What's the weirdest thing you've seen in a house?

[myothercarisaskoda]

1. A penny farthing sitting on a landing of a mansion.

2. Lots of tiny feathers on the stairs of someone's house who didn't own a bird and in the same house I think they had a secret lodger as every time I went to the loo I heard footsteps run from one room to the next upstairs. I never mentioned either!

A fully-functioning shower in a bedroom cupboard.

My in law’s house has two of these things mentioned - servant bell system (lovely) and a see through shower in the main bedroom (less so).

We viewed a house to buy and it came with an 80 year old Indian man who lived in the garden shed.

I’m not joking.

I got the sense the home’s owners may have brought him back from a time living abroad as house staff. Probably at a time when that was more the done thing than today. It was a big house with 10 acres. It sounded like he may have at one time been the gardener.

But now he was 80 and lived in the shed. The lady of the house did his shopping and ran him to medical appointments. We didn’t see him when we were there, but there was a zimmer frame parked in front of a shed and we were hustled quickly past. The house was being sold on the condition that you let him stay to live out his days.

As I wasn’t interested in being a live in carer for a man in my garden who may or may not have been trafficked here, we did not put in an offer. It’s been many years now, but I do wonder how it worked out with the new owners for him.

I have a human scull in my bedroom. It’s s actually in a wooden box that was made for it. I bought it as a student for studying anatomy before the regulations were introduced re body parts and now can’t dispose of it without mega red tape. So it sits in its box on top of the wardrobe.
I’d actually forgotten about it until I saw your post.

It used to live under the bed until my DS, then a 2yr old, found it. We were having a lazy morning in bed waiting for the bin men ( his favourite day when he would watch them empty the bins and wave to them out of the window). He disappeared under the bed then appeared looking about a foot taller. He was chatting away and told me he was standing on the man’s head. It took me a little while to work out whose head he was standing on but quite impressed that at 2 he identified it as a man’s skeletal head.

It then got moved to the wardrobe, out of reach. I have considered making it a feature but I no longer have the receipt for it so could be tricky to explain where I acquired it.

I bought a house many years ago, when I was young and stupid, that had three of the things mentioned:
a half-dismantled motorcycle in the lodger’s room - I have no idea how he got it up and down the stairs
fittings for the servant bells
hook and eye latches on the top floor bedroom doors, on the outside near the top of the door. These rooms hadn’t been decorated since the gas lamps were removed, so presumably original (1880s).

I was there about a year.

Ooh my brother bought a house with locks on the outside of bedrooms and inside were carvings and graffiti saying this like ‘help me’ and ‘I’m not an animal’ it was a repo house! It gave me the chills!

not in the same vein as mentioned on this thread, but my childhood bestie lived in a flat with huge living room that was never, ever used. Fully furnished, but just kept for when the queen will visit, I guess. They had no other separate sitting rooms or lounges, all life took place in teeny tiny kitchen.
They then moved to a detached newbuild where the parents could choose the layout. They went for a teeny kitchen and huge lounge, no other sitting/tv/family rooms. The lounge was..never used.

When DS was little he was invited to a play date, I went with him as didn’t know the parents. House was spotless but everything was wrapped in cling film, the sofa, the rug, everything, was mental.

Never have I been more relieved to read the words 'installed in a front room', rather than a full stop

A little terraced house with a lavatory sitting alone at the top of the stairs.

House I bought -
Floor-to-ceiling stained-glass panels (not matching) on either side of the chimney breast.
Downstairs loo that had a half clear glass door from hallway and another door into the rest of the house.
Not that way anymore thankfully!

Black and white huge photo in the hall of the lady of the house topless. Very saggy tits and not posing just stood there. It was, frankly, eye catching….

Toilet cubicle right in the middle of the living room. Like a giant pillar you could walk around all 4 sides

A toilet in a bedroom. Free-standing and functional, in a carpeted bedroom, but no wash basin.

Harrier jump jet in the garden. In all the pictures, but absolutely no mention of it in the text.

While visiting a friend who was lodging with a lovely couple - used the downstairs loo which had lots of large framed photos displayed on the walls, most of them unremarkable, but one was of the couple, when younger, posing starkers on their motorbike (which they still had) wearing nothing but their crash helmets. I was never able to look at them the same way when chatting, after that…

Immediately to the side of the french doors to the garden, and blocking the window, an above ground concrete bomb shelter (I assumed that was what it was) with walls about 10" thick and a thick metal door. I couldn't think of any way of getting rid of it without affecting the house. I have occasionally wondered if it is still there. It was on Marischal Rd in Lewisham if anyone knows anything about it.

There used to be (may still be) a wonderful website with photos of mad stuff in houses. Think the pics were taken by estate agents. Wish I could find it again. It was incredibly entertaining.

Victorian semi in London, attached next door to my house. Jehovah's Witnesses lived there. One day they added metal pull down shutters, like you put on a shop. This was not due to a crime spree in the neighbourhood!

I guess that’s what happens when you go on eBay after a few beers.

Sounds like the good beginnings of a horror film 🤣

https://terriblerealestateagentphotos.com/
I loved the "garden chair of solitude " series.

Dog shit. I kid you not. Viewed a house in about 2005 and the owner clearly has dogs because their muddy pawprints were all over the (unmade) bed and there was actual dog shit on the floor. More than one pile. The dogs were out as was the owner, but the house was disgusting

These are amazing. Thanks, everybody! My best offer is probably a display cabinet full of shrunken heads. It was when I was a kid, long ago when things were different. The old geezer who lived there had travelled much - in Africa, presumably - and loved to show off his 'curio collection'. He had a lot of stuff like voodoo masks and various parts of big game animals, but the tiny heads stuck in my mind for ever.

Other hangovers from colonial times, which quite a lot of older people had back then, were side tables either made of elephants' feet or carved, in ebony, to look like African child servants. I wonder what happened to them all (and the shrunken heads)?

A used condom hanging on a nail next to the double bed, I guess for reuse?

I could not concentrate on what the estate agent was saying and still feel a bit ill when I think about it.