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!

I stayed over with my BF when I was 13, turned out it was so we could baby sit her 2 young brothers while her Mum went out. I woke up in the middle of the night to hear sex sounds coming from her bedroom and it wasnt with her Dad - he worked away on the oil rigs. He came home the next day and they were very intimate, kissing and cuddling all over the place and I couldnt believe the Mum could do this.
She also had me peeling potatoes for tea and shouted at me when I said I wasnt sure how to do it.

Another timne I went round, I was chatting with my friend when her Mum stormed in and she demanded if I knew about Parents evening. I was scared but managed to say yes I did and when it was. At that, she belted my friend across the face and chased her upstairs, all the time smacking her while shouting. Then she calmly came downstairs and told me to leave as my friend was sent to bed!!

My mother had a friend who was married to a man who did narration for BBC natural history programmes. They lived in a huge house, on a hill overlooking a lake, which was filled with objects collected on his travels - ostrich eggs, coco de mer, stones from the Simpson desert where he was despatched to film the first rainfall in a few hundred years, maori shields, aboriginal art, photos of cave paintings....
He would explain to me and my sister what these things were, how they linked to other things.
Not weird really, more utterly magical.
He and my Mum's friend divorced and that was that, but that house founded a lifelong curiosity and fascination with the natural world.

Mine are very dull.

In reception I used to go round to a little girls house to play and her mum would often give us 1 potato waffle as a snack. I'd just moved from Italy and had no idea of English childrens tea foods - I thought potatos were dinner and why was it in the middle of the afternoon and so small. I never commented though, just ate my waffle.

Another one is some friends and I went to visit a boy at his (big posh) house in the country to hang out and his nice mum made us a tray of chopped up salad veg for a snack - He was 15 or 16!

Ohhh I've remembered another, friends dad worked at Heinz and he would bring sacks of tinned food home for them, only problem was none of them had labels, they would happily tip out whatever was in the tin, sweet or savoury heat and eat. It was a revelation to me as in my house pork chops meant it was Tuesday and egg and chips meant it was Friday!

When I was a kid, I wasn't often allowed to go to friend's houses, but my Mother would choose who she would allow me to have tea with. It was never an actual friend. She was a horrible cow though so no surprise.
Anyway, at about 9, a new girl joined and she had a brother who was 13. They were from Scotland and my Mother decided that she would be my new friend (despite me being very happy with my current, long-standing friend, despite the witch trying to split us up over the years, we're 38 now and still friends).
Anyway, went to this girls home after weeks of our mother's talking.
It was the creepiest, dirtiest, coldest house I've ever been in. All the curtains were shut- she wasn't allowed them open- and what furniture they had was very dark and Victorian.
It was like something from a horror film. The Mum sat and drank the entire time I was there, her brother was a creep who shut me in his room when I was looking for the bathroom (you had to walk through his bedroom and down a step to get in) and was telling me until I flashed my knickers I couldn't leave, he let me out when the girl heard me crying.
I asked to go home and her mum said no as she had bought dinner in especially as it was what English children liked. A tin of beans and a packet of crispy pancakes. I can't smell beans to this day or then without my stomach turning so I tried to eat round them.
Her dad came home and he was so loud, big huge guy he was. He went ballistic about the beans and crispy pancakes, and complained that I had left some on my plate.
My Mum collected me and made me say thanks for having me over, the Dad acted all sweetness and light to her!
I cried all the way home and got a clip round the head for "telling lies" about the family.
The girl ended up in some gang at about 13, she never came to school after that but she was a right bully so we were chuffed. I read in the local paper her and her creepy brother had ended up in prison for murder after someone ripped them off for drugs.
I think we were probably weird as well though as my mother was such a witch to people and had no worries letting people know she didn't like them, kid friends of mine included.

One friend who's house I visited allowed their chickens to roam in and out of the house and even into the carpeted living room. The house was filthy and she once visited ours and said "we have the same floor in our kitchen!" And I'm not exaggerating when I say you couldn't tell cause there's was black with muck!

