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!

[NextdoorNeighbourIsATwat]

great idea for a thread!

[spurlingpipe]

I can't of any from when I was little, apart from the one friend whose house was like a shrine to Elvis (in the 90s), but I think that's because we were the weird ones

My parents let us ride my 12v quad and my bike around the inside of the house.
When we were teenagers my dad let us drive his car in the garden.
We had a bonfire most nights during the summer.
Everything in our house was secondhand and mismatched.
We had abt 12000 pets
I had that many sibling and cousins who were over all the time that none of my friends were sure which were which

[waggydog21]

My mates parents had loads of leather collars and leads..and no dog..

[Instagrump]

My friend was a foster kid with her DSis and the foster family were.... odd.

Friend (then 11) and her DSIS (then 13) always said they were only there to do all the household chores and provide the Foster Parents with an income. I was dubious until I visited. They had to do ALL the tasks in that beautiful house including making every single meal. They had a list of jobs that they had to complete as soon as they got up in the morning and home from school. The laundry, hoovering, dusting etc and of course starting dinner. The parents did nothing at all except give jobs to do.
TV was banned (for the kids) unless special permission was granted. The mother would come home every day and feel the back of the telly for heat to make sure they hadn't put it on. If the kids broke the rules I don't actually know what happened. I don't think they were hit but I know the mum was really really good at manipulation. I was only there one night and I left the following day feeling immensely and insanely grateful to the mum for having me and allowing me to do all the chores with the girls and of course for providing food for me...
halfway up the street and I gave my head a shake and thought, "What the fuck?" It was weird as hell.

[Whatisthisfuckery]

There was a family who lived at the other end of our street. Their house was always tatty looking and they had bits of broken old cars outside. It was a very average, not particularly large 3 bed house, so by no means massive. One day I went to call for one of the DDs who was about the same age as me. She asked me to come in while she put her shoes on. There was a massive board blocking off the stairs that reached almost to the ceiling. The stairs were right oposite the door in their very small hallway, which was as wide as the stairs and the kitchen door and as deep as a single doorway.I asked her what the board was for and she said it was for when they had the horse in the house, to stop it going upstairs.

[jackparlabane]

Had a friend with a lovely welcoming mum - except for a couple issues.
I once went to the loo and then a few minutes later mum came out of the bathroom and screamed at me for leaving a mess. I was totally bemused, until mum calmed down enough to explain that I'd used the basin - and not dried it! Yes, there were drops of water in the basin...

A few years later I was staying over, mum went out, so we decided to be greatly daring and cook some ready-to-bake item. We ensured there were no crumbs or anything anywhere in the kitchen.

Mum returned about five hours later, sniffed, and roared that someone had COOKED in her kitchen! Transpired no cooking nor baking was ever allowed there... though mum would happily take us out to restaurants every night.

The friend who did goodnight kisses with her dad each night as a full-on snog wierded me out, too (I admit dad had a point about my bad manners when I reacted by going 'Wooo!', but I was seven, and seriously, what?)

[StinkEye]

When i was around 8/9, I went to a school friends house regularly - in their toilet, sat on the windowsill was a pile of porn mags - i'm talking a pile of 20 magazines. From what i remember, all nude ladies with legs akimbo, boobs out etc. Absolutely no attempt to hide them! The friend was a girl and she had 2 younger brothers.
I only told my mum about this recently (i'm 41) and she was horrified.

[OrangeSlice]

I can't think of any but Stacey Dooley visited a family in her recent series that were landed gentry/possibly titled. Their place mats had sketches of women giving men blow jobs, women with legs askew. They'd probably think it very middle class to be prudish about it which is fine by me

[NextdoorNeighbourIsATwat]

dontmentionbookclub - my dad did the exact same, weird, irrational thing to me when I was little .

I'd had a friend over to play and he was driving them home - I went with them. He put on some music and I asked 'is this such-and-such band dad?' (can't remember who it was) and he completely exploded, shouting at me for 'showing off' in front of my friend. WHAT THE ACTUALHELL?!

Is this a British-male-of-a-certain-generation thing or something? So weird!

[Saucery]

Friend’s dad arriving home with a brace of wild rabbits he’d shot up in the fields to cook. Fair enough, but it was at the height of myxomatosis and they were awful, thin diseased-looking things. I begged my Mum to make excuses if I was ever invited round for tea again (other hygiene issues there too).

