Eight years ago, my wife went to a pug breeder to pick up our future beloved doggo, which we had bought from an online ad. When she returned with the puppy in her arms, she was literally shaking with indignation and disgust – such were the terrible conditions in the apartment of the old lady who bred the dogs.
That story ended fairly well – the woman was eventually prosecuted for animal cruelty, and our beloved dog lived a very happy life with us. But, as it turns out, many people, whether on business or by chance, visit the houses of random strangers and end up completely grossed out by what they see. So our list today is dedicated to such tales.
More info: Reddit
#1
My younger sister would babysit for the couple next door. One evening, she asked if I could babysit for her instead, because she couldn’t handle it. I was stupid, so I said fine.
They had roaches everywhere. Kitchen. Bathroom. Living room. My sister wouldn’t even sit on the couch – she sat on an ottoman in the center of the room, as did I.
We only did that a few times before we weren’t “available” anymore.
Image source: jfincher42, matheus ferreira
#2
Worked to help clear out a condemned house out in the country for demolition. Rolled up on it and…I dunno why it’s being torn down; it looks fine. About a mile off in the woods off a secondary paved road, kinda nice. Thought crossed my mind to even see about buying it for myself and renovating it for myself. (Um…I reconsidered.)
Painted nicely, trim was painted, yard in okay condition. Totally no idea why it was being torn down, or why it could possibly be condemned. It looked fine. All we knew were that the residents no longer lived there, 2 had gone to a mental facility, one to a hospital, one to jail, and the house was doomed; earn your pay an’ take ‘er down. (Half a week into the job, we learned the one that went to hospital was a lady around 85 or so, she died of sepsis complications…I believe that.)
I did notice, breaking our way in with no keys, it’s got a peculiar scent to it that seemed to get stronger the closer we got to getting the door open.
Got inside. Jigglin’ Jesus on a jungle gym. Hoarder house from hell. Previous residents had found the house abandoned and had done a lot of work to make the outside presentable. Presumably if someone visited they didn’t want anybody mental alarm to flip out. Did nothing internally and were chronic hoarders. House had no wiring, no plumbing. One room had a couple gas generators rigged up to provide electricity, exhaust piped out the window. (Small miracle they hadn’t fumed themselves to death.)
For plumbing, they got creative. One room had about 200 empty gallon milk jugs which they filled with water somewhere and used out of.
When you’re looking at a house, you really learn about the previous residents. We learned they used paper plates and didn’t throw them away. Matter of fact, didn’t throw anything away. I think they’d been afraid to do much with garbage for fear of tipping off that someone lived there, so they just kept it. Every other room was piled floor to ceiling with junk. Garbage, cardboard, old newspapers, kitchen trash, everything.
Main living space was kept fairly clear of junk, four bedding setups on the floor. Picture “cowboy movie bedroll” style bedding on the floor. No mattresses, just right flat on the floor. (Bet that was toasty sleeping in winter.)
The paper plates did double duty as bathroom receptacles. In the bathroom there was a 6″ hole cut in the floor in a corner, looked like with a chainsaw. The outlet for #1; you stood/squatted there, aimed best you could, and let flow. (I guess the women aimed with their rear-facing third eye?)
For #2 there were 8 or 9 stacks, floor to ceiling in the shower, of paper plates, each with a BM on it. Thousands of dumps on thousands of paper plates. They’d jammed old newspaper with what looked like white elementary school glue on it down the toilet and shaped a little ledge in the toilet to set “eat off it but aint pooed on it yet” plates on.
I’ve encountered some “redneck white trash” stuff in my time. Hell, I ***am*** redneck white trash by misfortune of birth…but I aint never had even one paper pooper plate in my house.
#3
Went to a friend of a friends house who had a young, friendly and very excitable pit bull.
Sat down on the couch, dog jumps up onto the cushion next to me and unleashes a TORRENT of p**s, soaking the other cushion.
Before I can do anything he shoos the dog off the couch, flips the cushion and hands me a beer like nothing happened.
Needless to say I got up, chugged that beer and bounced within about 2 minutes.
Image source: unfinedandunfiltered, freepik
#4
Went to a friends house who had Huge a*s rats sitting on the shelves in closets when you opened them lol..place was infested with them and they didn’t even care slightly.
