The Weirdest Things That Happen at Other People’s Houses

5. Monkey Business

I was a test prep tutor for very wealthy families in Fairfield County, CT.

A mom answered the door with a gibbon in a diaper wrapped around her. It was one of the most surreal moments: “you’re so rich you get to have a monkey?!”

The daughter came downstairs and hugged the gibbon before our tutoring session started.

Turned out mom was a zoologist.. so all good I guess?

6. The Family That Rocks Together

I did this for a summer a number of years ago, and there was house one in particular that will always stand out.

Family of four. Normal-looking people. Two-story single-family home, no basement. Thought to myself “thank God, an easy gig today.” Oh no. No no, I was very wrong. We walk in and lots of stuff is already in boxes (thanks!) and were told to head to the kid’s rooms first.

12-year-old kid who likes rocks. REALLY likes rocks. Like, is obsessed with rocks. There are rocks EVERYWHERE in his room. Big ones, small ones, gravel, sandstone, bits of clay, sea shells, bits of concrete, asphalt, and a pile of what looked like bone fragments. “He’s a rock collector,” Mom says.

No f*cking kidding, there were so many rocks in the room that you couldn’t only see narrow paths between the door, the bed, and the closet (which, indeed, was full of rocks).

His sister’s room was fine and mostly packed beside the furniture and the boxes full of belongings. The parent’s room was similar, everything was normal and somewhat neatly packed.

We shovelled the rocks into wagons to clear the room. Dad was upset that the shovels were going to “stretch the carpet.” Ok, dude. We loaded several hundred pounds of rocks into our truck that day.

Business as usual after that, felt odd that the family didn’t seem to be bothered by it. They gave us each an extra hundred in cash for our troubles.

BernieSander

7. Different Dinner Demands

Their mother cooked 5 different dinners from scratch every day, they each decided what they wanted and she just cooked it for them all three children husband and herself. When I went round the first time she seemed insulted that I didn’t want anything special and just had what my friend was having. It must have taken her hours as they all chose to eat at different times as well. Not the weirdest but I always ate one meal with my whole family. 12-year-old me was out of his comfort zone.

lordjimbob01

8. The Egg-Timer Lady

It wasn’t my job. But I went to help my great aunt’s neighbor haul all her shopping stuff inside her apartment because she was really old.

She had eggs everywhere. The whole kitchen was just eggs. Not even easter decorations either, just regular eggs. It wasn’t a chicken theme like some old people would have. It was just eggs. Tiny porcelain figurines of eggs. Egg wallpaper. Egg magnets on the fridge. The living room had framed eggs on the walls. She had egg-shaped latch hook rugs and pillows. A fancy metal bowl on the coffee table full of different eggs.

My great-aunt said that lady was a weirdo and that her bathroom was egg themed too. (My great aunt was a weirdo herself and knew it, she had her own little collections of things too, just weren’t eggs for her lol).

What was even weirder, was that in the midst of all the eggs, this woman had another smaller collection all set out on a coffee table against a wall. A series of probably like 50 snowmen.

And as a thank you for helping her, she gave me… An egg timer! Little sand glass thing. I think I still have that. But it was super bizarre lol.

9. A Curiosity-Fueled Quest

I went to my friend’s house for movie night, and after everyone left he took me to his room. He had a big old metal safe as his bedstand. I put my ear up to it pretending to open it. His sister walked in and looked scarred when I tried to open the safe, my friend also had a nervous look on his face. I asked him if he had the combo for it, and he said his parents had it. I asked him if we could open it, and he and his sister looked alarmed. He hesitantly told me we couldn’t, I said “what’s in it anyway” he responded with a “nothing” and went back to showing me his Doctor Who DVD collection. While we were perusing his DVDs I overheard his sister mutter, “he wants to open the safe” and then she walked upstairs and gave me a cold stare. I need to know what’s in that safe.

10. Doggy Dining Goes Too Far

I was invited over to a friend’s house for dinner for the first time. Now, for staging purposes, they all sit around the living room to eat as a family. They have these two large dogs. So, I ask beforehand, as I always do, what the rules are with the dogs and food.

