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!

This didn't happen at someone's house but it was weird.

When I was about 13, a friend's dad gave us a lift into town then arranged to meet us later to take us home. She wanted to buy something (can't remember what, something small though like a magazine), but she was 2p short of the price. I had 2p spare so gave it to her. Anyhow, we met up with her dad and she immediately asked for 2p to give to me, but I said 'no, it's okay, it's only 2p'. He went into this long rant about how she wasn't going to be beholden to anyone, and to me 2p might not be much, but for some people it was a lot of money. Then proceeded to lecture me on 'the value of money' which apparently I needed to know about in order to avoid destitution as an adult.

With hindsight I do wonder what was going on at home, especially as about a year later her parents separated. But at the time it was really odd and bewildering, I just stood there in amazement, while she looked quite embarrassed. And I still maintain that even in the early '80s 2p was not a lot of money.

MyShit I'm horrified that I'm sharing this but we had an infestation of slugs once. They were living UNDER THE FRIDGE! One day I noticed the trails...in the daylight...and said to DH "Look! A slug must have got in!" and he said "Oh yes, I saw a couple one night...I didnt do anything because I was half asleep and forgot afterwards!"

I was FREAKED.

I waited and checked that night and late at night when I looked there were about SEVEN of the bastards.

Made DH carry them all out and throw them into the park next door.

Then salted the area. Bleached the next day and ordered a new fridge! I imagined they were still under there...or that they'd been entering the actual fridge area!

Lucky it was an old fridge...a hand me down.

my best friend's father and step-mother had naked photos of themselves in the hallway. Of them standing coyly posed against trees etc. In their bedroom they had a giant one of the step mother lying on their bed with her legs akimbo. Whenever they ahd dinner parties they would ask us kids to collect coats and put them in that room. I was always amazed by that. Also her dad was NOT well endowed (like a button on a fur coat) so i could never really understand tha apparent pride!

I had a friend when I was about 8. She's was an only child with very odd parents. Her grandparents brought her a big bag of chocolates every week, mars bars, Milky Way etc, and they were put in a big glass bowl on the dining table. She was allowed to take one whenever she wanted, but didn't seem bothered . I was amazed by this as I only got one chocolate bar a week!
I had tea with them once and got : one lettuce leaf with a slice of tomato on top, with vinegar poured over
I wasn't allowed to use their toilet and if I needed to wee she used to tell me to go outside and wee in their coal house which I did! I wonder if her parents ever noticed the smell in there

A friend of mine had 2 pet snakes in tanks in their living room. I went round one day via the back garden to see the tanks being washed. The snakes were slivering around the kitchen and no one batted an eyelid - I don't think I went back after that!

I once started over at school friend’s house - I must have been about 12/13. At breakfast the next morning they made toast - but every slice was burnt black - to an absolute crisp, then left to cool. A thick layer of margerine was then added. I went hungry. Then went home. 🤢

I bulk buy and hate not having lots of food in.

Same here.

We only got one meal a day (evening). Breakfast was just tea. I was always hungry, and now I can't relax unless the cupboards and fridge are so packed I can't find anything (IYSWIM).

DH says I have a siege mentality.

For those who are complaining that this thread is going onto classics, because there are some horrific accounts on here - just remember - this is social history. Most of us are shocked or amazed at how people lived, but for the individuals involved that was there life - there was nothing unusual about it.

Without accounts such as the ones on here, all of this would be lost - we would never know how people really lived.

I agree that some stories are harrowing - but shoving them under the carpet and pretending they never happened makes them more so, not less. We have a responsibility to document life as it was.

Carpets hung on walls and none on the floor.
Only being allowed in the hall and never beyond.
An eye-watering farmhouse where china potties appeared to be used by the adults.
An elderly relative who you never saw who would thump the floor of their room to get attention from the mum.

Some of these are awful but I agree they should be shared . I don't remember anything odd as such growing up . I grew up in the 80's / 90s my mum was very house proud no matter if we had not much money she used to always say a bottle of bleach to clean costs nothing and a bar of soap to wash . I think some people who live in filth it's just all they've known . I remember going to friends houses and knowing they were poor and house a tip . My friends used to love coming to play at my house as was so tidy and clean . I used to tell my mum about so and so's house and she'd be shocked. It probably wasn't so bad but compared to my house my mum was always cleaning. I remember as a teen wishing she'd relax a bit as it was a bit ocd .

Neighbours house in the 70's .. V posh. Had 5 kids and I was best friends with the 2nd Girl. All luxuries you could imagine. Ponies, Tennis Court, Swimming Pool..

Mum was super glamorous, did charity work etc. We hardly EVER saw her... used to go riding out in the roads for miles with no adult supervision from age about 7.. including catching, tacking etc.

Dad was also never seen. He was a Barrister in London (we were in Rural Hants).. when he wasn't working he was playing golf every Sat/Sunday .

