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 also have a box of cockroaches in the cabinet in my bedroom which I guess is horrifying?

WHAT??*

Nowhere near as much as

'I used to have a box of cockroaches in the cabinet in my bedroom. I've now got an empty box and no idea where they got to'

A friend's DP kept reptiles and dropped a box of crickets. When she left him about 3 years later, the first thing my friend did was book Rentokil because he couldn't stand another night listening to the things chirping away. His DP had insisted that he'd been imagining it - nope - there was, in his words 'a fucking herd of the bastards living in the walls'.

I was friends with a guy in school whose Morher was so open about sex she would apologise over breakfast for the loud noises she made in the night but then would tell him how good the sex was... She also always left towels and condoms out whenever his lesbian friend came over in case she turned I guess .

I met a trans guy in uni who claimed a woman had adopted him, aged 24... He used to tell me how she sat and stroked his hair and called him her little soldier/prince and he called her mummy. It was so creepy.

Placemat king !

I hope this doesn't identify me - and the family in question isn't reading!!!

This one family I knew (our DC used to be pals with the son and daughter) used to have a 'lego construction of the month' display, on a table in a corner of their lounge diner...

They (the parents) would build one each month (took about a week!) and display it for all to see (even taking some 10 pics of each one and showing it on facebook and twitter.)

Made everyone cringe real bad!!! Especially their kids LOL!

He used to tell me how she sat and stroked his hair and called him her little soldier/prince and he called her mummy. It was so creepy.

Slight derail about Barbican's current Modern Couples exhibition.

One of the couples the exhibit mentions is Gail Pailthorpe and

Tate has a piece about them as well:

When Grace Pailthorpe (1883–1971) and Reuben Mednikoff (1906–1972) first met at a party in London in January 1935, nobody could imagine they were to become among the most intriguing and controversial figures in the history of surrealism.

Reuben Mednikoff, aged 29, was a young poet and artist who was fascinated by what he was hearing and reading about surrealism. Pailthorpe, aged 52, remarkably a surgeon in the First World War, had been researching the psychological treatment of juvenile delinquency, refuting the efficacy of incarceration and seeing the exploration of the offender’s unconscious as a way to solve their conflicts.
...
After returning to the UK in 1946 Pailthorpe worked as a consultant psychiatrist at the Portman Clinic in north London, with Mednikoff as her assistant, until 1952. They also ran a school of art therapy in Dorking and underwent a phase of mysticism and occultism. The eeriness of their relationship reached an apex when, in 1948, she decided to adopt Mednikoff as her son. He changed his name to Richard Pailthorpe and called her ‘Mother Flower’.

www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-44-autumn-2018/lives-of-the-artists-grace-pailthorpe-reuben-mednikoff-michel-remy

[/end derail]

Oh yes, the not opening windows thing! My exfil did this and he had the gas fire on all day, even in summer. Added to this he smoked about 40 a day, my eyes used to stream with it. He also used to fill up the sink with hot soapy water but would wait for it to go cold before he washed any dishes and would use the same water all day. He didn't have a bath or shower for 20 years either 🤢

He was in hospital once and I opened all the windows and doors to let some fresh air in, I felt like a criminal!

It is only through reading this thread that I have realised the ‘bath chat’ thing isn’t normal! I have done this with my sisters and parents since we were kids and still do it now. DH and our kids do it too!

Also glad I found this thread, because my son is a naked shitter! (He once removed his whole school uniform to have a poo at school then had to ask his reception teacher to help him with his shirt buttons!) I thought he was the only one!

My friend has a cat and the litter tray is in the toilet room, that being separate from the bathroom. I stayed over recently, when we got up she went to the loo, as I was about to go in the bastard cat beat me to it and I had to queue outside waiting for the cat to finish 😂

My in-laws won't go downstairs in their house unless they are dressed. So they won't have a cup of tea until they are dressed which I find strange!

They also won't let people sleep on their sofa. I don't know why, as it is long and comfy. I don't really understand it. They let my nephew sleep on a lilo in the spare room next to the spare bed, rather than be comfy on the sofa. Very odd.

An odd thing from my childhood. My parents would never sit downstairs with us. They used their bedroom like a lounge, where they would sit up their on their bed and watch tv. They would even take their dinner up there on trays. Now I have a family of my own I can see how fucking weird that was. Obviously they’d cook us dinner and all that stuff but when they were relaxing, they weren’t in the lounge they’d be in their room.

Yes to the plastic covered sofas!....in a living room that was only used on special occasions. Also a lawn you could never walk on as permanently sprayed in pesticides.

Another elderly lady would flush all her food waste down the toilet!

