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!

Yes, the immediate thought is that naked poo-ers must wash with water - bidet or shower after (or time things so they poo before a shower). Can anybody confirm?

Is it always men and boys? Do any women who do it actually take off their bras? Don't they all get cold? Do they put the same clothes back on afterwards?

I once knew a family that would only wash up once a week and everytime I went round there the whole kitchen would be covered in dirty plates, pans, cutlery and cups all with food rotting upon them. They would enlist a family member to wash up the hoard once a week. I never liked drinking tea or coffee round there ....

dottygreen yep, definitely strange! We are living overseas and had a big incinerator in the garden, pretty standard for where we lived so mum used to burn them out there, God knows why she didn't just put them in the normal bin.
On the subject of God, I went to Sunday school (my choice) and was talking to my brother about God. My mum pulled me aside and told me not to, bloody funny now as my brother's embraced (a strange) religion with an intense and passionate fervour that would have my mother turning in her grave! She was very anti- religion.
Talking to my dh, there was many strange things about my childhood that I never even realised.

Oh good lord, I just watched that video.

Recently visiting a friend from work after being invited for a brew, sitting in her living room which as soon as we stepped in became evident that she is a hoarder (clear path from the front door to the sofa only, sofa piled high with stuff)
Any way there’s me, another of our friends, my friend the hostess and her husband sitting in the living room (on top of stuff on the sofa) and her dh said to us as we were chatting that he couldn’t hear the simpsons that was on tv at that moment so turned the volume UP, right up.
She smiled, settled back and focussed on the tv.
There ended all conversation, I just said that I’d best go, put my full coffee cup down and left.
It’s happened a few times since.

My DM being a hoarder, we were the local weirdos with a house no one was invited into as it was too filthy and piled 2ft deep in rubbish.

My DB and I were abused and neglected and generally left to fend for ourselves. It was a shit childhood for us.

But I remember a rare time I was invited to play at a classmate's house and was stunned by her perfect pink and white spotless bedroom, not a single toy to be seen but a single stuffed tiger on a shelf. I asked if i could play with the tiger and was told "no, it is not for playing with it is just an ornament".

At the time I thought "how boring, there is nothing to do here" and never got invited again went back, but years later I thought that poor girls childhood was also shit.

How could her parents give her nothing to play with? Just a perfect spotless princess room that mustn't be messed up and toys that mustn't be touched.

It always made me and I wonder what happened to her.

Not RTFT, but adult My Little Pony fans are called Bronies

Close. Adult Male fans are bronies.

@Ifeelsuchafool thanks for satisfying my curiosity Cats are funny creatures!

I know someone who was allowed draw and paint on the hall walls as a child and another family who used/use plastic cutlery, plates, bowls etc for every meal! And simply bin it all when finished. They had a goodbye meal for us when we were leaving.. table beautifully set, actual plates out and..... Plastics put on top.

I don't think a top sheet is weird? I do think pp completely looking after guests with own living room is a bit strange/sad but maybe iy wasn't a problem.

Just caught up with this thread. Question for the takeaway sharers: when you eat out in a restaurant do you insist on everyone sharing too?

I can't imagine anything worse than having a spoonful of 4 or 5 different mains on my plate. I order what I like because I like it!

Dustbins ( whether kitchen or bathroom) should be emptied daily

What a waste of bin bags.
My bathroom bin is emptied when full ish. But very little goes in it, odd razor maybe bit of tissue. Odd socks that I am fed up of waiting for match to turn up.
Kitchen bin only ever has plastic that can't be recycled in it.
Recycling goes in a basket to be emptied when going past it.
Food scraps -cooked to dogs -raw in composted.
Everything else goes directly to outside bin.

Schmoobarb - you’ll find in the world of bed/bed sheet/duvet/mattress/topper etc sales a flat sheet under the duvet is the correct way too “dress” a bed. It stops your duvet cover from gettting sweaty and smelly and saves you from having to change your duvet cover so often.

MIL does the top sheet under the duvet thing, my mother is still sheets and blankets.
Drives me to distraction. It takes longer to make the bed in the morning and it gets all tangled up in the night.

Ooh, I'd forgotten about the drawing on the walls! Friends of mine were allowed to do that as well, very strange.

I’m totally confused as to whether I’m doing beds up wrong thanks to this thread...

The layers of my bed;

Mattress
Mattress Topper
Fitted Sheet
(Me)
Another sheet (Flat sheet and top sheet are the same thing in my mind!)
In winter, Electric Blanket
Duvet (in a duvet cover usually)
Fancy Quilt or Bed Runner.

I change my bed weekly. Including duvet cover.

Am I weird/unhygienic/doing something terribly wrong?!

Dustbins ( whether kitchen or bathroom) should be emptied daily

Don't be ridiculous.

