Your home can reveal a lot about you. The way you decorate it, the colors you choose, how neat or dirty it is, and the contents you keep hidden between the walls all tell a story…
That’s why it can be so fascinating to set foot in another person’s house. You’re entering their private world. A place where they are their true and authentic selves, surrounded by the things they hold dear or just hoard. Often, you’ll encounter the usual things. Photographs of family and friends, mementos from their travels, maybe some heirlooms, or art.
But sometimes you’ll come across something so strange and unexpected, that stops you in your tracks and has you wondering, “What in the secret life of Satan is going on here?”
Someone once asked, “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen at someone’s house that they thought was completely normal?” and the internet went wild. Thousands of responses came pouring in. From the funny, to the bizarre, to the downright creepy, people didn’t hold back in spilling the tea about the private lives of others.
Bored Panda has put together a list of the best answers for you to scroll through before your next houseguest arrives. Some might prompt you to do a Swedish death clean or at the very least, a quick declutter.
#1
Casually spitting directly into their carpeting.
Anon:
I went over to a college friend’s house and watched him do that right in the middle of talking with his mother. I was completely shocked and decided right then and there that I wasn’t going to sit down or touch anything until we left.
Image source: Colossus_of_Loads, teakidz / reddit
#2
My friend and her family have a doggy door, but no dog. What do they use it for? They allow raccoons to come in and they feed them frequently. They are all so nonchalant about it.
Thereal_me:
Raccoons have a parasite in their feces, this parasite settles in the human brain.
Image source: Bojinglejangle, Prestigious_Ad_8775 / reddit
#3
A friend of mine told me that when she was younger, she went to someone’s house where there were no partitions or walls – just a huge open space. The toilet was sitting right in the middle of the room.
Anon:
Was your friend playing The Sims?
Image source: anon, ola0513 / reddit
#4
In grade 6 (age 11 or 12) I went for a sleepover at my new friends house. He and his family had just immigrated to Western Canada from Manchester or Bolton England; they were what you might call ‘working class’.
As soon as I get there his toothy mother comes into his room with a pen and a notepad and casually asks us what we will have from the liquor store.
We must have ordered about $50 worth of alcohol between us. That night we just got absolutely trashed on rum & cokes playing Super Nintendo in his basement like it was completely normal. I remember jumping on the trampoline at probably 2 or 3 in the morning while his father BBQ’d sausages for us to eat. His parents otherwise sat in their living room smoking and watching TV all night without a care in the world for the stumbling pre-teens downstairs. At regular intervals his mother would come down with snacks and treats
Image source: ImAVibration, Schopenhauer1025 / reddit
#5
I saw someone thawing a Thanksgiving turkey in a sink full (I mean full) of dirty dishes and skanky water.
Image source: anon, Butcher & the Burger / X
#6
Chickens and roosters strutting around the house like they owned the place.
horseface312:
Ugh, the way my chickens s**t all over the yard, I would NOT want them in my house.
Image source: anon, GrassNearby6588 / reddit
#7
Exes family smoked cigarettes in their home, I smoke too, but never inside – but alright, their house, they can smoke in it if they want… But the weird part was they used their carpeted floor as a giant ashtray.
Hessalam:
Smoking inside is okay, my family does it. But holy s**t, a dirty floor like that would cause my feet to shrivel into my legs, my legs into my body, and so on until I cease to exist.
Image source: vintageflow, BEEPBOOPBOPPINGPOW / Reddit
#8
Jars filled with giant bloated tics “swimming” in rubbing alcohol.
They picked them out of the ears of their dog and thought it was totally normal to display them on the kitchen counter!
SecChf_RocIngersol:
This is actually a very encouraged practice (minus the weird displaying) in my family. If your dog gets sick after a tick bite, it helps the vet if you have the tick preserved for them to look at. Any time we pull a tick off our dog we keep it at least a few days to make sure it didn’t get him sick.
Krebs__cycle:
I wasn’t sure what my nightmare was going to be about tonight. Thanks for clearing that up for me…
Image source: zipzap21, Earthgirl07 / reddit
#9
People who keep their Christmas decorations (including the tree) up all year round, or much longer than the Christmas season (like starting in October and not taking them down until several weeks after the New Year).
We also had neighbors who replaced all their floors (even upstairs) with tile because their dogs peed everywhere and they were tired of replacing the carpeting every other year. Why they couldn’t housetrain the dogs or get rid of them, I have no idea.
Image source: whileromeburns88, msveedubbin / reddit
#10
This was back in high school. My friend’s older brother had slippers made from his beloved dead dog’s hide with the fur still attached. I thought she was joking at first but she was perfectly serious and I realized that’s exactly what they looked like — they were definitely not fake fur slippers.
Image source: ravegreen, Silvergargoyle88 / reddit
#11
I went over to a friend’s house after school, and other than a door for the bathroom there wasn’t a single door hung in the house. His mother told me that if you’re behind a closed door you’re doing something secret and there there were no secrets in her house.
She would also randomly search his room for ‘secrets’. It wasn’t uncommon for him to come home and find all his clothes turned inside out and thrown into the hallway, and all his stuff also searched, examined, and thrown into the hallway. When he got home from school he was expected to have it all put away in an hour. What wasn’t put away when the timer went off was thrown away.
Image source: wetwater, anon / reddit
#12
My grandmother reuses her floss. Flosses, rinses it off, hangs it up to dry, repeats for 2 weeks. Seeing her hanging floss scarred me as a child.
Image source: fluteitup, reddit
#13
They had found a pet kitten that they kept in a cage. It was a raccoon.
Image source: IranianGenius, gayasswater / reddit
#14
At a friends house when I was younger, went to use the restroom. Four women in the house… All of them were in the habit of leaving their bloody lady products lying messy side up in the lidless garbage can.
