what is the oddest thing someone has done when you have visited their house?

[2shoeskickedtheeasterbunny]

mine was my DB, he did warn me but tbh I was so...... [bushock]
I was kind of 'oh ok"
he put old sheets on the floor to protect his carpet from...

dd's wheelchair wheels

guess where we won't be going again(this was after he insisted she was shoved in the corner of the table at a pub...just in case she got in the staff's way....WTF)

??? YOUR please

Went to stay with my now SIL and husband.Five hour drive to get to them. They had got back from a run 1 minute before we arrived so were covered in sweat. They had drinks at strictly timetabled intervals so no drink for us until their next one in an houŕ. They went off upstairs to have a bath. Not together thankfully. Their system was to put 2" of water in the bath ( permanent black line drawn). The one who like it hot got in first. The other went in after. Left us downstairs. Now I would just laugh and go and make myself a drink but had only met her once then and she's 20 years older than me...and it was her house. My husband has never suggested going to stay there again. If we meet up with his siblings we always meet in a hotel now.

@whatsallthefuss I proper belly laughed at that. And he is clearly a keeper!

I had a mum friend when the children were small that we used to visit as she had a huge (and filthy) ancient house, acres of garden and fantastic toys, so the children loved visiting. We were in the kitchen and she was changing her baby’s nappy on the kitchen drainer and used the sink rag to clean his bottom then rinsed it and wiped her toddler’s face!
The highchair had so much crusty food stuck to it you couldn’t actually see the wood any more, and as she was on baby number four it might well have been properly ancient crust.
Her husband used to come to the kitchen window and beg for cake and she would cut him a slab and give it him out the window, and then he would wander off again.

I know this is a MN classic but I've just discovered it (and laughed like a drain!!)

My worst things...

As a teenager, going round to a school friend's house supposedly for a 'takeaway tea'. The mum ordered fish and chips for everyone but then served me a bowl with two boiled onions she had just cooked for me. She thought she was doing me a favour because last time I'd been there, I had casually mentioned I had a couple of pounds to lose.

Visiting family friends for a weekend who had a young DS with SEN. In the morning they served porridge for breakfast but the DS had a ritual where he liked to go round the room and rest his palm on the top of everyone's cooling porridge. It was his way of 'blessing' the food apparently and he'd get very upset if he wasn't allowed to do it. No one questioned this! His hand was not clean. I've never really been able to eat porridge since!

The different food for adults and kids reminded me...
family of 5 kids who were neighbours and frenemies. I was invited by the girl my age to stay for tea.
We sneaked into the garden to watch the parents sit down to a huge steak each and all the trimmings at a beautifully laid table.
Each of the kids were allowed one slice of dry bread and 20 (yep they were counted out) raisins whilst standing in the kitchen. Kids policed once another carefully over the allotted amount.

I went home for tea as I hate raisins!

As adults the kids are all very screwed up unsurprisingly.

Rather than different foods for adults and children, a lot of my older relatives gave men bigger portions than women so my dad and uncles would get 2 sausage rolls and my mother, me and my sister only got one.

We were at elderly MiLs recently and she still did this - there were 2 extra bits of chicken left in the dish so she didn't even ask who would like an extra one, just automatically gave it to OH and his dad.

Friend invited myself and another friend to her house one evening for a wine.

We hadn’t been before to the house.
There was nowhere to sit due to the copious volumes of clutter on every surface/chair/seat.
Brought s bottle of wine with me. Turns out she doesn’t actually drink.
So no glasses offered and no alternative drink offered.
TV on in the background.
As we chatted, her husband apparently couldn’t hear the Simpsons which was on in the background due to our chatting, so ramped up the volume so loud we could no longer have a conversation.
Host friend proceeded to just turn away from her 2 guests to watch the Simpsons with her husband.

I left. Friend number 2 came with me.
Fucking ignorant weirdos.

I had my first casual boyfriend age 17, we were part of a large friendship group and he had been absent from college for a few days. This was before the days of mobiles/ texting.

His mum called me and said he was sick with glandular fever and did I and his BFF want to come and visit him. We said yes of course, went to his house and was greeted at the door by his mum and told to go to his room. There he was laid in bed with his DSIS, DF, DGM and various random family members I had never seen before holding a vigil around him. We sat there in silence with them for 3 hours while they held his hand before getting the nerve to say we needed to catch the bus home.

Wormwoodgal · 23/08/2020 20:16

After the meal it was time to sing for our supper - the rule in Kazakhstan is that everyone entertains everyone else after dinner. An electronic keyboard was produced (luckily DH could play) and we tried many and various songs to see what our host recognised. At last we discovered the universal language of The Beatles, and serenaded our hosts with the Fab Four's greates hits.

My wife's Kazakh and I wouldn't say it's a rule! Her family are all Beatles mad, too, all ages. We've just had a nephew and niece visiting and he played a lot of Beatles tunes on the piano and wife's guitar.

Did you go to Kok Tebe and see this?

www.flickr.com/photos/48541674@N00/1350048650/in/dateposted/

Anyway, there are some horror stories on here, alright!

When I was a teenager, I used to help my dad's decorator friend, at weekends and during the school holidays. I was full time for a while, at 16.

We went to a house and when the woman let us in, there were two Scottie dogs and dogshit everywhere. I mean, you almost couldn't put your foot down, without treading on a turd. The stench was absolutely unbelievable.

As we had to put dust sheets down and sand the skirting boards, he got me to pick all the shit up with a coal shovel. I think I filled 2 or 3 black bags.... The carpets were completely drenched in piss and I had to kneel down and lie down, to get at the skirtings.