They tell me that not only can I feed them whatever I want, but that all the plates are given to the dogs after the meal and that the dogs would hassle you if you took the plate straight to the kitchen.

So, I finish my meal. Which was decent… And I lay my plate down for the dogs. They clean it up quite nicely. I pick it up to take to the kitchen and I ask if it goes in the sink or the dishwasher. They said to put it back in the cabinet because the dogs clean it good enough to eat off of. I laughed at the joke and then kinda reiterated my question.

IT WASN’T A JOKE!

My friend walked into the kitchen and put her plate, her boyfriend’s plate, and her mom and dad’s plate all in the cabinet with the other “clean” dishes. I could have been sick. I dropped all contact with them. That was just too much.

11. Pieces of Her Heart

Not really weird but sad. An 80-year-old woman who lived alone had a Christian type of “shrine” dedicated to her daughter in her living room. That’s pretty normal I guess, she said she had lost her 40 years ago and kept her pictures and small items in it.

But the thing is, it turned out that her whole house was filled with similar items. She had written things that she wanted to say to her daughter on small pieces of paper and taped them all over the walls and the cabinet doors. It was everywhere, and it was clear from what she’d written that she had been on her mind 24/7 for the past 40 years.

My job was to do household chores and basically keep her company while I did it. One day she asked me to look for some items that her daughter had made. She had misplaced them and was worried that someone had thrown them away by accident. I couldn’t find them at first, but she looked so defeated that I went to look for them again and actually found them in the back of her storage room. She was so happy. She said that I reminded her of her daughter because I searched so adamantly and didn’t give up.

She couldn’t move very well and had chronic pain and would often talk about wanting to be with her daughter already. She was a super nice person, one of the nicest I’ve worked for. She was just in so much pain that I almost hope that she got her to wish.

12. Behind Closed Doors

My mother used to be a maid. She told me once about some of the houses she worked at. Most of them were huge houses with rich stay-at-home wives who would follow her and the other maids from room to room, trying to catch them stealing something. A few of them even left ridiculously expensive rings or earrings in the middle of the floor as a lure to tempt them so they could bring it up.

One of the places she went to was different though. She said it was the creepiest thing she’d ever seen. They didn’t tell her the client’s name. Apparently, the guy was pretty wealthy but lived in a filthy apartment. It absolutely reeked of rot and was completely trashed, with garbage and mold everywhere. They found change everywhere that he said they could just keep if they found (not pennies, think loonies and toonies, $1 and $2 coins), and my mom was getting like $40 a day just from that. In the living room, there were bags full of mail-order bride catalogues, but the worst thing was the room in the hallway. They were told not to go in that room at all, and that they wouldn’t have to clean it, but every time they walked by, the smell of rotten meat would be unbearable. Eventually, curiosity got to one of the girls and she opened the door and a few of them peeked in. The room was completely filled with garbage bags and the whole floor was sticky with a rust-coloured liquid. They closed the door and didn’t talk about it. Thinking back on it, the guy could’ve just been some 90s neckbeard type, but it really freaked my mom out.