Image source: tmorse12, slyfox photography
#5
When I was in the second grade, the idiots I lived with needed to get rid of me for a month or three. They persuaded the woman who had been my kindergarten teacher to take me in – a very sweet old lady. Her house was surrounded by a tangle of weeds and bushes and was generally filthy , which I recognize now, but I didn’t care as a kid. She was nice, and her husband (who couldn’t speak due to I think a stroke) was nice.
One day I’m in the kitchen with her, She opens a drawer A mouse darts out.
With ninja-like reflexes she snatches up a fork and spears it, Then looks at me, and says “you can’t tell anyone about this.”
I’m sure my eyes were huge. I said, “Cool! Can you do it again?”
She was so nice to me, I cried a river when they took me out of her house,.
Image source: UserAccountDisabled, Daniel Tuttle
#6
Not the grossest but definitely the most out there – a splattering of dandruff on the wall behind where my friend’s brother used his hair dryer. 😶.
Image source: sssmallz, freepik
#7
I’m a hospice nurse who works inside peoples homes. I have seen many many gross and disturbing things inside peoples homes; hoarders, mold from flooding, floor missing etc. the worst thing I can remember was this patient who had around 10 dogs. The home was a hoarder house (not that unusual for my line of work). However there was dog p**s and s**t all over the floor. The only path to walk through with all the clutter in the house was covered with animal feces. We would dress in full PPE (shoe covers, gowns, mask) every time we went in. The patient was very obese and his wife couldn’t care for him properly. He would be so saturated in urine that his waste would drip on the flooring around his hospital bed. Eventually APS got him out of the house. It was awful. I have smelled MANY terrible things but I struggled not to vomit when In this house caring for him.
Image source: ResortGlittering8183, freepik
#8
I went to a friends house so he could do some work on my car. After he was finished (hours later) I really needed to pee so I asked if I could use his restroom prior to driving home. He seemed hesitant at first but finally said yes. I regret ever asking… they were a full on HOARDER family. There was barely enough room to walk in the front door to the bathroom and once in the bathroom literally just the toilet bowl was visible. I pretended to pee and hightailed it out of there and peed at the gas station up the street.
Image source: Firefly0434, Lucia Sorrentino
#9
**Answer**: My neighbors “dog house”, details below
I briefly lived in New Orleans, LA, entirely for work. It was a 60 day contract. I was put up in an old, and quite rink-d**k old house not far from the levies. The house is gone after Katrina.
Anyhow, my neighbor through my back-yard, always had this god-awful stench coming from his yard. He had anywhere from 2-4 dogs in the back yard that were almost always chained up. The dogs look sickly, mangy, and abused. I couldn’t stand looking at those poor puppers that way.
There was this large sheet-metal shed he’d called his “dog house”. I found it very strange though the dogs never went in there. If anything, they wouldn’t go anywhere near it. I was doing just a little bit of yard-work in my back yard, and began to notice small swarms of bugs all over that sheet-metal shack. The stench was so over-powering that I could barely finish. My neighbor to my house’s left (*if facing the front door*) peaked over my fence asking if I was okay. I said I wanted to barf, and pointed to the shack. Lets call this neighbor Bill.
Bill said he’d lived in his house about a year and a half, and it had always smelled horrible. He noted the presence of strange flies he’d only seen on the shed, and what he thought were Beatles. We discussed what it could be, and we decided to confront the owner about it politely. Lets call the shack-owner Mike.
Mike answered his door. Think kid-rock, but with a far more pronounced mullet and beer-gut. We asked him to do something about the smell, and he wasn’t having any of it. Gave us the “get off my property, or I’ll get my gun and shoot you both”. Bill suggested we listen, as he knew that wasn’t an empty threat.
We decided to call the police about 2 days later, after Mike had left for work. A single officer arrived, and we guided him to my back yard. They noticed the smell, and said it smelled like decay, and rotting bodies. They noted that the bugs on the shed, were carrion vermin, often seen around dead bodies, and they’d seen it on many calls before. Within an hour or so, other investigators arrived, and with a warrant they c*****d open the shed.
Dead dogs. Nearly a dozen dead dogs that had died from abuse, and he’d just thrown the bodies in the shed to bake in the sun. Bill and I watched from our back yard as seasoned animal control veterans, and detectives alike nearly lost their lunch from having to cart away the corpses of those poor pooches.
Mike would be arrested, and eventually imprisoned for nearly 24 counts of abuse of an animal. There were just that many bodies in there.