Definitely a house of 'benign neglect' (all things paid for that money could buy , older boys at Boarding school from age 7.. girls all private day school. Cleaner, housekeeper, cook etc , but no actual Parental attention)

So, sleepovers allowed and actively encouraged on one proviso... No one , absolutely no one was allowed to disturb 'mummy' in the morning because 'Uncle Matthew' was coming over to discuss 'business' with mummy. This ruse was dramatically enhanced by 'Uncle Matthew' bringing his daughter with him to play with us. (who we all loved) .. and the awful threat of her not being able to come and play anymore on a Saturday/Sunday morning if we told 'daddy' that 'Uncle Matthew had been here. As 'daddy' didn't like 'Uncle Matthew' ..

It was GENIUS.. None of us twigged it until at least a couple of decades later. .. Weirdly, 'mummy and daddy' still together.

I had forgotten this one. Friend at school who told me he lived with his mum, dad, sister and a lodger. Visited his house a few times before I realised that his mum, dad and "lodger" all slept in the same bed. This wasn't a bohemian area in London, but a very working class 1970's council estate. I didn't understand it at the time, but thought it was strange and told my mum, who said nothing to me.

Hope this isn't too far off-topic – I was sixteen, so not really a child, and it's not weird, just memorable and sad/funny.

My Mum took me with her when she went to look after her friend's very elderly father ; the friend had to go out for the day and didn't want to leave him alone. He must have been fantastically good-looking once - he had been a Royal Navy captain, and even in extreme old age he was tall, straight-backed, dignified. But now he had what I now realise was Alzheimer's.

I sat in the sitting room with him and he chatted to me. One thing he said was “My daughter bought me this new television. It's very kind of her, but the programmes on it aren't as good as on my old one …”

He told me stories of his travels and adventures in the navy. It was interesting, exciting, and he told them really clearly. I wondered why on earth people said there was anything wrong with him. After about ½ hour he finished - and started again, and told the same stories all over again, in exactly the same words, even the same gestures. When he finished, he started again, and told them a third time ....

Totally different topic, but on this same visit I smelt a bad smell, and went to investigate. I traced it to the kitchen, thought it was the drains, sniffed around the sink, found it wasn't from there. Eventually I traced it to a cupboard, found an open jar in there, called my Mum and said I thought this stuff had gone off. She said, no, it's meant to smell like that. This was my first encounter with Marmite.

@posteraroundtheworldyet

Please don't misunderstand what I am saying, information that is illegal should be reported, especially historic sex abuse and child abuse, and we all have a responsibility for this, which is why I and other posters have flagged it as an issue with MN, if you ignore or walk away from these claims then you are not helping counteract child abuse. You don't have to agree, in fact I am quite happy for you not to agree, but it isn't 'batshit' it is just simply about responsibility and a difference in opinion!

Blimey, my childhood was very uneventful in comparison! Some friends had messier or tidier houses than mine but happily I didn't witness any actual squalor. It's heartbreaking.

I had one friend whose parents had a huge Victorian house. Her bedroom was on the top floor and they could call her down by means of an intercom. But...she couldn't contact them via the intercom. And they could have it switched on without her knowing. So she basically never had any privacy in her own bedroom. I remember feeling very bad for her. They also gave their dog homeopathic medicine (this was mid-eighties and not Brighton) and I remember even aged nine or ten thinking that was one of the most batshit things I'd ever heard of.

WHAT was going on with all the nudity, though? DH was scarred by a friend's mother walking around, bush ahoy. She is still friends with his mother but thankfully stays clothed when she visits

I have no idea really but my kids have never mentioned nudie parents so maybe it was a 70s/80s thing? Weird.

@sam221. For some reason a tear came to my eye just thinking about how much your parents love you to have done everything they could so you could fit in x

I think in the 70's/early 80's a lot of people still treated kids very different from adults. What I mean is they might be kind and loving, but they did not feel the need to moderate their behaviour. If it was fine in front of your own kids, it was fine in front of other people's kids.

Of course there were creepy men who might be naked to be pervy. But in other cases it was similar to if you had a friend's dog visiting. You would look after and be kind to the dog, but it would not occur to you to change how you are dressed or undressed in front of the dog.

l posted earlier that until was about 10, l shared a bedroom with my parents. We lived in a two bedroom flat, and my grandma had the other bedroom.
When my grandma died, her body stayed in the house, in the bedroom. l remember my mam saying we had to have all the curtains in the flat closed (no idea why!) and that we couldn't have the television on. Once the bedroom door wasn't shut properly and l peeped through the gap. My grandma's body, covered with a sheet, was silhouetted against the light from the window (closed curtains again) and the thing l remember most is that her feet were stuck straight up, and l wondered why - mine weren't like that when l was in bed. l was confused too - l heard my dad telling one of the neighbours "We've lost XXXX's (my mothers) mother." l wondered why he'd said that - she wasn't 'lost', she was still in the bedroom.
l wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. lnstead my cousin's girlfriend took me out for lunch. l was delighted, l'd never been out for a meal before. lt was only at the Co-op café, but at the time it felt like a huge treat.
After that, l was thrilled to finally have my own room. lt wasn't til many years later it dawned on me that l'd been put to bed in the bed my grandma had died in. Thank goodness l didn't realise at the time. l think it would have spooked me.