orangekaiser

13. Friendships Aren’t Worth Starvation

Had a strange friend in university who always begged me to come over to her house after lectures were finished so we could study together and finish assignments (lived in a country where it isn’t unusual to still live at home during university). I didn’t have a car, so I made sure before I agreed that this friend was okay with taking me home around 5pm, as there wasn’t any public transport that I could have taken home. She agrees to take me home. We head off to her place, have some late lunch, do some assignments, watch some TV and just chill. Her mother came home around the time that this friend was due to take me home. I got such a negative vibe from her mother, first time meeting her. I didn’t feel welcomed at all, so I asked my friend to please take me home. Friend then insists I stay and have dinner with her and her mother. Proceeds to ask mother if I can stay for dinner. Mother agrees easily enough. Now, her mother was a qualified chef, so almost every dinner they ate together was like five course, i.e. starters, soup, salad, main and dessert. I still feeling uncomfortable, but I agree to stay, mainly because I have to wait to get a lift home. Friend and I sit in the lounge, which is in full view of the kitchen, open planned style. Mother starts cooking this elaborate meal, which takes two hours. By now I’m really hungry. Its always awkward when you are at a friend’s house and hungry. Like, you can’t just walk up to their fridge and take whatever you wanted, well at least that’s how I was brought up. It was considered rude. The whole time the mother is cooking, she is asking me if I like certain food, and she shows me how she prepares certain things. Food was finally ready, and the mother proceeds to set two places at the table. One for herself, and one for her daughter. Friend gets up, her mother tells her something I couldn’t hear, friends turns to me and tells me to to stay seated in the lounge, and proceeds to sit down and eat this five course meal with her mother. Here, I’m sitting in their lounge, watching them eat without me, feeling so hungry, but much more angry then anything else. What kind of family invites you to dinner, then eats without you and makes you watch. I was most definitely invited to eat dinner, I didn’t misunderstand them. I was so angry, 18 year old friend didn’t say one word to her mother. I had to wait until they were finished to demand this friend take me home. This mother wasn’t a scary person, therefore there was no reason for this friend to have not defended me in this ridicilous situtation. Neither were they poor. I couldn’t believe people could be so rude. The worst was I was stuck in this stupid situtation, fuming, yet I still remained calm and polite. Next day at university, I asked this friend why I was asked to dinner and then made to watch them eat. She said her mother was just used to cooking for herself and her daughter, so she kinda autopiloted the night before. She couldn’t understand why I was so angry. We didn’t stay friends very long. She lacked so much common sense and general social politeness. The whole thing was just weird.

JaxJax88

14. The Picture-Perfect Home

I used to be a certified nursing assistant that worked with the elderly in their own homes. There was some weird sh*t in their homes, but the weirdest one was in the home of this very, very wealthy old woman with dementia. I was working the night shift, and I liked to explore (obviously not checking drawers and sh*t, but walking around and observing their home because older folks own some interesting sh*t.) This lady had picture frames everywhere, they covered most of the walls. The thing is none of them had pictures in them. Not a single one. It was really creepy. I spent the majority of the night just drinking coffee in her kitchen because it was too much.

reddituser

15. Not All Bathrooms Are Created Equal

Once when I was a kid I went to a friend’s house for the first time. His family was pretty normal and his house was nothing super extravagant except for this one VERY nice bathroom they had by the entrance to the house. A few hours into the hangout I felt a massive dump coming on, so I thought what place could be better than that awesome bathroom by the front door. After unleashing it, I flushed the toilet, but nothing happened. It wasn’t even like it was clogged, the toilet literally just did nothing. I went out and told my friends mom, which resulted in her being absolutely enraged and calling my parents. Turns out it was a decorative bathroom comprised of all antique fixtures, and nothing was hooked up to actual plumbing. Thankfully my dads a plumber so he came over and took care of the business.

802stuff

16. The Naked Truth

One of my friends worked in law enforcement and made home visits. One day he knocked on a door, and the woman who answered told him to go around to the back. When he knocked on the back door she opened it and was completely naked.

Apparently, she thought that he was a John, and didn’t know that he had come to the house to check on a felon.

She was a bit shocked to see his badge when he asked to see the subject of his visit.

17. Self-Love Crosses the Line

One of my wife’s co-workers invited us to a dinner party. He’s a very accomplished doctor who is, supposedly, considered the foremost authority in his specialty. I knew the man had a huge ego but nothing prepared me for what I saw when we went to his home.

As soon as we walked in the door there was a life-size painting of himself that one of his patients had given him as a gift. Nothing strange about that, he saved a patient’s life and they were very grateful so they gave him a painting. His wife takes our jackets, hangs them up then walks us to his massive living room where the rest of the guests are mingling. As I looked around the room to take in what a magnificent home this man has I noticed that there are hundreds of pictures lining his shelves and walls. Every, single one of those pictures was of him. Not of his wife, not of his four children, not of his siblings, his parents, or someone he admires. Even the pictures that looked like they may have been group photos were cropped so that only he could be seen.

