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!

A family friend had just moved into a new home, and when visiting her and looking around, we discovered that the previous owners had left behind a set of newsletter-type magazines, advertising all sorts of services (including 'O', 'A' and 'S' level', and no , they definitely weren't adverts for private coaching, at least as normally defined!) There were lots of pictures of the women advertising these services, no, not of their faces, but of their mostly huuuuuge breasts. Mum's friend, the new homeowner, wasn't quite sure what to do with them, because she didn't want the neighbours or the rubbish collectors to think they were hers! This was before the days of recycling. I think she burned them in the end. I was about 12 and found the pictures a little tooooo interesting!

I often think about two houses I visited as a child.

One friend was always showing up at my house and she’d pester me to make sandwiches for her and eat as much as she could when she came over. I never thought about it as a ten year old I just thought she must just really like food. When I went to their house it all made sense. Eight children in a tiny little house with no toys or books, just very empty, apart from their beds. Dinner was always a plate of chips and nothing else. They had to eat in silence too. I didn’t know and as I started talking they all stared at me.

The other was as a teenager, I went to stay at a friends house. The mum was drunk sprawled out of the sofa, the fridge was empty apart from a pint of milk. There was no dinner. No heating. No hot water. The place stank of dog. Really overpowering. In the loo was a poster on the back of the door of a naked man, posing.
When my dad came to collect me he said I must never go there again. I couldn’t understand why he was being so mean but I get it now. I feel so sorry for these people growing up like that.

I always find it odd how people live behind closed doors!

Even now, I have to go into people's homes to work. One family I know, from the outside, totally normal, well dressed etc etc. Their house is a total shit hole. You would never know from meeting them. Their table is that sticky/dirty I find it difficult to do my work.

From my childhood, I had a friend who wasn't allowed to watch Grange Hill or do anything vaguely normal for a teenager. Her room was like something from the 1950's. Very very odd family.

When I was around 6 or 7 I went to my best friends house, her (slightly older) brother was making milk and squash....together, in the same cup. The thought of it still haunts me to this day

My mum didn't let me drink at meal times either. I still to this day have a problem eating food that's too dry, I have to have lots of gravy etc. She always said I'd use the drink to wash it down and not chew properly.

My earliest memory [around 2} was watching my biologic father break a broom over my Mothers back.Weirdest thing was 50 plus years ago a school friend showing me her horse hair mattress had a mouse nest with mice in.

I know someone who used to get locked in their room at night. No idea why and I refused to sleep over in fear I'd need the loo in the night.

Being told off at my BFF's house for using a knife to spread jam on my bread. I was told it was bad manners not to use the back of the spoon.
This was a Mrs A. My friend was polite and demure, but her family were weird. They all had mispelled names. A normal name but spelled wrongly.
I was also soundly rebuked when my pickled onion shot across the table. I had never eaten a pickled onion in my life and was horrified.
They often had offal for dinner and I was told that sister, Delissa ( see what I mean) was an expert in stuffing hearts because she was a nurse. I had a mortal fear of both meat and surgery and luckily was not offered one.
Mrs A was highly critical of my mother and once told her to grow up. At this time my Mum was looking after three children had a full time job as well as a house to manage.Mrs A seemed to stay at home all day boiling washing.Mr A worked on the buses and spent his time moaning. Mrs A also said I was spoiled and my Mum was spoiled. If my friend was needed to do something she absolutely HAD to do it or she was in terrible trouble.
My Mum often fed my friend nice meals and we had a lovely time at my house. But she always had to leave at 5pm and that was that.End of.Mrs A said she didn't like us feeding my friend as she would feel obliged to give me a sandwich or something.They had plenty of money as there were four working adults in the house.
We were never allowed indoors except to eat a scary meal in the dismal sitting room. I never saw my friend's bedroom ever.
My Dad was always very kind to my friends and used to take them home in the car or pick me up. Whatever was needed.
On one occasion I was late coming home and a horrible fog came down. It was about a mile's walk and I was only a little girl.
They would not take me home or walk me home or even let me ring my father.
I was literally terrified, it was a really thick fog, very dark and I couldn't see a thing.I didn't even know if I was walking in the right direction. Even worse there were footsteps behind me, When i got home I was crying and hysterical and my mother was furious with Mrs A.
Mrs A. finally managed to ruin our relationship which she had planned all along. She really wanted my friend to spend the whole time looking after her very odd but sweet little sister.
I was baptised Catholic and Mrs A said she would have no Popery and Catholics all went to church to lick a ping pong ball. I kid you not.
I never saw my lovely friend again.

I was terrified of Mrs A. I still think of my friend who was very sweet and talented and wonder if she ever escaped such ignorance and unkindness.

This might be me , my mum wouldn’t let us watch Grange Hill and we had to wait behind the gate if people were playing out !! I asked my mum about the Grange Hill thing , she denied all knowledge.

Going to a friends house for tea after school and finding Grange Hill was banned in their house! @Stabilos was it my house?

