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 would do the chat in the bath thing with my mum when I was a student, and not home much. Mum used to like to chat, and I liked an hour in the bath, rather than the communal shower block in Halls of Residence.

My house is untidy (very untidy) but clean. I’m just a bit of a ‘drop things at my backside, and clean up a couple of times a week!’ My DP is obsessively tidy though, so it’s a constant battle!
My good friend, who has always had an immaculate house, lets her cats (5 of them!!) climb all over the kitchen, beds, etc. They shit in the corner of the kitchen - in a litter tray - any it’s always super whiffy. 😖 I’m not keen on eating there.

I think my family might be the weird ones. I was brought up in a fairly hippy ish environment - no TV, no meat, no dairy, no processed sugar, veg from the harden, aiming for self sufficiency. I remember my mind being blown when I first came across a microwave at the age of 10 or something. I pretty much thought it was magic. It seemed amazing that you had a box, pressed a button and food happened!

Meat was overrated though.

When I was 15 or 16 a boy from the parallel grammar school invited me to his house. He warned me that I'd have to take my shoes off, but that wasn't unheard of, though we didn't do it at home.
When we got there, we had to enter in silence, tuck our shoes onto the doormat but keep our coats, tiptoe in deadly silence through a large pleasant kitchen, running the gauntlet of living room doors and baby brothers beyond, silently creep upstairs as fast as possible, and then shut his bedroom door in genuine relief.
At first I thought it was a joke, but he had an actual wicked stepmother. He wasn't allowed to speak in her presence or interact with the rest of the family. He ate in his room and his father would come into his room once a day to say hi. He couldn't speak to the baby brother.
I was so shocked at his miserable life that I told a teacher from his school, but the teacher already knew.

Schmoobarb I put a flat sheet under the duvet. I don't think that's weird...bottom sheet, top sheet, duvet.

My exmil used to cook dinner and serve it at 4pm and exh would get home from work after 6pm to a plate over a pan of hot, simmering water...Dried up, overboiled veg stuck to the plate. He couldn't believe his luck that not only could I cook but, that my meals were edible!

CrookedMe Thu 03-Jan-19 12:13:00
I once viewed a house that had life sized clowns sitting at the dining table and lying in the spare beds
Omg, that is horrific!

I think what my friends would find weird visiting now (uni students so adults living at home) is that I have a TV and my PS4 and Nintendo Wii in my room and have done since I was a toddler. I've an extensive movie collection and like to watch them in peace. That and I'm allowed to eat everything from light snacks to a full roast in my room and have done so since I was a toddler. One of my friends is allowed to eat snacks only in his room and another light meals like sandwiches or a tin of soup. But if I choose I can eat in my bed (I don't because germs).

They'd also be freaked out by the sheer size and volume of my immediate family (there were 20 of us on Christmas day and that was when 7 people were having christmas with inlaws and there are two more pregnancies this year including a set of potentially twins or more as IVF with double egg insertion and twins running in both families). We're loud and loving and tactile and there are no boundaries or topic not up for debate or discussion.

I think it would also alarm them to see that by comparison I am the quiet and calm one and for them to see just how different I am in a lot of ways to my family. It would give them a better idea of me I think and why I am the way I am. That and they'd get frustrated and annoyed trying to talk to them about anything remotely academic or 'clever' because my family do not like that at all. I also think it would shock them to see that even though I am a fiercely independent and mouthy female who doesn't take any crap from anyone or back down from an argument, that when I'm with my family for the most part I keep my mouth shut and do as I'm told for an easy life.

@Marcipex
That’s so unspeakably sad

@Marcipex, how was this not reported it's horrific.

Marcipex that is so sad. It's made me get a lump in my throat - poor kid :(

Beds that hung down from the ceiling, they were attached to the ceiling (not the floor at all). Nothing under, could just walk under them all, every bed in the house. Mine you, was a fab way to use the space but I was beyoned shocked!!

I went with a friend to babysit at a house when we were about 14. It was an Elvis house. Elvis was everywhere. Life size posters, cardboard cutouts, giant Elvis mirrors. Elvis in the bathroom. He. Was. Everywhere. The couple seemed really normal, just a bit obsessed.

Another bed one - discovering that a family of 7 all slept in the same room (despite having a 4 bedroom house). Not young kids either, 3 were teenagers!!!

I liked it but was a bit weird, especially as I had been in my own bed in my own room alone since birth (kind of sad for myself lol)

There's a very strange woman I know who has several elderly dogs living in her two bed house, only room for a small sofa. If guests arrive uninvited she doesn't make the dogs get off the sofa!

Oh wait, that's me and I care not a jot what my wanker SIL thinks

I know
He'd lived like that since he was eight. I remember asking him, what if you're ill, but he didn't answer that.