I’m terrible at hiding my true feelings, my face usually gives me away every time but I spent the next hour desperately trying to pretend like this wasn’t remotely strange. After a few drinks I decided to head to the bathroom, I had to take a dump and I’m not shy about doing so at another person’s home. I walked into their guest bathroom, closed the door, lifted up the lid, sat down and grabbed one of a dozen books that were sitting next to the toilet. The first book I picked up is written by our host, so I picked up another book and it is also written by our host. I looked at the book ends and ALL of them are written by our host. Part amused and partly disgusted I looked up and noticed there is a picture on a small table across from the toilet. It’s our host again, staring at me in the picture while I’m taking a dump…..

18. The Sweetest Mom, The Meanest Son

I had a friend in high school, and he seemed to be a really good kid. He was most respectful towards teachers and other adults and seemed nice enough. We went to his house once, the keyword here is once, and saw something terrible. His mom was the sweetest little lady, but he was a total d*ck to her. He would literally yell at her, and curse at her anytime she came around. She went to go get pizza and was gone too long, and he called and threatened her. We later learned that his dad was an alcoholic who treated her the same way, and it was just a case of complete family disorder. The dad was mean, so the kid can be mean, and the poor mother has to take it. I felt so sorry for her.

19. When Work Meets Play

A technician here, went to some guy’s house to fix his internet out in the country. He says “hold on a minute”, and comes back in a few riding a scale model train about 2 feet high on some tracks I hadn’t noticed. “Wanna go for a ride?” Yes, yes I did. Turns out he was president of the local club for this hobby and had a huge setup going all over his property, including bridges and a tunnel. Spent the next 10-15 minutes giggling with childish joy and thinking “my wife is definitely never going to believe this”.

reddituser

20. How to NOT Treat Your Pets

Downstairs neighbors were moving a couple of hours away and took lots of trips back and forth always staying a few nights and they always just left the veranda door open for their cat. Last time they left for two weeks and didn’t leave the door open, so we assumed they’d taken the cat with them.

When they came back they told us they couldn’t find their cat anywhere and they were worried about her.

Two weeks after they moved out, we went down cause we could see water damage from outside. They had ripped out the sink in the kitchen but left the water running so the floor was covered in water, they left the place full of trash, they destroyed the walls, and the floors, and ripped out the door frames, and we also found they had locked their cat in a box and left her in one of the rooms to die.

The cat bit me when I freed her cause she was so panicked, we ended up paying a lot in vet bills cause she was near death and found her a new home.

She’d survived at least three weeks in that box, it’s a miracle how she didn’t die.

mnbvcdo

21. A Hairy Situation

I work in home health. I was brushing one of my patient’s hair one morning (the first morning I worked for this particular woman) and put the brush down on the side table so I could braid her hair. She said “wait, wait! Go to my dresser and get my hair bag please.” I said, “what’s a hair bag?” And walk to the dresser. “Top drawer,” she says. I open it up and sure enough, there sits a ziplock bag full of hair clumps. She asked me to pull the hair from the brush and put it in the bag. I asked her why she was keeping it and she said “I’ve been saving my hair since I was a girl. It’s all in the closet, go look! It’s beautiful!” I opened the closet to find an entire shelf with various sizes of ziplock bags full of hair, dozens of bags, going from dark brown to light brown and then to varying shades of grey and white. Beautiful was not the first word that came to my mind.

22. A Bathroom Exhibit

I was staying at a friend’s for the weekend while we were working on a project together, and in his bathroom, he had a full-on shrine to Brazilian football legend Denilson. Photos, figurines, hand-drawn art, collectible bits of tourist r*bbish like stickers and little flags from past world cups, weird photoshopped images of them together at parties. All were arranged on a dressing table in the corner of his bathroom.