So many to name but the one that stands out most was going to a friends house and finding his mum naked on the landing! No one blinked an eye, even the children, I was gobsmacked so she put a bra on to help my discomfort my parents banned me from going back!
Another one where the parents had a spot at the table for their dog, it would sit on a chair and put its front paws on the table and eat the same as them from a dinner plate
DS (11) has a school friend who shares a bed with his dad and his mum and sister (15) share a bed (possibly a cultural thing?) but he said it was awkward going into the bedroom to watch tv seeing all his dads things in there!

Not quite a child but at 17 stayed over at a mate’s house - she forgot to tell me her parents were clothes free at the weekend! Put me right off my breakfast!

I had a sleep over when I was 12 at a girls house who was a bit of a loner. I lasted about an hour before I borrowed their phone and begged my parents to come get me.

She had seven huge dogs which her parents allowed to urinate and poo anywhere and everywhere they went without cleaning it up. I had thought the carpet was brown but soon discovered it was trodden in faeces and food, since they’d scrape their plates directly onto the floor - regardless of what it was - for the dogs to eat.

I was told this quote proudly by her as she gave me the tour.

Even in her bedroom there was dog poo on the bed and fleas everywhere. Anyway, my parents told the school who must have informed social because the last I remember of her she suddenly left our school. I’d still see her parents around town occasionally, but didn’t see her again and I often wonder what happened...

We also weren’t allowed to watch Grange Hill

I punch up in a garden between adult men ... and one man picked up a tv Ariel and hit the other with it ... police arrived ... I was 10 years old and totally fascinated ! ... horrified now

Door handles so high only adults could open them...

Went to a friend's birthday party when I was about seven. All the kids had been herded into another room on the pretext of playing a game while I went for a quick toilet visit.

I realised something was happening in the back room so had a little peer and got caught by friend's DF. He'd hired a magician as a surprise but seriously you'd have thought I'd been caught stealing state secrets. He had such a go at me and it was a massive shock because he'd always played Mr church-going-love-your-neighbour-nice guy until then. Never saw him in the same light after that.

I’m beginning to think that we were the weird ones... although my friends mum was a nasty horrible woman (well she was always rude to me). I think some adults really can’t be bothered with other people’s kids can they?

I was epseven or eight and saw my friends husband get very close (very close) to his female friend in the office within the house while his wife (my mums friend) was in the kitchen. The father saw me and gave me some amazing pens and the most amazing pencil sharper. It was a bic pen with a lid which i used the sharper on so ruined it. Mum mentioned it about ten years ago that they split due his affairs... bought be straight back to what i saw. Still got the pen with the ruined lid from the 1980s....(Norfolk area)

As a teenager, at a party, I had a male friends mum say to me ‘want to see something fun?’ At which point she lead me and another girl to a locked door... took a key out of her pocket and took us into what was essentially, a ‘play’ room.

i’ll just add to this that nobody ever came to my house. my parents were wealthy alcoholics and considered most of my friends to be ‘scum’ who weren’t worthy of our glorious surroundings.

i was a suicidal 10 year old, and an alcoholic myself by 13. some of these stories are hilarious, some are heartbreaking.

Not weird really, just a sign of how times have changed since the mid 70’s. I used to go and stay with a friend who lived in a mountainy farm. There was no running water so we would walk along the road to a spring well and carry back buckets. For having a poo there was a bucket in the ‘back kitchen’ (a lean to) and for a wee you went outside. The older boys had one bedroom and the younger son and my friend shared a single bed in a room with their parents. When I stayed, I shared the bed and the brother bunked in with the older boys. Downstairs there was a ‘good room’ with Lino on the floor and some chairs, maybe a sideboard or something. It was rarely used and they lived in the kitchen. When my friend came to my house my mum would put all her clothes in the washing machine on the first night!

This isn’t weird as such, it was just so different from what I was used to, as my parents never drank in the house apart from Christmas and then not a great deal.
My friend’s Dad was a teacher and he came home one evening, in a smart 3 piece suit, dumped his briefcase, grunted hello and went straight for the drinks cabinet, where he poured a generous G&T. I remember asking my friend if he was ok and she looked surprised and said of course he was, it was just what he did every day when he came home.

A disturbed Funnel Web spider. If I hadn’t heard it puffing and turned to look to see what it was I wouldn’t be hear to tell the tale. It was up ready to strike as I pulled my hand away. I was about 10 or 11. It was in the aviary which we were helping clean out.

At age eleven a new girl moved to our school from another part of the country...she kept telling everyone she had a famous sister (this part turned out to be true) so when I got invited round there I was super excited to see how showbiz people lived. Except...the sister didn’t live with her and they lived in a grotty bed sit type place. Then it got really weird to the point where I sometimes wonder if I dreamt it - mum had some rolls of wallpaper she needed hanging so she shut me and this other girl in the bathroom with a tub of wallpaper paste and told us to hang it! Even as I type this I know it sounds crazy but I swear it happened! She wouldn’t let us have dinner until we had finish3d the wall over the bath and when I went downstairs I nearly vomited as it was boil in the bag fish in parsley sauce and she got really cross because I was so reluctant to eat it but didn’t want to appear rude. Needless to say I never went back! In hindsight it is actually quite sad as I think mum was eventually sectioned and daughter attempted suicide, but it was the weirdest play date of my life and I always thought of it whenever I saw the sister on TV...