Her mum baked and decorated her other daughters wedding cake in that kitchen

I went into a friend's house (also a neighbour) when I was around 12 and there was a stack of porn magazines in the hall. He said that his Dad was taking them to the hospital that evening when he visited another neighbour who had just had an operation.

Not as a child but I went to pick my son up from his friend's house one day. It was a lovely very large detached new build. I was asked into the hall and every wall and even the staircase stringer and newel post were covered in pictures - posters and magazine and newspaper pictures, large and small - of Hugh Grant.

This thread is such a mixed bag! I can’t remember anything specially wild except when I was about 19 I was round a friend’s house, we’d been at school together since primary but I’d never been to his house before. Around 2005. In the loo, there was this really dated, cheesy early 90s style family portrait of the parents, my friend and his sister, one of those soft focus ones with everyone gurning gently. It was on the wall facing the loo. So when I went for a wee, they were all just staring at me! I just found it such a bizarre place to hang a family portrait but in hindsight I wonder that was the point and it was supposed to be funny!

TakeMeToKernow
@minou123
I know someone who grew up LIVING IN BEAMISH!!

That is amazing. I'm quite jealous. My dad became like a 10 year old at the olde fashioned sweet shop
We also queued for 1 and half hours for the fish and chips because they were cooked the old fashioned way.

On my French exchange (1984, Vichy ) we had dinner one evening and once we’d finished the main course we turned the plates over and had pudding off the other side of the plate - within the ring on the bottom of the plate. I’m still

About 13 and went to a friend's house. She was on her period. She was expected to walk through the house with her sanitary towel and put it in the wood burner in the living room. She had to tell her parents the days she had her period so they could mark it on a calender. It was in the living room and clearly marked for her period days for all to see

Binterested
On my French exchange (1984, Vichy grin) we had dinner one evening and once we’d finished the main course we turned the plates over and had pudding off the other side of the plate - within the ring on the bottom of the plate. I’m still hmm

You would love my family . My mum is french and what we do is, finish main meal, clean the plate with a piece of bread. Then use the same plate for the cheese and then the pudding!

This thread is remarkable. A true classic. In turns both hilarious and utterly heartbreaking. It's a slice of social history.

All those people who ate "raw" sausages - are you sure it wasn't liver sausage? It was really popular in the 70s and 80s. It's a bit like pate but more solid. It came in a sausage shape and could be sliced for sandwiches. It was my little sis fav which is weird cos she's vegan now!

A friend down my street slept in a room with her mum and her in two single beds, her dad in the box room and her brother in the other room. I’m sure there was some sort of explanation but at the time I thought It was really weird. We weren’t really allowed to play in her bedroom because it was full of her mums stuff except my friends ‘side’ had a kiddy bed spread and soft toys and a couple of posters/box of toys. The beds were like pine singles with a small wooden rail on one side as well, like a small safety rail.
I wonder if my friend had night terrors / sleepwalked or was really terrible at going to bed and that set up worked for them.

One of my friends through primary and into secondary had a brother who competed at a high level at a very very niche sport. Think like fencing or archery something like that. The dad would take him to this specialist Centre for practice like three or four days a week after school and sometimes the mum would go too which I found really bizarre and a bit mean as from age 11 ish my friend would be alone after school a lot. They bought a van for this ‘equipment’ for the sport even though I never saw him with anything other than a holdall type sports bag and maybe another small bag of equipment.
The dad always wore t shirts with the name of the Centre they competed with and like hoodies and baseball caps with things related to the sport like competitions they’d been to or companies that they got equipment from on and dressed in trainers and shorts and sporty stuff even though he was basically driving around and shouting from the sidelines at the son. I thought he was a sad bastard aged about 9 and I think I was spot on. They also used to give the son Different food to my friend - would go for tea and we would get oven chips and spaghetti hoops and the boy would arrive back at 8pm and the mum would be cooking him something more substantial / healthy. There were drinks and snacks in abundance in the cupboards but they were out of bounds as they were for the brother. Used to make me soooo angry! I felt so bad for my friend. The brother never even carried the sport on past about age 17. He is in his twenties and a tradesman now and I’m sure very happy but I bet the parents are lost without his hobby.