And I guess maybe if you were a Brazilian kid who’d grown up idolising this player, or you were a long-time supporter of one of Denilson’s club teams, that might make some sense, albeit a little odd. But he was none of those things.

I didn’t ask him about it. I don’t imagine I’d have gotten much more of an answer than “I just really like Denilson”.

23. Portrait Within a Portrait

My neighbor painted a huge picture of himself fully nude. Holding out a beach ball with outstretched arms. Then in the ball was a picture. And in that ball was the same picture. It kept going until it was a tiny picture.

As a 10 yr old, I didn’t want to see that. Creepy

24. Framed Front Page

My first job was as a plumber’s mate. Basically an assistant to a plumber. We had the job to replace all the radiators in the council flat block. We go into one house, nicely decorated. There are a few kids and mum and dad are perfectly friendly. Then I saw the front page of the Sun newspaper, framed and hanging on the wall. The headline was something like ‘footballer’s cousin killed by fatal punch’ the article starts and is pictured as the killer is the guy whose house I’m in.

He killed that guy in one punch, accidental death, but went to prison for it. Got out, and now has that framed on his wall for his kids to see. If I accidentally killed someone, even in a fight, I’d lose sleep. Not frame it as my best achievement.

GaijinFoot

25. A Strange Night

It was 7th grade. Was staying at a buddy’s house, playing Smash Bros and such on N64 in his living room. I was having a blast unlocking characters and completing challenges. He knocked out around 11:30 but I was going strong.

So around 12 or so his mom comes down from her bedroom and sees me playing and comes over. I say “hi” but I notice she’s glaring so I look at her, puzzled. She proceeds to turn off the TV and looks me right in the eye and says, “it’s rude to stay up once the host goes to sleep. When Gary* went to sleep, you should have too.”

I apologize and get ready for bed as she rummages around in the kitchen. She returns 5 mins later, and says, “Look, I’m sorry for getting upset, but I don’t know you. You could go upstairs, and steal my jewelry from my bedroom! Or you could go in Lillian’s room (my friend 16 yr old sister) and just sniff her, I don’t know.”

Now I’m 13, and I don’t understand why ANYONE would want to sniff. Plus, why do I want jewelry? I was just unlocking Captain Falcon.

So I go to bed, and then in the morning, she makes homemade waffles. It was such a weird sleepover, and I avoided his house after.

26. A Blast from the Past

I was invited to a house gathering once at someone’s house who I just met that night. We are in our 20s (Friends of friends, so not a total strangers but did not know him well) So we walk into his place, it’s an apartment in a building and I get this eerie feeling like I am walking into the past – like into the 70s. When I say everything in this house was old-timey, everything was old-timey. 70s furniture, appliances, wall decorations, vases, curtains.. and everything like had this yellow shade to it from being so old. Turns out that this apartment belonged to his grandpa, who lived there since the 60s until he died and everything has literally remained exactly the same. Like it was frozen in time. Now, this 20smt-year-old guy was living there. I ended up walking around and looking at every object in awe, the entire time we were there. Also, no one seemed to find it as strange as I did, which was peculiar to me.

27. A Glimpse into Military Family Life

Staying at a friend’s house when I was about 9. He had a younger sister and younger brother. And Colecovision, but that’s an aside despite how cool it was at the time. Everything seemed normal until morning.

“Get up,” Eric said. “Reveille.” (Despite it being called reveille, there was no actual horn playing or anything. )

“What?”

“Get UP!” he whispered urgently. “That means inspection!”

So, groggily, I helped him make his bed, which he did with a panicked urgency. I was sleeping in a trundle unit, which he also made, and did some weird “pinched seaming” to make the flat sheet creaseless. Then he said we had to stand in front of his bedroom door, hands behind our back, standing upright and straight ahead. His brother and sister were doing the same, all of us in our pajamas.

His dad came up the stairs, dressed in a plain white shirt, slacks, and a tie like he was going to work. He went into the younger brother’s room, and the little kid followed him in. I heard the father say stuff like, “Does that belong there? Why is your comforter backwards? I told you to fix that poster!” Then he comes back out and does the same thing to the sister. “I did not buy you that doll so it could sit slouched on a shelf! Those books need to be straightened! You didn’t put away your socks neatly!”

