To ask what the weirdest thing you experienced or saw at someone else's house when you were a child?

[BillHadersNewWife]

Inspired by a Reddit thread...there were some absolutely weird things that people experienced or saw at their mates' houses as children.

There was a man who said he hated eating at his friend's house because they weren't allowed to drink water with a meal.

There was someone who said their friend wasn't allowed in any other room but the kitchen and their bedroom.

That kind of thing! I'm thinking myself and can't really dredge much up. There was one friend who lived in a huge mansion...think National Trust style place...and it was empty!

Just room after room with less furniture in the place than in an average semi!

Normal-ish family...I think they were broke due to having 5 kids and privately educating them all!

Sadly, I saw my best friends father grab her lovely mother by the hair and yank her out of the room.

Father later went to jail for some sort of financial thing. Totally served him right, IMO.

Life size, full length portrait of Grandad. Wearing his SS uniform.

@Rubyupbeat I feel so sorry for what happened to your friend and for you for having witnessed it.

BeverlyGoldbergsHairAndJumpers Do you think her parents were having noisy sex?! 😊

Aged about 15 and with a bunch of mates back at one lad’s very old and quirky house after an evening in the park with cider. I elected to stay in an unused room with one of our group who was exceptionally drunk in case he threw up and choked on his own vomit. The room was bloody freezing and I barely slept; in the middle of the night I was bothered by a persistent whimpering sound from somewhere close by, which I presumed was one of the dogs of the house. I asked my mate about it in the morning and he said that the dogs were in a different part of the house where I couldn’t have heard them. They didn’t keep them in that part of the house any more and his parents had moved out of that room because a little girl kept appearing in there. Cheers for putting us in that room and pissing off somewhere else lads, eh?

rubyupbeat omg that is dreadful.
I knew a girl who invited me round, we weren’t that friendly so did think it was odd but happily went to visit. We were about 12. Her dad was loitering quite a bit. My dad was the local policeman.
Years later her father was jailed for abusing her and her sister. I often wonder if I was invited to warn off her dad ☹️

Ok so this is so weird I haven't really told people about it irl. Promise it is true.

My Great Aunt lived in a big house where lots of the grounds had been sold off to make a new housing estate. When we visited we would play with a girl who lived in the estate. We were about 8-10. She had an odd voice and a skin condition so wore a cap all the time and hid her face. She lived with her Grandad.

We played with her on and off for a year or so. I would go to her house and watch Byker Grove. Her bedroom was full of toys and dolls. Her grandad would go and have tea with my Auntie.

We didn't see her for a while then an article was in the local news about her and her 'grandad'. Apparently she was a woman in her 40s who had been posing as a child with this man. They had moved several times before they got to us and moved away after. They even bought school uniform for one of the local private schools and she would trot off to the bus stop.

I can't think how it happened now but I think we just accepted she was different and didn't really look too closely. So weird! My cousins and I occasionally chat about it just to make sure we haven't imagined it!!

@SilverySurfer at my Grammar school there was a waste paper bin in the library made out of a real elephant's foot.

@peachgreen same here, are you my sister 🤔

Ruby

That is heartbreaking. That poor child. How awful!

The strangest thing I ever seen was staying at a school friend's when I was 10/11. No-one was allowed to use the toilet in the night. Her Mum put chamber pots in the bedrooms because apparently the noise was too much for her Dad and he "worked".

Not even with 6 girls staying over was an exception made. Her Dad worked 9-5 for the council. It's not like he did crazy shifts. Most people only stayed over with her once as no-one liked peeing in the night on a pot in front of everyone

My house was the strange one though. My parents were abusive, but my father especially

When he invited someone round, usually a friend of one of my brothers as they were the eldest, kids always loved it. He was loud and funny, he played games and there was mountains of food and fizzy drinks. The more enthusiastic he was the more we knew we were going to cop it later

I remember being 3 or 4 and stuffing down pizza he ordered because even at that age I knew we'd be going hungry the next day or two.

Then when I was 7 we were taken by my grandparents. I was still the weird one as I lived with two "oldies" (as they were christened by a girl in my class) and my three siblings in a small 3 bed flat that just didn't fit us all, and often had a damaged front door or window if my father had come to try and take us back

Wow, some of these post are shocking.
I grew up in a normal, ordered, loving household but we envied our neighbours who were allowed play handball against the wall in their front room. They ate dinner with their fingers and went to bed when they liked.
All perfectly functional adults now.

My uncles next door neighbour kids smashing up an old caravan in their back garden with axes and hammers wearing tights over their heads. I was watching them out of a back window and it was terrifying. They demolished the whole caravan in about an hour!!

