but they used to go rummaging through skips to 'rescue' any wood. God knows why, as it just sits in their front garden. But it does make me wonder what the inside of their house is like - full of hoarded stuff?

I have a few!

We were house hunting a few years ago and one of the houses we viewed had at least 2/3 double beds in each bedroom, weird.

Another house we were shown around by the home owner who was a dwarf, he was wearing extenders on his ears to make him look like an elf. All around the house in arm chairs, at the dining table even standing in the shower were life size characters from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings etc all of the photos on the walls were of the home owner at various conventions in full cosplay with a whole array of film characters.

A childhood friend had a really strict Mum who looking back probably had really bad OCD. We weren’t allowed to sit on her bed because it would need washing more and therefore fade to be a different colour to the curtains. I was so confused one time when I stayed round and my friend rolled up her duvet and slept on her bed in a sleeping bag! It was literally a duvet for show.

I once visited a house professionally and there were about 50-70 full coke bottles full of urine. They were fairly neat and sort of around the edge of the rooms except for the ones that were positioned nicely next to each chair or sofa. it was pretty horrendous overall with about ten young teens in various states on undress and a couple of shifty looking middle aged men sitting around. Needless to say I called the police and they took it from there. One young police officer told me the upstairs was like nothing he'd seen before

A collection of drawings, proudly displaced throughout the house, of copulating goblins.

Mumminmum maybe your friend was only allowed very little and would get in trouble for using more than usual.

A childhood friend of mine in the 80's was one of four sisters and the father controlled the whole family including the mother.He did all the shopping and I remember being horrified when I met him in the supermarket with the trolley filled with sanitary towels etc.He used to follow us around in his car and hide behind walls when we went out and about especially in the evening.Boys were not allowed into their home at all and when she, my friend, was having party for her 18th birthday and invited the boys he slammed the door in their faces .When my friend ever confronted him he used to throw all her stuff out in plastic bags in front of the house.She used to then stay with me until she was allowed home again.She now lives far , far away!

When I was little our only form of heating was a coal fire in the lounge. There was no.point lighting it when we were leaving for school/work so the house was freezing with ice on the inside of the windows in Winter. Mum waited for my dad to leave for work then she would light the oven and open the door and we would sit round to have our breakfast.
Dad was a real tight arse and we were not allowed the lights on until it was actually dark. I was not allowed a bedroom lamp even when scared of the dark. My DP likes lamps and low lighting and despairs that I need the "big light" on when eating . I think it dates back to growing up in the half light.

I went for Sunday Lunch at a friends house when I was in my teens. When they got the food, they all proceeded to make Sunday dinner butties on thick white bread with bright yellow margarine and brown sauce. Cant think about that without feeling sick !!!

My parents used to have a couple to stay every year for Cheltenham races. The spare bedroom had two single beds but they always slept in just the one. It fascinated us!

DP and I did this when we visited family in our early twenties. We could not bare to be in separate beds. Would not dream of it these days, plus we both take up rather more space in the bed than we used to.

Dogmum0, maybe all those double beds were because they were swingers?

I have only two which stand out.

First was a fairly new friend fron Uni, we were staying at her parents house in London for a weekend. Planning the usual pub crawl and what not. So there we were, in her bedroom getting our LBD and fake-up on. I was in a bath robe and sitting on the bed, my friend was standing next to the wardrobe and getting dressed. She was naked, except for a thong. Then in walks her mother and they start to have a chat about some randon holiday stuff, ok, fair enough, I have no issues being naked in front of my mother. But then her 19 year old brother walks in, and all three of them have a chat! She's topless! Don't know if thats a thing but there's no way I'm getting topless in front of my 19 year old brother!

Second was when I was on holiday in America a few years ago. Went to the home of a relative of the friend I was travelling with. We walked in to the house and there was a whole wall covered in dolls heads. All nailed through the forehead!

When I asked my friend about them later she just said "yeah, it's cus they collect them".
WTF!

Her garden is half clutter and half plants and flowers as she likes to garden too. Doesn't bother me.

I do rent though Kirsty. You're living up to your namesake with your advice .

once had a boyfriend who reckoned my family were not normal because we said please and thank you to each other.