Every time I turned my head to look down the hall at the spectacle, Eric hissed (almost desperately) “Stare straight ahead! Don’t look!”

Then it was our turn. The father nodded at me, said my last name as in a greeting, and then went in. The father inspected whatever he inspected; by now I was too scared to look at him so I am not sure what he was looking at or for. Eric did better than his siblings, all he got told was that his scout uniform needed to be washed and his windows were dirty.

Then the father went into the hallway and shouted, “TEN HUT!” He quickly inspected fingernails, hair, and teeth. He commented mine were dirty and that I should not bite my nails.

Now, he didn’t seem to mean per se, just really strict and firm. And the rest of the day went normally. And yes, when I asked, his dad was a former drill sergeant.

28. The Hoarder’s Dilemma

The one I always remember is the lady who told me she had called us 5 times and the previous 4 techs could not complete her installation so this time she wanted me to install it in a way that DID NOT encompass the basement. That didn’t seem… good.

Well, I tried, but essentially her drop came up from the ground, and literally the only way I could hook her up was to go into the basement, install a splitter and pick up her network throughout the rest of the house. I told her this and she sighed and said, “well I guess this isn’t happening”.

At this point, I was morbidly curious and a little worried, so I told her I at least had to try or else my boss would be mad. Surprisingly, she agreed to let me try but said there was no way it could be done. She leads me to the basement door and opens it and turns the light on. Right away I understood. Stacked on literally every inch of her floor and including two-thirds of the stairs were magazines, newspapers, and other assorted papers. They were stacked LITERALLY floor to ceiling. It wasn’t like a giant stack here and a giant stack there and lots of little stacks all over the place. Literally floor-to-ceiling stacks of papers, magazines, etc, covering literally every inch of the floor and 2/3 of the stairs. I went down the 1/3 of the stairs I could access with my eyes above the level of the ceiling and shined my flashlight through a small space created by a steal beam and a rafter too small for the stacks near the ceiling and it went all the way to the wall in both directions. It was as if her basement was filled up like a bathtub, only with paper. Unreal.

She told me that she just had a hard time throwing any of it away and was planning to read it someday. I apologized for not hooking her up and quickly left.

29. Dinner Becomes a Chore

I suppose it isn’t too weird in and of itself but an old friend of mine invited me to her new apartment in order to cook dinner for me. When I showed up she told me that the rule was that whoever doesn’t cook has to do the dishes and was that okay?

I said yes though I thought it was a little bit rude. The way I was raised was that as a guest, you must always offer to help with dishes or just jump in and help. But as a host, you never ever ask. But oh well, my friend was probably raised with slightly different values.

Anyway, I start scrubbing after our meal and then my friend’s two roommates who had both made their own meals threw their dishes in the sink too. I gave the girl roommate a significant look and she responded “Oh, all Sam’s guests do dishes in this house. It’s our rule.”

My friend also had to ask her two roommates for permission to invite friends over. She had to give at least a day’s notice and they couldn’t be there after ten o’clock.

30. Dad’s Gas Was a Hit

Dad farting at the dinner table at one of our family friends’ house and the whole family laughed like it was their everyday farting gag or something.

Dad goes, “one more… one more?”, he lets another one rip, and laughter intensifies.

Thank God I never had to eat with that family.