Image source: Damionstjames, Javad Esmaeili
#10
A **buck rag**
Used for child discipline. A very old-fashioned thing, but still used in parts of the US. You just pop the lid and hold it under the child’s nose. It stinks.
Easily bought from goat farmers online, apparently. It gets the smell from male goats.
I was at my girlfriend’s house at 16 and didn’t believe her dad really owned one, so she showed me when he wasn’t looking.
A disgusting rag that clearly used to be white, but was thoroughly yellowed/greyish and discoloured and slick-looking. Double-sealed inside 2 glass jars.
I almost smelled it out of curiosity (though she urged me not to) but got cold feet when I pulled it out of the drawer…even without opening the jars I sensed something smelled slightly…*funky*. I’m not sure if I was imagining it or if it was really that strong but I didn’t want to experience it any more than that.
Image source: ciok865, Jorge Salvador
#11
I did dog sitting/walking through apps like Rover ,Wag, etc about 6 years ago.
A middle aged man reached out to hire me to come watch his 2 labs while he went overseas for a week. I would always go meet the person/s and pets before accepting the job, just to make sure all parties were comfortable and so I was able to meet the dogs before coming to take care of them. I agreed to meet at the mans house because he wanted to show me how to work his security, where food was kept, etc. My boyfriend came with me but waited in the car while I went inside.
This guy lived in a very nice neighborhood, in a very large, beautiful house. Well, on the outside at least. He tells me to come in and sit down at his kitchen table. I sit down, and notice there is dog hair everywhere, on the floor, on the seats, on the table. But then I look closer and realize it’s not dog hair, but thousands of FINGER NAIL CLIPPINGS. All over the table he prompted me to sit at. I look around and see that there are nail clippings on every surface of this house. The island, countertops, in the floor vents, everywhere.
There were MANY other weird things about this situation that made me decide to not accept the job, other than the finger nails like him wanting me to sleep in his bed. Dude was weird.
Image source: beyond_Andromeda, Lisa Therese
#12
I work apartment maintenance. A few months ago someone moved out. Left a bunch of stuff. Food in the fridge, rugs, end table, cat pole. Annoying but no big deal. Then the spare bedroom. Literally thousand of empty water bottles pile ina corned. Like 3 ft high of just water bottles. About a dozen 50 gallon trash bags of JUST WATER BOTTLES. Still not terrible gross but annoying. Then the second bath room… the stench was horrible. My boss couldn’t take it. Gagging and had to leave. Toilet seat on the floor. Brown from s**t. Clothes pilled up it was at the top of the toilet and tub. As I start throwing the clothes away I realized it is layered like a horrifically perfect cake. Dirty clothes. Cat s**t. Dirty clothes. Cat s**t. Layered so well and even it had to be coordinated by poor cat and owner. After cleaning and spraying it down with pure chlorine nothing could get the cat s**t smell out… at least the MF was hydrated.
That or a guy that died and layed in the heat for 2 weeks.
Image source: Wesypoo142, rawpixel.com
#13
As a kid I was with my dad at a work party at his coworker’s house. There was a dead mouse on the back patio, obviously brought there by a cat. It was a bit swollen with guts starting to come out. I thought it was fake (?) and was poking it with a stick and something inside of it made a loud pop.
Image source: rahyveshachr, Darragh Furey
#14
A couple years back I went to a friends house, I walked into the kitchen and there was a designated dog s**t broom and it was all pushed to the corner. Why? I have no clue.
Image source: bruhmonkey6942, Kelly
#15
A customers house that is best described as a “biological war zone”.
I could smell the inside from the driveway as I walked up. I get to the door and one of the most rotund humans I’ve ever seen greeted me. I get inside and immediately see why it smells so bad.
This place was horrific. Take the worst episode of Hoarders and multiply it by 1000x. There is trash piled to the ceiling. Old food strewn everywhere left to rot and mold. There is feces (I dare not ask from what species) so old on the floor that it’s turned white from mold. The only “clear” places were the walking paths these creatures had made to get from room to room and the areas on the furniture in which they sat. There were three of them; mother, father, and daughter. Not one was under 300lbs (poor daughter was probably 14-16).
I’m completely aghast while trying to keep my composure and be professional. I was doing good until the daughter did something that has haunted my dreams for a decade.