Those were my in-laws, they thought please and thank you made me look “servile”

I know a family where kids were only expected to have a bath or a shower once a week, the dad was still taking “fun” baths with his daughter when she was 10. He didn’t see any problem on being naked around people, indoors and outdoors...

@DeaflySilence

^This reminded me of my first (and only) visit to a fairly new boyfriend's home, where his mother cooked for and served the 'men' of the house (her husband and two sons) and any guests (me, on that occasion), but did not eat with them.
Instead she 'hovered' about (a couple of yards back from the table), tending to everyone and popping back and forth to the kitchen to fetch anything they wanted!^

My nan was like this, but to everyone, not just the men. She was always making us eat. Eat! Food was love.

I had a friend whose elder sister shared a bed with her dad. The mum slept in the same room as my friend. My friend also had to do all the cooking and cleaning in the house. It wasn't until the police came round and asked me questions, that I realised just what was happening. So awful :(

Years ago I went to view a house for sale with my then H. The guy showing us round showed us a big cupboard and said 'I'll open this but your wife mightwant to look away in case she is frightened (I was heavily pregnant at the time).
So obviously I was imagining Norman Bates' Mum in the cupboard, but it turned out to be a huge stag's head mounted on a board - the kind you hang on the wall. No idea why he kept it in the cupboard. Maybe he thought a giant stag's head wasn't appropriate to hang on the wall of a small terraced house

I knew someone who had an enormous seven-bedroom Victorian house (over four levels) who once had a group of about 9 male friends staying at the house after a sports event.

His wife had insisted that they all brought their own pillows and duvets and made them sleep on various sofas/floors rather than in the actual beds.
They used to send their laundry out to be cleaned so it wasn't that she would have had to do the washing herself. Most unwelcoming!
I did look at them in a different light after that.

I think the top sheet thing probably goes back to when the 'new Continental quilt' thing started in the '80's because before them, we had sheets and blankets and my Mum just made up the beds with top sheets also. I'd rather change a pair of sheets each week than a quilt cover. I also have a friend that does as her Grandma did and put the 'top to bottom' so, rather than change the two sheets, you take the bottom one off to wash and put the top one on the bottom with a clean top sheet. I wouldn't do that but, I have heard of a lot of the older generations doing it.

I saw a house once that had a cupboard door...and inside the cupboard was a bath. It was just a usable bath that literally fitted snuggly in a hall cupboard. Most strange!

I have friends who don't close the bathroom door. Even when they're in it.

My parents keep bread in the fridge. I thought this was standard practice until I moved in with my then BF (now DH). It is so much less stale now!

I've posted this one before but in case you didn't see it I'll repeat😊Don't read if you've just eaten though!
When I was a young teenager if it myself a job as a live in kennel maid hundreds of miles from home in the middle of nowhere,just a pub within walking distance.
On my first morning I came downstairs and into the lounge.My employer was sat feeding a baby bottle to her tiny grandson.A small white dog say at her feet.Tony shock she whipped the bottle out of the child's mouth and stuck it in the dog's mouth saying "some for you,now some for you".Then,as I stood there awaiting instructions for where to go she duly popped the bottle in the babies mouth again.

I'd love to say that was it but I caught her doing all sorts,I came into the kitchen to get fish from the freezer for some boarding cats and she was boiling potatoes for her and the three kennel maids,with her dirty knickers in the same pan.A dog knocked her pork chop and she ran outside,grabbed it back and are it.she washed the shot covered dog blankets in the same wash as her own clothes.😨
She also had a very big dog who someone had taught to slide down the banisters thought it great fun.Until I used the banister one day forecast myself and had dog poo on my hand.
I didn't stay there for long.
All of the above is absolutely true btw,I've never forgotten it.probably never will.

@DammitOedipus

I have never closed the bathroom door since I had my DC. They are teens now and I still don’t. They do. It’s a habit from listening out for them as young children!

We went to view a property once that had a fish pond sunk into the living room floor, the residents had installed amber coloured glass into all the windows at the rear of the house (made me feel quite sick it gave a very strange light) They also had a black coloured porcelain toilet, bath and basin.