31. Not-So-Generous Host

When I was a kid, my brother and I used to eat dinner at the house of my then-best friend almost every weekend. Well her mom had this rule that you couldn’t have anything to drink during dinner. You literally had to finish everything on your plate until she would give you a drop of water. Well, one time I remember I was extremely thirsty and remember my throat was so dry to the point that I had trouble swallowing. I probably hadn’t had anything to drink all day because I’m always bad with that, but I still am actually. This grown woman refused to give a child any water or milk even though I was basically crying my eyes out at this point. She eventually gave in and gave less than half a glass of milk. I went home and told my mom I didn’t want to eat there again because of what happened. Apparently, she wasn’t aware of that rule and was super pissed. Especially since whenever my best friend and her 3 siblings were here my mom would always treat them to food and make sure they had more than enough.

purple_melancholy

32. Spoiled or Sensible

I had a best friend, but usually, she would come to my house. One day I went over, and for dinner, her mom gave us hot yogurt in a bowl. Like literally she put strawberry banana yogurt in a pot and heated it up and served it. I remember being so grossed out. And I always was a very outspoken child and told her I couldn’t eat it after taking a spoonful. She was offended. Later that night when my parents came to pick me up, she scolded them for raising a spoiled child…awk.

Splishsplashcoconut

33. Sharing Isn’t Always Caring

My mom was showering at a friend’s house once and didn’t have any shampoo of her own so they said she could use theirs. She started to realize something was off when it was too watery to make a proper lather, but she figured they may have just added some water to make it last longer. It wasn’t until she squirted some more out that she noticed the dirt, dandruff and hair in the shampoo. These people were using their shampoo and then putting as much of it as they could back in the bottle before rinsing.

34. The Art of Saying No

When I was ~10 I was at my best friend’s house and his mom told him to go do a chore or something and he said “no”. I was completely shocked and just blurted out “You’re allowed to say no??”. A couple of days later he was mad at me because his mom wouldn’t take no for an answer anymore and would say “Well, Urist’s parents don’t let him say no”.

35. Burn calories, Not turkey

Had a Thanksgiving dinner at my friend’s house. I was told her sister was a b*tch before I went over, but I was not prepared for her to do sit-ups on the floor next to the dinner table yelling at everyone about how fat they were. The family continued on like she wasn’t even there. It was very strange.

reddituser

36. Circling Around Rules

I had a friend in high school whose parents had an all-white living room that they kept immaculately clean. They even kept plastic covers over the couch and chairs as if it were 1960. Anyway, their stairs were literally two steps from the entry hall but those two steps were through the living room which nobody was allowed to walk in except my friend’s parents and their adult guests. So to get upstairs to her room we had to circle through her entire house to come around to the stairs from the other side. Her stepdad was a violent man so they were all too afraid to dare challenge the rule.

It wasn’t terribly inconvenient but it was weird, especially when her mom was watching TV and we had to walk past her and which meant we had to stop for an awkward chat. Really that was the worst of it.

37. A Purrfect Palace

Cleaning a huge condo for a wealthy book publisher, the owner felt that cats were sacred, so they had suspended walkways through the entire 6k sq ft condo for the two cats to walk on, so they could move through every room without having to touch the floor, additionally every 12 feet or so in each room, they had a cat balcony the cats could sit on made out of real crystal, we weren’t allowed to touch them as they were valued at $10,000 apiece.

38. Tent Becomes a Home

Home healthcare worker. Met with a patient who refused to let me enter his house. Our first visits were conducted on the street, between his car and mine. As he grew to trust me, we graduated to sitting on his front porch. The outside of his house had seen better days and could use some fixing up, but it really wasn’t all that bad. It was inside. At some point, the roof had progressed from “needs work” to “caved in” and he essentially had no roof, as it was all hanging down in his living room. He didn’t have the money to fix it or a good tarp. But he did have the money for a tent. And so he lived in a tent inside his house. He still had electricity and a partial roof over the kitchen.

floridianreader

39. Finger-Lickin’ Good

Once when I was a kid I was invited to stay over for dinner at a friend’s house. My friend’s mother poured a large quantity of ketchup into a cereal bowl, which the entire family all casually dipped their fingers into and licked throughout the meal.

reddituser

40. Living Among Trash

Rather than a garbage can, my friend’s family had room to throw away their garbage. A room that served no other purpose than a garbage can. I asked him what they were going to do when it was full, and he just said it wasn’t their problem because they were moving in a few months. Even if you’re moving wouldn’t you rather not have rotting piles of garbage in your house.