Boy next doors dad kept a loaded revolver in the bedside table and we used to sneak up and play with it... thought make me shudder now. We were 8/9 and the gun was really heavy so we couldn’t really point it at each other ...

I had a friend who would just help themselves to literally anything in my house growing up. They would open the fridge, go through the cupboards etc. They where also allowed to do this at home.

However, as a guest in their house you had to ask her mum permission to get even a drink of tap water! Even if friend was making her self a drink, we would have to go into the next room and ask her mum if she could also make us one!!!

Aged 7, being made to help pluck a chicken by hand. It gave me a long-lasting fear of feathers and I never went back to that friend’s house!

Some of these are awful. I really hope people who've grown up in abusive or neglectful situations are doing ok now.

I think we might have been the weird ones. We had a 'front room' which was never, ever used. It had a nice dining table and chairs, a bookshelf, and was pristine, but we never ate in there and mostly ate off our knees in the back. Kids were allowed round to play, but only in the yard or 'back room'. I don't remember anyone coming for a sleepover, I went to others a few times but could never sleep elsewhere so didn't really bother.

When I was a bit older, maybe 10 one younger friend's mum used to just dote on the new baby and basically ignore my friend, letting her roam the street after school as she didn't want the baby disturbed, friend was 8 and had nowhere to go at all. So she ended up at mine for tea a lot and would just go home to sleep.

A friend I made at uni had a house with her bf and 2 dogs. She let the dogs poo all over the place indoors and outdoors, and just never cleaned anything. Everywhere had fur or poo on literally everything, they'd regularly throw parties but never clean, but you were not allowed to smoke in the house. I don't know we ever went back actually. They even joked about 'the poo garden' being full of 'exotic species' while their friends were carefully stepping around piles of shit to try and have a cig.

At my friend's house on a sleepover and her Dad wouldn't leave me alone and kept telling me he could teach me how to kiss properly, while wagging his tongue at me He was in his 70s! I made every excuse to never stay there again, dirty old pervert

I was about 13

Oh my goodness Ruby. That is devastating.

I have a few, two happy, one not.

A friend who lived in a huge house (actually two 4/5 story Victorian terraced houses sort of knocked together) with endless family members. No one had their own room, they just slept where they fancied, and they had the most enormous pantry full of bulk bought food. It was incredibly warm and welcoming and I loved it there.

A very Evangelical Christian family who prayed lengthily at every given opportunity - they would all just grab hands or hug each other and start to pray. The Dad once took us for McD’s drive through and we had to thank God for the meal and each other before we could eat. But I loved it there too - I was and am an atheist but they really did embody Christian values.

The sad one - a school friend who is now a celebrity. She has semi famous parents who didn’t care what we did. Open drug use etc in the house. A few people have mentioned similar homes up thread and said they liked it but I HATED it. There was just a sad, toxic atmosphere in the house and I was always so glad to get home to my normal parents with their normal rules. It does turn out that she had a very unhappy childhood and I’m not in the least surprised.

Reminds me of visiting my first boyfriend's home when I was 17. His mother was a SAHM and at the constant beck and call of BF, his brother and his father. Examples included cooking three totally different evening meals for each if they decided they wanted something different - not just ready meals but things like three different full roasts and trimmings. BF didn't think this unreasonable as they each contributed to the housekeeping. Her husband came in from work each evening and barely left his armchair before bedtime. Whenever he wanted a drink she got it for him no matter how many times he asked. Best was on Saturday afternoons when he was glued to the horse racing on the tv - she was constantly running out to the hallway to ring the bookies with his bets.

Brilliant thread op.

@Notso A friend I had as a teenager lived in a house where anything was ok, we could drink and smoke, climb on the worktops, write on the walls, play music as loud as we wanted, spray paint the living room. Anything. Looking back it must've been chaotic to live like that but it was also really welcoming. It didn't matter who my friend brought home or what time she came in with them there'd always be a cup of tea, a bed, or a plate of food for whoever it was.

This sounds like my parents’ house. It’s still like it now, and it is so comforting knowing I can turn up any time of the night and someone will offer me a cup of tea and chat. We are all ex smokers now though! Miss the days sitting and puffing smoke up the fireplace at 3am 😄

Going to a friends house for tea after school and finding Grange Hill was banned in their house!

That could’ve been my house - I also wasn’t allowed to watch marmalade Atkins! (parents were Christians!)

I had a friend who's Dad used to walk around totally naked when her friends stayed over. It's so massively inappropriate but I was so speechless I never said a word 🤮