I have a large family (imagine shameless meets waltons) In the 70s My young brother once brought a bomb home that he found on waste ground, it was tea time, mum was annoyed he was late home, so he left the heavy bag on the kitchen floor, after my mum had washed the pots and straddled this huge bag in the kitchen eventually she opened it and obviously horrified when saw it was a bomb...., my nan said 'ahhh be alright put it in the shed'(brother could never do any wrong in her eyes) !! My other brother used to bring my home animals that he found (this was a weekly occurrence) cats, dogs injured birds, hedgehogs. We used to bet what animal he would bring home. Fond memories thou

@BertieBotts I do leftovers in the microwave/oven... It's for when you don't think it really needs immediate refrigeration but you don't want it left out for the flies or cats - e.g. pies. Pastry goes soft in the fridge. So does pizza crust.

Yes, @Donkdonkgoo, Shameless meets Waltons makes sense. I think in my family it's bit more The Royle Family meets Mrs Brown's Boys with more play fighting and hugging thrown in.

As a teenager, I had a friend who lived in the same block as me, with exactly the same flat layout. We had a living room and a dining room. They had an everyday living room and a posh living room instead. Friend said they only used the posh living room two or three times a year. As there was no dining room, everyone ate on the sofas in the everyday living room including small children with messy food!

(I can understand eating on the sofas if there's no room for a dining table, but there definitely was room for a dining table if you didn't also have a room you never used!)

*My parents heat up takeaway curry in the oven before they eat it, decanting it all into bowls first. It’s not “fast food” in their house!

I do that as we have to bring it from the next village or town and it's not hot anymore, let alone "fast" . Anyway, the rice is always separate so surely you dish up and mix it?

I knew of a mum who always had the most spectacularly clean kitchen, until we found out that she never ever used it, fed the whole family ready meals or takeout and even ordered a Chinese in Xmas day to save her having to cook!!

She also used to return her 5yo DDs clothes if she hadn’t folded them before putting them in the laundry basket- is it just me who thinks that’s totally pointless?! It’s all going in the wash anyway!

I've heard of naked pooers before, but it's weird to me. Don't you get cold?? WTF? I'd only poo naked if I had an urgent need when I was in the bath.

Ugh, gross - wouldn't you even get out first?

I sort of understand why people might feel comfier completely removing their pants and bottom clothing rather than just pulling them up or down - but what possible purpose does it serve to remove the clothes from your top half?

Mind you, an elderly male relative, when alive, probably should have considered doing just that. He always wore long formal shirts, with tails, and, for some reason, 'didn't believe in' ever using toilet paper after a personal dispatch. He thought that bog roll was a silly, pointless frippery for fussy ladies and unmanly in the extreme. After he was widowed, his poor DIL did his washing for him and would incredulously hold up these white shirts with brown, smeary tails boak - not envy!

Our neighbours we incredibly house proud and their house smelt very strongly and I realised after we had lived next door for a while it was the smell of paint, they redecorated every single weekend to keep it 'nice and clean', the four of them, 2 adults and two children would don boiler suits and happily paint the walls and woodwork

I suppose everybody needs a hobby (poor kids, though), although it must indeed have cost them a fortune and can't have been that great for their health, forever breathing in paint fumes.

As well as that, their rooms must have got progressively smaller until they were really tiny! How thick is a layer of paint? Not very. Adding a new coat once every few years will have a completely negligible effect; however, adding 52 new coats to every single wall, every single year?! It's the decorating equivalent of Mrs Twit's walking stick! It must have felt like an extremely slow-motion version of those horror films where the walls start closing in on you

My best friend and her sister came from wealth, therefore a large, posh house. I didn't: I came from solid, working class stock, youngest of 5 with lots of noise and love.

Mam was very much of the opinion we should be kids and not make demands on us except for tidying our rooms/ the odd spot of dishes. Whereas, their mother made them scrub toilets for hours and if it wasn't good enough make them do it again and again.

I always felt strangely awkward in their house , that you couldn't sit without bothering the cushions, or that my socks may not be good enough quality! It was always very quiet.

No wonder my friend found my house full of fun- No one sat on ceremony and there was always some drama/ noise/ laughter.

I suppose that's why I'm always very keen to have my DCs friends over and although I make sure they all know how to do.things I'm less keen on them doing much more than dishes / room tidy/ the odd flick of a Hoover.

My friend has never washed her kitchen floor or wiped the fronts of the cabinets down. She's a nurse....!

I noticed how beautiful her kitchen tiles are...they're that lovely red tile from Victorian era. I asked her if she'd ever thought of buying that Cardinal polish for them and she said "I"ve never cleaned or polished them. I sweep once a week"

And then I noticed the sticky layer on her cabinets! They always have stomach bugs too.

Y’know.... some of the filthiest people I know are nurses. 😬
I work with a bunch of nurses, and the state of clothes, etc. The worst is the colour of towels they bring for showers after shift. Most are absolutely ‘normal’; some are a funny yellowey grey - like they were once white:.... with greasy stains on them, like they haven’t been washed properly in quite some time. 😕

My friend (no longer in contact) used to bathe with her dad when she was 13

I remember at the time wondering if I was being weird for being shocked at this, as I'd just started growing boobs etc and having a bath with my dad would have made me want to die! But I remember telling my mum and she was similarly shocked (and a little concerned).