Someone who always gives you filthy crockery, glasses & cutlery, despite having a dishwasher... that they use

Another had several rooms upstairs stuffed full of toilet rolls & kitchen units just full of teabags...all bought on 3 for 2 offers!

The house we went to view that had all their old dogs (labradors) stuffed and on display in their living room.

My SIL rules her family...
They have to ask permission to do anything...
If she knocks some thing over my brother grabs a cloth to clean up, then tells us how much her outfit costs as they don't want to ruin it.

Some of my parents friends wouldn't let children eat at the table with them, when we got together, all the children were made to eat at separate table in another room/ fair distance from them.

On a professional visit, one house I visited the whole family were sat in the front room and there was a double bed smack bang in the middle. The Mum told me the kids had been all jumping on the bed upstairs and it had fallen through the floorboards. I looked up and there was no ceiling, just the edges left!.
Another household had floor to ceiling stacks of newspapers and it was like tunnels or a maze to get from one room to another! I've never seen anything like that ever before.

I used to have a really controlling friend and she used to make people walk round the edges of the living room to enter/ exit. No one was allowed to walk passed the T.V and VHS in case they disturbed them in some way. Also when she went out she used to put a towel over them in case a burglar was attracted to the illuminated numbers.

My friend prides herself on a clean house and makes passive aggressive comment about mine yet her kitchen is awful. I don’t think the sides or cupboards have ever been wiped and there is cat food all up one wall (no sure how). Yet she is always going on about her immaculate house

Don’t get me started on the fridge. I don’t have food there since I found a maggot in the fridge tucking into a peace of gone off chicken.
Yet the rest of her house is immaculate. It’s weird

Bertie same with the guinea pigs in the kitchen. And rabbits running free all over the house, pissing and shitting everywhere. Still, my brothers and I survived such unhygienic conditions and all have strong constitutions!

We’re house hunting at the moment and just last night on Rightmove I saw a (otherwise lovely) flat with a shower in the bedroom. Not an en-suite, just a glass cubicle in the corner of the room DH suggested fitting a tension clothes rail and using it as a wardrobe.

I envy everyone who has a bathroom warm enough for naked pooing.

The pride-of-place Lego models family sound rather fun and sweet.

My primary school best friend’s family always seemed a little odd: the Dad was always in bed (not a shift worker or ill) and whenever I went over to play I’d be taken upstairs to see him (never in a creepy way, he was always lovely). He’d be tucked up with only his head showing and shout “hello little Bell!! How are you?!!!”

I once had a sleepover at theirs on a Saturday night and in the morning the whole family went to church but told me to stay in bed as it wasn’t ‘my’ church. V odd as the same denomination etc and in fact the very church we went to with the school.

Also, they put salad cream on everything .

Also when she went out she used to put a towel over them in case a burglar was attracted to the illuminated numbers.

I had a boyfriend who did this! If he went away, he would put the tv and video in the loft. He wouldn't buy a computer until he had a burglar alarm fitted and kept all the windows and doors locked and the keys hidden. Thank god there was never a fire!

Oh god my ex PILs..
When I met XH he still lived at home. They had only two chairs in the lounge . They sat in them so you had to sit on the floor ( not poor by the way)
MIL kept cheese in the kitchen cupboard
FIL hard a dirty manual job...would wash in the kitchen sink ( no shirt) using fairy liquid
Dog slept in their bed
Only three place settings at dinner so one of us had to wait for the second sitting.....Why the fuck did I marry him?!

One of my school friends had to have a ‘family meeting’ round the dining room table every Sunday morning. If I ever had a sleep over there I’d have to stay up in her room and wait for them to finish.

It always seemed so scheduled and formal.

thewayoftheplatypus that is adorable. My little DS2 is 5 and I can imagine him doing that at school.

Not the strangest or whatever I dunno but my friend has very sexy, some revealing underwear bikini photo shoots she had done and there all framed and hung up around the house. With both parents and grandparents and partners friends and kids and the kids friends can all see them. I wouldn't want my dad to see me like that. Abit awkward I dunno maybe it isn't strange

*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!

Of course, I could hardly believe this, but my boyfriend assured me that all meals were served and taken this way, and that his mother would have her portion later! Even on occasions such as Christmas Day! He thought it was perfectly normal, and just the way things were 'done'.*

Is your ex-boyfriend my husband? This is exactly what it's like at his parents' house! They'll invite everyone round for a big family dinner, everyone sitting around the dining room table together apart from MiL who hovers around us playing waiter for the evening. After everyone has finished eating, MiL will eat the leftovers on her own in the kitchen. Every single time I make DH tried to persuade her to sit down and eat with us but she refuses to.