Just caught up with this thread. Question for the takeaway sharers: when you eat out in a restaurant do you insist on everyone sharing too?

Depends what sort of meal we go for. Obviously, it goes without saying, that if we go to a restaurant, I choose pork, DH has a steak, DCs (adult) have a pasta dish, seafood, whatever... we don't have bits of each others!

But when we went to this posh Indian restaurant in London I spoke about upthread, the idea was you had a selection of dishes and shared. There are restaurants I go to abroad where that's the norm. There's a syrian one I love and the owner just cooks what is fresh that day and brings out lots of amazing dishes and we all have a bit of them all. I don't think that's peculiar.

@lottiegarbanzo, I've done the naked pooing thing, so have my sisters and my mum. TMI here but, we all have IBS to varying degrees and sometimes when it hits your temperature can skyrocket and the pain makes you want to vomit and your physically sweating and feeling like your being choked and restricted by your clothing. Usually after an episode like that you'll need to lie down on the bed for awhile. It's not pleasant tbh. It means we do watch when and what we eat so we can be in or near home when we know it's coming, we do the same when we're on holiday.

How much longer do you go not washing a quilt cover if you have a flat sheet under it? Don't people wriggle and the sheet gets all tangled up?
I can't imagine bothering with this, it's so easy to make a bed with a quilt. And they're easy enough to wash. It would just be extra washing for me, as I wash my quilt cover regularly anyway

The 'Tom Jones' house with life size cardboard figures placed strategically around the house especially watching you take a bath (above bath) or use the toilet.

The 'house with no doors' - all inner doors have been removed; they don't like doors.

A house with 'poo coat hangers' (similar to poo knives but specially crafted and one in every room with a toilet in, they have fixed fittings so they can be stored neatly against the wall - think of an archery arrow quiver).

The house full of babies and young children figures all turned to face the sofa. There are a few clowns too. Hundreds of them.

My mum does the top sheet under a duvet. It feels very restrictive, as the sheet is tucked in all around the bed, very firmly. It also makes making the bed more difficult, as you have to strip the quilt back to make sure the sheet is all straight and tucked in. I much prefer to just give the quilt a quick shake if necessary, and just straighten it out.

I think my mum still changes the quilt cover every week, along with the sheets.

Re the sharing of Indian takeaway, to me its the same as going the chippy and cutting up a pie, sausage, fish, savoury cake and dishing it out. Yes to sharing sides, or chips but mains? No. To the Families that insist on it, I hope its put to visitors as "do you want your own main" and not "we usually...", because the latter makes it hard to refuse.

Re top sheet under duvet. I had that at hotels and preferred it. But you'll all be opting for it during the Menopause night sweats.

BarbaraofSevillle I doubt it's, no toilet paper allowed. It'll be none down the toilet, there's a bin for it. That's standard.

To those saying that they now know of children sleeping on couches etc, report it, it's neglect and/or abuse, if two brothers have a room each and the girl gets the couch. Likewise some of the animal stories.

we always share takeaway in my family! My boyfriend’s family doesn’t, which I found really odd when we were first going out. I want a bit of everything, not a whole load of chicken chow mein 😂 they also order chips with Chinese...heinous! 😉 also IMO, cat owner’s houses don’t smell unless they have a litter tray indoors. Dog owners houses usually smell strongly of dog hair and general dogginess. I love dogs but I can’t bear the smell.

Also, one of my friends has very strict parents. Whenever she had us over when we were teenagers, they would hover over us in the kitchen making sure we didn’t make a mess, then keep coming into her bedroom to supervise. We were 13/14, not doing anything dodgy, just having a chat and watching a film. We weren’t allowed to sit on the sofas in the living room - I always felt very unwelcome there.

I was a nanny and babysitter for 15 years so saw so very many weird family rituals and homes! The family who did bathtime before teatime for the toddler, but toddler was spoon-fed every meal in a highchair until he was at least 4, no SN just how they did it. They also had a stipulated 2 week menu, to the exact amount. So every other monday it was exactly half of a tin of ravioli and 3 cherry tomatoes cut in half, the opposite monday was 1/4 head of broccoli with a weighed portion of pinenuts and a teaspoon of pesto. This was also the family with a full bathroom in the main bedroom and 2 stickers on the floor to show where to place the highchair every sunday night so he could watch 2 cartoons on DVD.

I also have worked for a lot of families with no bins in bathrooms and it gets a bit difficult, I got used to taking my bag in to the loo as no way I'm carrying a dripping maxi tampon through the kitchen. I used to use nappy bags throughout the day and bin them at home, really gross especially when working overnight or 12+ hour days. The above mentioned family's mum took me aside for yet another meeting to tell me to keep my bag in the laundry room all day but I politely pointed out the alternative. Mind you they had a full meeting, both parents on one side of a desk very intimidating because I folded the toddlers shirts incorrectly....