I've rarely been so miserable. In the van, on the way home, I said, "Mick, I'm not going back there tomorrow." He said, "No chance - I'll just fuck her off." I asked why he'd taken the job (he had to go in to do an estimate) and he said that he'd assumed she would clean up.

The funny thing was, she was well dressed and had nice furniture, ornaments, paintings on the wall, very middle class.

A mum friend invited me round one afternoon.

She offered me coffee when I arrived, which I accepted. She made herself one from the Tassimo machine and gave me instant, saying 'English people don't like proper coffee' (she was from Portugal).

A while later she asks if I'd like a glass of wine. I accept. She hands it to me saying 'It's the wine I use for cooking'. She didn't have a glass. It tasted fine so I don't know why she mentioned it.

As soon as she'd handed me the wine, she fucked off to clean the bathroom for the next hour, leaving me sat alone in her living room watching the telly. I eventually got up and left.

I no longer speak to her. I was a SAHM at the time and she turned out to be one of those parents who thought it was my civic duty to look after her child while she worked, because I didn't.

I can't believe that this thread has been going for 12 years!!

Is this a record?

And some of the stories - the gobsmackingness of them stands the test of time!

Great thread, have amused myself the last few days reading along. Some of the responses are wild. I have two I can think of off the top of my head.

When I was maybe 9/10 I was invited to a class mate, Marys birthday party (would have been the mid-late 80's). She was a lovely girl but her parents were just strange so she was a bit of an outcast because of them. They father used to wear this scruffy duffle coat even in the height of summer and had this mad bushy beard and they all wore very obviously handmade clothes. In hindsight it was because they (as well as most people in our working class estate) were dirt poor but it just made her different. Anyway I digress, I didn't particularly want to go to the party but she'd been invited and came to mine so my mum insisted as it was good manners. Arrive at the house to approx 12 other female classmates sitting in her sitting room. Mary, her mam and sisters spent the next maybe hour in the kitchen preparing the birthday tea while we sat in silence in the sitting room with her father while he chain smoked and watched TV. He didnt use an ash tray just tapped his cigarette onto the fireplace and had a kettle, mug and the makings of tea on a table beside him so just made cup after cup never moving from his seat. The living room was absolutely chock to the brim with junk and there were hooks all around the living room walls with clothes hanging from them. I just remember us all sitting around afraid to utter a word and the father just sitting there ignoring us. Finally after what seemed an eternity were were allowed into the kitchen for the tea, which was i remember absolutely beautiful, an abundance of homemade cakes and treats. We ate our fills and were sent home. No games, playing, just a nice tea. As I said nice girl but it was so strange and unlike any other party Id ever been to. I also remember it was Christmas time, because she didnt have a Christmas tree (they were catholic so assume they couldn't fit it in between all the junk or couldn't afford one) and I remember after Christmas break we came back to school and were discussing gifts and what we'd been up to etc. Mary told us that her dad had bought them a deep fat fryer but only he was allowed use it so it was locked into a press that only he had the key to. This was along with the lock on the fridge and the press where the food was kept. She told us about it very manner of fact as she obviously believed that it was normal that her father controlled all food access in their home

Another one, I had a BF growing up who lived a few doors away from me. Every weekend her parents would go to the pub and she would babysit her younger siblings. I would often stay the night to keep her company. I would stay in her room and her little sister would bunk in with the boys. For whatever reason, this night her siblings were unsettled so she ended up staying with them and I was in her room alone asleep in the top bunk. I awake to hear her parents having a very loud argument somewhere outside the room and her father then comes into the bedroom I'm in and gets into the bottom bunk. A while later I hear (no lights its pitch dark) her father stand up from the bed and ask me if Im awake and if I want to get into the bottom bunk with him to keep him warm. I just remember being absolutely petrified and squeaking no I was OK. He told me nothing had happened and I didnt need to tell anyone he'd asked. I dont think I slept the rest of the night. I never stayed again (made some excuses every time I was asked) avoided her father like the plague and the friendship fell to the wayside. I never told anyone at the time, a combination of what do I say, would anyone believe me and nothing actually happened and I was afraid that Id get into trouble for making up stories or telling tales. The only person I've ever told IRL was DH but I still feel ill when I think about it. And I always wonder at BFs mother too and how she felt it was appropriate to let her husband sleep in the same room as a 12/13 yo girl.

O.M.G
Is that man still alive, do you know?
What happened to Mary?

Yep afaik. Tbh as I said friendship completely fell by the wayside as I never felt comfortable in her house again. Her mother still lives a couple of doors from mine and they split a few years later. Not sure if it’s because she had an inkling that her husband was a potential paedophile or just that he was a mammoth creep which was no secret. Former BF, would have a quick chat if we met on our parents road but that would be it.

Mary went to a different secondary school so I haven’t seen her in a very long time. But would you believe I was only speaking to my mam about her a few years ago reminiscing about primary school and people locally. Goes to show a child’s perspective on it. My mam said the father was cripplingly shy and suffered terribly with his nerves (hence the chain smoking and tea) so was likely he didn’t know what the hell to say to a group of ten year old girls. She said in more recent years she’d stop to talk to him and the wife and they were a lovely couple. In the locking away the deep fat fryer, she’s convinced they did it for safety, that they were death traps in the 80s and her father was unemployed for a long time during the 80s so was probably just really careful around food. Mary if I remember rightly went on to become a teacher and is happily married