This girl grabbed a filthy and moldy bowl of god knows what off the floor and takes it to the kitchen. I had a brief glimmer of hope that I was about to witness her actually clean a dish. I. Was. Wrong. Oh god was I wrong.
She goes to the sink, takes the spoon that was on the bowl and scrapes the contents of said bowl into the sink, then, without so much as rinsing the bowl, proceeds to pour new cereal and milk into the bowl and eat it.
I. F*****g. Lost. It. Bailed outta there faster than a politicians morals and did everything I could not to throw up on my way out.
Image source: welcome-to-my-mind, Francesco Paggiaro
#16
I was an electrician and was fixing a ceiling lamp from a ladder. I thought the room had a strange odor and found a **mountain of w**k-tissues** hidden away from sight.. Unless you’re on a ladder.
Image source: Ragnogroth, cottonbro studio
#17
So, I’m nineteen, with my friends. We go this guy’s house. His mom has two cats, just two. But, for some reason, four litter boxes, piled with tiny mountains of cat s**t. One in the front hall to greet you, another in the main hallway to refresh the scent, one in the bathroom, and another, inside this guy’s closet.
You’d think that was the worst part, wouldn’t you? You’d be a fool, just like me.
We go into his bedroom. Every flat surface has a combination of five to twenty plastic cups and beer cans, each one packed with ashes and cigarette butts.
This dude goes, “sit down”. Sit down? On what? I’m afraid I’m getting dysentery just breathing in this room.
Still not done.
He says, “let me clean up a little”. I’m thinking to myself, “should we come back in like, four hours? Cuz you’re gonna need more than a Swiffer in here”, but I keep my mouth shut. He starts clearing things off of his bed, where some of us are expected to sit. He moves his pillow, and from underneath, tumbles the pièce de résistance – this dude’s crusty f*****g j**z rag.
I pretended I didn’t see it. So did everyone else who saw it. He kicked it under his bed, as we all silently bargained with each other about who was sitting on that full-size colony of toxoplasmosis with him. I stayed for another five minutes, standing, before deciding enough was enough.
Image source: soda-jerk, Neakasa
#18
Had to help a group of friends move one time because they’d been evicted. Went to clean one of the bedrooms. There was so much trash *everywhere* so I just grabbed a bag and started throwing stuff in the trash. Cue a bunch of hurried footsteps behind me, “YO DONT TOUCH THE MOUNTAIN DEW”
I had a Mountain Dew 2 liter bottle in my hand…it was full of p**s.
Image source: pcharger, Zoshua Colah
#19
I’m a contractor and could write a book on the things I’ve seen. I think the funniest though was a half moved out unit. I noticed in the kitchen there was a DVD. I should also point out that I’m fairly logical thinker and when i saw “chicks with d***s volume 9” on the dvd box my brained thought, “there were 8 volumes before this and what was it that they hadn’t done to make it this far down the line to volume 9?” Reminds me of those James Bond sets you get at xmas lol.
Image source: woohah2, Alfred Kenneally
#20
Not as bad as most things here, but the bathroom sink and shower were full of dead roaches and dirt. I’m guessing they never used either. They also said if we needed to spend the night we could use the couch; the couch was full of c*m stains.
Image source: theflooflord, Alicia Christin Gerald
#21
A room full of fleas. And I mean full of fleas. I stepped in and my legs were coated in black dots. Also how I found out I was allergic to flea bites 🙃.
Image source: akiko-kokoro, pvproductions
#22
Went to a friend of my fiancé.
Junk eeeeeverywhere. You couldnt get up the stairs to their 2nd floor due to junk.
Dirty dishes on every possible surface in the kitchen, even the windowsill. Looooooots of flies in the kitchen from the old food
Oh and they have 3 kids….
Image source: Butterbubblebutt, Gary Barnes
#23
Naked Grandma. Granted I was breaking in but still that is the last thing I’d want to see.
Image source: Shoddy_Ad2142, RepentAnd SeekChristJesus
#24
Toilet paper full of s**t in the bathroom sink, cut up nails on the dinner table and, of course, dog s**t everywhere and the poor dog just lying somewhere looking mighty sad, probably beat up too. And the most disgusting of them all – the owner.
Image source: aaaxov34
#25
Once while using my friend’s bathroom I saw a portrait they hung that was of the most horrifyingly disgusting mishaped person I’ve ever seen. He hung it right above the sink so you had to look at it while you washed up.