• When I was about 13 I stayed at a friends house and we shared the bed. Top and tail, i woke up in the night to find her same end as me and she was masturbating! Luckily I wasn't facing her so I just pretended to be asleep.

• At another friends house the bath was full with real dirty water. I asked my friend about it and she said it was because they used the water over and over again.

Footiefan2019, I know someone who had a similar set up re bedrooms for a while. I think that one parent worked weird shifts and disturbed the other coming home in the middle of the night, and so they swapped around until the shift worker got a new job/hours. Or something. Can't remember the details, but one child definitely slept in the same room as same sex parent, maybe even same bed for a couple of months.

Omg and talking of French exchanges. I went on one and they didn’t like get ready in the mornings .. it’s hard to explain but they had four kids and we had to all leave at 8am for school. The first day the girl woke me up at 7.45 and we went down in our pyjamas for breakfast, and at about 8.57 they’d all sprint upstairs, chuck some jeans on and Rush out to go to school in whatever top they’d slept in, no shower no teeth brush... baffling ! I set an alarm for 7am the rest of the two weeks and got up, washed , teeth, did my hair. The mum told me not to shower in the mornings because it woke them up too early !

7.57am sorry

I stayed overnight at a friend's house. At breakfast, her mum had a bowl of cornflakes which she'd poured whiskey over.

Best friends in our early teens, she lived in a modern style mansion, it looked like some sort of enormous cabin (like a ski resort style) and had loads of bedrooms, bathrooms, a gym, sauna, pool and jacuzzi, tennis court, and a WHOLE OTHER HOUSE on the grounds, along with stables of course, with two horses. Jesus, it was immense! I loved going there as they were a very close family and while they were a bit eccentric and perhaps a bit show off, there was a lot of love, affection and happiness. My friend once pointed out to me that I didn’t hug properly, I used to sort of lean away from it, simply because it didn’t happen in my house! My mother would sometimes say she loved me, but in the third person and usually after she’d hit me.
I spent a lot of time at other people’s houses really, as I pretty much hated being at home, sterile and sad with no real warmth. No one ever came to stay and if they did, they weren’t allowed to do anything really, and they could see I was nervous.
My house was clean (to ridiculous standards as my mother would do top to bottom every day) and I was always fed but a major lack of support and I always felt on edge because of her need for spotlessness, any kind of spillage was a disaster and would result in sulking or not talking to me. I remember being shocked when my friends would take glasses of water to bed with them!! Learnt a lot from my friends actually, my kids will be loved and told so! And by god will I let them drink water wherever they wish! My heart goes out to all the posts with tough stories to tell

When I was about 12 I struck up a friendship with a girl new to my area,her mum worked through the night so we babysat the younger kids. I once asked the mum what her job was she told me she did autopsy’s...thing is she always went to work wearing mini skirts thigh high boots and a fur coat and was picked up by various men...it’s only looking back with the eyes of an adult that I’ve realised she was probably a prostitute 😳 😂

Stayed with a friend and we had chips for tea but we weren't allowed to make chip butties as they were common!

They are common!!!

The weirdest one for me was when I went for a sleepover at a friends house - we were 15 and on the cusp of GCSEs so not little kids. Anyway it got to about 11pm and she declared she was putting her favourite video on. Here's me thinking it'll be dirty dancing or cocktail - no. It was a 3 hour long video of recorded baby programmes like school bus and chocca block. And she knew all the songs and sang along doing actions and everything! I was I'd known her for years and never knew she'd like that. Was very weird and she poked me every time I went to fall asleep because she wanted me to watch it all. I remember for about a week after that my mind was occupied solely with "WTAF was that all about?!"

A family I knew had a mural on the living room wall of the whole family undead next to their own grave stones, drawn by the father. The same family had a million cats and a ouija board.