[Notso]

I had a friend on the same street who had three sisters and a baby brother. The girls all wore what my Mum called party dresses all the time and had hair in plaits with ribbons, they were always looked really smart. Their house was an absolute tip inside, they had a 'playroom' which was just crammed with hundreds of broken toys, old food, plates etc, the bath was full of rubbish and there were clothes everywhere.

I once went to a sleep over at a friends house. I was about 9, in the middle of the night she clambered over me pissed in the corner of the room and climbed back into bed. I remember her legs were all wet with pee.

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.

[Whatisthisfuckery]

Jackparlabane, snogger her dad? WTF?

[recrudescence]

A schoolfriend’s parents were both psychiatrists. They kept their telephone in a box packed with cotton wool because they found the ringing unbearable. I witnessed another friend’s grandmother smoking a little clay pipe in the garden.

[HaggardMumofToddler]

The parents of my best friend at primary school had a copy of the Radio Times on top of the TV and an exercise book and pencil. If there was something they wanted to watch they wrote it in the book and the TV would be switched on for that particular programme and off afterwards.

I actually quite like this idea! And the pre dinner drinks.

[Strawberrycreamsundae]

My friend's father was an antiques dealer and absolutely everything in the house had a price label or tag on it so you never knew from one vist to another what furniture, bed or table would be still there. Sometimes there wouldn't be a table to eat at so we'd have a picnic meal sitting on piles of cushions on an exotic carpet.
They were a wonderfully eccentric and incredibly generous family.

[Patroclus]

A portrait of Stalin

[Pinkette06]

When I was 11 or 12 my friends dad forced me to weigh myself so he could compare my weight with his daughters. I think he wanted sons and was keen on her doing sports and gaining muscle weight. We were both slim but I was incredibly embarrassed and didn't want to, I kept saying no but gave in, in the end as I felt pressured. I asked that nobody else see but him but he then told the family after when comparing our weights. I wasn't worried about my weight or anything at that age but it made me really uncomfortable (maybe because I didn't have the sporty muscle he was wanting his daughter to have? I was just a nornal slim child) and I felt like I had too.

[Patroclus]

In the east yorkshire village I lived in the houses really were like something from 1890s, incuding ornaments/photos, outside toilets, fires and coal dust everywhere. Seemed normal at the time but would be seen as very weird now im sure. Would love to go back to it but they've all been 'done up'.

[MorrisZapp]

Loads of weird stuff but for 'ordinary weird', my best friends family kept the family hairdryer in its original cardboard box in the hall cupboard. When you washed your hair, you went to the cupboard, took the box down from the shelf, used the hairdryer, put it back in the box, and back up on the shelf.

They were weird about telephones too. They put a towel over theirs.

[MitziK]

Carpet that reached to all sides of the room and didn't turn your socks black.

Empty space on the floor.

No flies.

A garden that wasn't full of rotten furniture, bits of motorbikes and assorted shite (including multiple dog turds).

Curtains that closed.

Kitchens not covered in twenty years of grease.

Stairs that you could walk up instead of picking your way through a tiny path whilst leaning on the wall.

Really weird stuff.

[pooopypants]

❤ @mitzik ❤

[EmeraldShamrock]

An adult penis.
My friends dad died we were about 8 her DM went off the rails. We went to get change and her mums boyfriend was naked. The weirdest part I still think of, he said Emerald go outside, friend can stay to get changed, she did.
We are adult friends again I've never brought it up with her.

[pooopypants]

My BFF's would often nip into their downstairs loo. He would only be in there 10 seconds. He used to go in there to fart!

[Lilsginpalace]

My school friend’s parents used to go caravanning most weekends, eventually when she got to 16 she was allowed to stay at home but the living room was locked so she could only go into the kitchen downstairs. She tried to get into the living room via the hatch from the kitchen but got stuck!

[PennyGold]

I was invited for 'tea' at a girls house who I wasn't really friends with, she was a bit of a 'loner' so my mum said I should go to be kind.
It was really fun and I was having a great time until 5 o'clock came and her and her mum started to become visibly agitated (very confusing for a seven-year-old) but her dad came in from work.. and demanded his tea, he clipped his wife over the head because it wasn't already made.
I was left alone in the front room with him as he bombarded me with questions, and then when his daughter came back he kept saying "look why can't you be that pretty" etc it was awful!
I asked when we were going to eat because I was hungry and she said when her dad was done (they weren't allowed to eat with or before him).
I didn't go over again, and I did tell my mum but nothing changed.
I heard a few years ago that her and her mum had moved out to the area and I couldn't help but feel really relieved for them.