Actually, I think that I am the weird one. We have our Guinea pigs in the kitchen 😬

blubberball l'm weird too, then. My rabbits live in (what would be) my dining room.

I've been reading thinking how do you eat it without plates and knives and forks the gravy/peas/curry would be everywhere..... then I realised most probably aren't from the north!
My friends dad used to send us to the chip shop with a plate and we'd order, pass the plate over and they'd put it straight on the plate!

I've just remembered I used to stay at one friends house. Her dad had a very think Scottish accent that I struggled to understand.
Every morning hed walk around the house in y fronts singing some bizarre Scottish song every so often asking me what I thought of his singing or so my friend told me.

I fear we were the odd house growing up.
2 massive rottweilers, 2 Burmese pythons, a cockatiel that told the dogs to fuck off, 3 goldfish, and 2 hamsters!

The house was always clean though, (looking back it probably stank with all those animals and that's why my mum spent most of her time scrubbing and cleaning) and my mum always made an extra meal for my brother because without fail he would drop his first one all over the floor.

My dad was obsessed with model railways, so we had model railroad all over the house. He was furious when we had our cousin's round and we used a toy Godzilla to stomp all over one he had painstakingly built for us we had fun and my mum just shrugged and asked what he expected kids to do.

There were also incidents of playing catch with snooker balls and raw eggs... We would jump off the bunk beds, and if our play fighting got too rough the dogs would stand in the middle of us. We knew not to do anything stupid around the dogs.
Apart from when I thought it would be a great idea to show off in front of my friend and ride one of the dogs around the living room like a horse.
My mum went mad at me. My poor friend was sat there in stunned silence as my mum is telling me how stupid I had been because the dog might have got upset and hurt me. Of course, looking back, my mum was right, but my poor friend didn't know what to say and never came back again!

I have a few:

I never realised that a 'stay at home' parent was a thing! All 3 of my closest friends at primary school had lovely maternal stay at home mums.

My mum wasn't (and still isn't) maternal and as such kept us all at a hit of an arms length, she worked full time from home so we were expected from a young age to get ourselves up and dressed and make our own breakfast and lunch etc.

First time on a playdate with friend A. Her mum had asked me my favourite sandwich in advance, when she collected us there was a little picnic basket on the back seat with a chocolate spread sandwich for me and a lemon curd sandwich for A plus a little carton of juice.

We then went back to hers and her mum baked cakes with us and her mum and dad sat and watched and clapped as we put on some shite dance show as 8 year olds do. It was amazing! I practically lived at As house from 8 until 11, which was odd as me and A had very little in common and weren't really great friends, however i used to sit and chat with her mum and dad for hours, i used to read anything and everything and so could sit and talk about WW2 or the queen or the romans etc etc

I also remember her mum used to kiss me goodnight! I still remember the last time i went over, me and A had a massive row as she was moaning about something and i remember scrraming at her that she had the life that everyone wanted and she was rude and ungrateful and a brat...

That evening when they were driving us back ftom wherever it was they had taken us, A was asleep and I was drifting off but I think they thought I was asleep and I remeber them talking about me. Her mum was saying how she didn't want me to go home and her dad was saying something about how you couldn't just take someone elses kid. I still remember her mum saying 'I can see how her life will go with that family, it's such a waste'

They talked about me longer but I can't remember what else was said as I started drifting off but i prayed for a long time that they would adopt me.

Another friends mum walked in to her bedroom to say goodnight to us stark bollock naked wearing nothing but a towel around her head to dry her hair. I was horrified!!!

But yes most of my memories were my friends lovely stay at home mums who made porridge for breakfast and brushed our hair and helped us with homework and gave us cuddles.

One friend had a sink in her bedroom which i found really wierd! It was for washing her face and teeth before bed.

Another one lived on a farm and in the morning she fed her 3 kids plus all of the farm hands, her giant kitchen table groaned under the weight of toast, every topping, every cereal, bacon, pastries etc etc. The toast was cooked on an aga with a little flipper thing and there was cartons of orange and apple juice everywhere... we only ever had squash at home and i used to eat until bursting, while friend (used to this) would just have a bowl of rice crispies.

Other friend lived in a literal mansion andnit had 1 sitting room for family and 1 for formal occasions. We always ate at the big table in the kitchen but they had a posh dining room that was for christmas and dinner parties only. They had a kids bathroom and an adults bathroom. I lived in a tint tiny council house.

That friend hardly ever came to ours but always commented that my house was so warm! Old stone country houses are hard to heat!!

Not saying my parents were horrible but they were both always at work so a lot of benign neglect going on.