Quirky house rules prompted by bitter experience

[KERALA1]

No under 8s allowed to use cling film (rendered unusable)

Windows always to be closed when you go out for day however high up you are (pigeon lays egg in bedroom drama)

Cheap feather boas not allowed in house (purple feathers everywhere for weeks)

No tickling with scissors

Pet food is for pets

Do not lift up your mother, even if you are only ten and you can

No candles lit when certain guests are over.
No remote control helicopters in the house.
No opening the kitchen window from the right hand side.

Oh yes ... always, always put a large bowl in the kitchen sink, when straining stock for Christmas Sunday lunch, that has been simmering overnight for over 4 hrs .... . [Edited]

In fact, don't get in a flap at the end of all that preparation starting at 5am when you went to bed at 2am the night before because you were helping Santa and absentmindedly drain the stock down the plug hole. (You only do this once, folks)

No chopping veggies without appropriate glasses for DH

Do not 'shake your hair and feel united' next to a door
Do not sing 'true colours' at the top of your voice anywhere!
bastard Trolls film

Bumbumtaloo

We have the same situation with 'Everything is Awesome' from the bloody Lego film.

No-one is allowed to poke the cat up the bum with a fork ANY MORE.

Remember that there are two adults in this household so if I am busy ask the other one !!!

No speaking in unison. DD and DSS make every request in unison like they are auditioning for a remake of The Shining so now there has to be a nominated spokesperson

InvisableLlama

I thought yours said no throwing children !!!

Don't eat stuff in the garden unless you've been expressly told this year that it's for eating. DD2 prefers grazing my peas/soft fruit to actually eating dinner and that's fine but she will also eat stuff that isn't ripe yet, the berries off the Amalanchier (edible but yuck), hawthorn and buckthorn (give you the runs) and let's just say I'm really glad my neighbour's yew tree is a male one so there's no berries for her to try. She's bloody 5, it's taken way too long to make this one stick.

If anyone objects to your singing you have to stop or leave the room (tbh I fall foul of this one more often than the kids)

No going out into the garden in your pyjamas
No pants = no dinner (I think this is quite a famous MN one though)
No "booing" before 9am (otherwise the buggers come and frighten the shit out of me when I'm in the shower and I think they're still asleep)

Oh also, no gloating. Is that controlling of me? I have twins and they compare constantly so when they were about 3 and a half I taught them what gloating was and said it was not allowed. It kind of helped. In a way.

We used to have conversations that went
Toomuch hands out some sort of food
DT1: look! Mines is bigger! It's bigger than yours! na na na na
DT2: aaaaaaargh

now they go
Toomuch hands out etc
DT1: look! Mines is bigger! It's bigger than yours!
DT2 (smugly): mum she's gloating!
DT1: no I'm not!
DT2: yes you are you're gloating! Mum! Mum!
DT1: aaaargh

No speaking in unison. DD and DSS make every request in unison like they are auditioning for a remake of The Shining so now there has to be a nominated spokesperson

This has made my day

toomuchtooold if someone shouts "mine is bigger", the other one has the right to swap if they want. But they can turn it down in case the one with the smaller one tries to play the game.

If someone whinges "It's not fair, s/he has got more!" (they don't) I will take some of the complainant's food, give it to the other and say "That's true!".

We have no bare bums on the sofa as well as:

no naked children in our double bed AND no children-who-have-just-come-in-from-the-park/garden/woods-in-muddy-clothes our bed

not at the top of the stairs (shouted at least 100 times a day most recently when 7 year old DS was perched right on the edge reading with his back to the stairs! WTF place is that to read?!)

no toilet, money or Donald Trump talk at the table!

CLASSICS definitely.

we have:
no balloon games in the room with the bunk bed (bad experience)
tickling stops when the person says to stop, same with cuddling, fighting, etc
no tickling or racing or jumping or messing about on the stairs
no food except at the table (we get "HEY! [houseguest] is eating in the LIVING ROOM!")
no scooters, bikes, roller blades, heelies and skateboards inside
all our other ones are even more boring

oh one more:
after any travel all suitcases must be unpacked in the bathtub with each item shaken over the tub and drain to ensure that any stowaway bedbugs are seen and go down the drain, not into the beds... we have never seen one.

( friends had bedbugs for a year and this is now a bit of an obsession , and happily mainly a harmless one)

cordeliavorkosigan

Bedbugs? I thought your your house rules, based on bitter experience, would be about butter bugs...
No armsmen to dress only in underwear and boots and fight with tubs of bug butter. Make sure the cages of the butter bugs in Vorkosigan livery are locked at all time. And no making butter bug sauce for important dinner parties!

Just rereading 'A civil campaign' at the moment. I can't wait for the butter bugs to arrive. !

Another Vorkosigan rule must be 'Be careful what goes down the drains - no bug butter!'

for sharing out stuff, whoever is in charge of portion control gets to choose their portion last.

you can guarantee that everything is split evenly then.

From my childhood, no washing the boy next door's hair by getting him to put his head in the toilet while you flush.

Yes, all of those, and also strictly no more swords on shopping trips in to the capital :)