Image source: BuildingRelevant7400, Ekaterina Krusanova
#26
Cockroaches, I left in a hurry.
Image source: anon, Erik Karits
#27
I went to visit an employee once to pick up some gear and he and his wife lived with several chickens – yes the chickens lived in the house. The floor was caked in chicken poop from years of not being cleaned. This was a normal house in a normal city suburb. They didn’t see it as unusual in any way. There was no “watch your step” The floor is covered in chicken s**t. Instead it was “have a seat can i get you a coffee?” Needless to say I hightailed it out if there minus the coffee as soon as I concluded my business dealings.
Image source: Snouter1, Jordan Whitt
#28
I used to work for a furniture company doing deliveries, and sometimes repos. As a rule of thumb, if you’re doing a repo, the house you’re about to go in is usually nasty as all hell. The one that sticks out in my memory was no exception. It was more of a compound of two or three crack dens, rotten saggy floors, roof falling in. Just f*****g nasty. We had to repossess a stove they had bought maybe a month before, and in that short time it had become caked with grease and infested with roaches. When we got it back to the store the manager told us to put it out back, as in outside cause he didn’t want the store to become infested. A week or two later a couple that refurbished old appliances came and bought it for twenty dollars.
Image source: moslof_flosom, Myko Makhlai
#29
As a very young teenager, I went to a friend’s house in the winter. I didn’t know they didn’t have indoor plumbing and had to use an outhouse. They had a covered pot in the kitchen for him to pee into. No I am not going to pee in front of your mom and older sister. I held it until I got home.
Image source: rontc, Anna Auza
#30
A toilet full of unflushed shotgun diarrhea.
Image source: anon, Jan Antonin Kolar
#31
I went to visit a friend whose house I had never been to before. We were outside on the patio, I asked to go in to use the toilet, she was reluctant.
Every dish, pot, and pan in the kitchen was dirty and filled with water. Not just on the counters, on the floors all over the place. It looked like it had been that way a while.
Image source: Botryoid2000, freepik
#32
Ha. This happened yesterday and not necessarily strangers, but my ex neighbors. They recently got their 48 hour eviction notice on Sunday and Tuesday rolled around and they were finally out, however, they left the door to their apartment completely open and left all of their stuff behind. Their apartment happened to be right next to mine and it’s a shared hallway so it wasn’t exactly hard to sneak a peek. They’ve stolen stuff from our lockup in the basement so we were just waiting for the landlord to give us the OK to do the walk in with them in the hope of getting some of our stuff back. The first thing we saw was needles covering the ground. Maybe they’re diabetics who are really unsanitary I thought. Nope. Walk past the kitchen was completely trashed and in the living room was at least 100 more needles, plus it looked like an episode of hoarders. Burnt spoons, needles, food that was months old, maggots, so many flies. We found our stolen stuff as well, but uh yeah. Don’t really want it back. Also on the bedroom floor was of course at least 30 more needles plus piles of old a*s food. I got pics if anyone wants to dm me and see how bad it really is.
Image source: retailisawful
#33
Someone I had recently met invited several people to their house to hang out. I don’t know if any of the others had ever been there, but I hadn’t and I hadn’t known the person long but wasn’t expecting a s******w or anything. They had a toddler and a couple of dogs. It was like no one ever cleaned anything. There were used diapers waded up everywhere where they would just change the kid and throw them somewhere. The kitchen was full of old food and dirty dishes and stuff that was molding. They kept the dogs shut out in the overgrown back yard. There was just trash and random stuff everywhere.
Image source: KittyChimera
#34
Not really a stranger but my ex’s family’s home. They had a very large two story house with the most disgusting carpet I’ve ever seen in a home. They had three dogs, two of which where forced to live outside for fear of them “making a mess” and one Maltese that they allowed to s**t and p**s anywhere it pleased. It would beg to go outside and when everyone inevitably ignored it it would just go on the carpet and they would never clean up after it. I’d come over and nearly step in days old dog s**t that three adults and two older teenagers couldn’t be bothered to clean up. It was disgusting.
Image source: ThePluckiestDuck
#35
Old fort in the basement built out of a black tarp and old pizza boxes. There was an outdated game console with a tattered fabric chair and a boombox inside, along with like 25 2 liters.
Apparently dad was a long haul trucker and mom was incarcerated. The whole house smelled of old food and BO because it was just a hang out for degenerate teenagers.
Image source: General_Elephant
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