Growing up with a mum and two sisters, we all got through shark week as discreetly and invisibly as possible. I had never considered that other women didn’t worry as much about hiding bloody pads/ tampons from visitors.
Image source: periodboobs, goblue3_ / Reddit
#15
This one old lady I took care of had all of her dead pets as taxidermy statues in her living room
also had all her late husbands teeth in a cup on her coffee table.
Image source: ImFawnedOfYou, xmastreee / Reddit
#16
Placenta from all the home births (7 kid family) in the freezer. In the spring, they plant it as fertilizer in their veggie garden.
Image source: flightofthecondor, afantail / reddit
#17
Watched my friends mother pour the babies potty into the kitchen sink over the dishes that were in there before asking me if I’d like a drink. ‘No way!’ Was my only possible response.
Image source: Ponkers, Josue Michel
#18
Just a pile of trash in the corner of the kitchen. It’s like there was an imaginary trash can that everyone in their family pretended was there. I felt bad throwing anything away.
#19
I had a friend in middle/high school who lived in a country house that smelled like puppy s**t. One time I stopped over, and there was legit blood spatter on their kitchen walls. No one seemed concerned or eager to clean it up. When I asked about it my friend’s mom just said “Nip (friend’s dad) got shot.”
Never went back.
Image source: stackyjo, Euphoric_Month_1347 / Reddit
#20
Went over to this kid’s house down the street from me when I was young. We ended up watching the cartoon, “The Proud Family” on Disney Channel.
His mom comes in and tells us she doesn’t want us watching it because there were too many black people in it. He was just like, “Oh yeah I forgot.” o_o.
Image source: NiftyShadesOfBeige, disneychannel
#21
I had an aunt who was so terrified of nudity she made her whole family change clothes alone in a locked bathroom, even uncle. She also made everyone sleep fully clothed in underpants, old fashion full coverage pajamas, and a house coat. She said no one in her family was going to have to be outside where people could see their night clothes if the house burned down. When she found out I was sleeping in my underwear I got a twenty minute lecture on acting like a w***e. This was in 1982.
Image source: chalkchick0, C. Shi
#22
Couple of things:
At one house, a microwave on top of a toilet. You couldn’t enter the kitchen due to the amount of hoarding, so if they were hungry they would plug the microwave in, place it on the toilet and microwave some food.
At another house – lots and lots of empty boxes. Stacked in every corner of the house, in case they ever had to return items. I can somewhat understand that mentality but when you’ve used that item for years, return policies don’t apply anymore.
Image source: impossible_planet
#23
Growing up, I was at my friend Cori’s house all the time. Every Friday, her family would order pizza. They would leave the leftovers on the counter, in the box, all weekend and would just snack from the box. No refrigeration. Seemed strange then, and now.
Image source: IncreaseMather, reddit
#24
Giant standing stuffed bear in the bathroom. Pretty funny, but the first time I saw it I screamed.
Image source: anon, peaceIiIy / reddit
#25
A pet rabbit that just roamed around the backyard. It also would get in the pool with us and swim. Pretty badass.
Image source: nikizzard
#26
My friend said he was going to go to the toilet to do a s**t.
The toilet is near the room we were in so I could see the door.
Dad walks in to his son having a s**t.
They proceed to have a chat.
Both of them walk out together.
Image source: luco27, Curated Lifestyle / Unsplash
#27
I was spending the night a friend’s house and we had soup for dinner, and me, being sane, took a spoon for eating soup, and he asked why I had a spoon for soup. He had a fork.
Image source: anon, Rough-Letterhead-650 / reddit
#28
Rats. Dozens of them. In and out of cages.
Image source: Canuckleball, puppyboy7979 / Reddit
#29
I visited Family and they showed me arround, apparently my Niece does her makeup sitting on the floor with a mirror hanging low on the wall… she wipes the mascara brush clean on the carpet, there are black streaks everywhere on the carpet arround the area she sits when doing this. Blew my mind.
Image source: savage1ma, reddit
#30
Several stuffed pillows shaped and colored like life-sized naked women in the family room. This was in a house I only visited when I was in 1st and 2nd grade, and the pillows were visible through windows to the street.
Image source: 2greenlimes
#31
I couple I knew moved into a place where a real pack rat (hoarder) had been living. They got the place cheap but they had to clean up on their own. They were pretty big stoners so they only cleaned up as much as was completely necessary. In the backyard there was a huge pallet of boxes marked “Wendy’s Bacon.” I was a little incredulous so I opened one of the boxes with a stick and it actually was full of these sweaty pouches of ancient grey bacon. There must have been two hundred pounds of rotten bacon. I’m still so curious about where the bacon came from, was it a bacon heist?
Image source: teeejer
#32
They had a room that was off limits to touch. It was made up like a living room but you weren’t allowed in there.
Image source: jnt81101, reddit
#33
At one point, butter that was stored outside of the refrigerator.
I’ve since learned that this is perfectly OK, but growing up in a family that strictly kept the butter in the fridge had me believing there was no other way. Now I know.
Image source: mouth_in_slow_motion
#34
Little baby angels. Everywhere. I knew that if I looked away I would be stuck in another dimension.
Image source: vidur12
#35
I once dated a guy… until I found out he had a tattoo on his back of *his* face and his *dead cat*’s face morphing together. He got the artist to mix some of his late cat’s ashes into the ink so they’d “always be together,” and kept the left-over ashes in a trinket box on his night stand.
Image source: luckytwentytwo
#36
At my friends house they all use the toilet with the door wide open, even while taking a shower. I always close & lock the door when I’m using their bathroom because I’m not at all used to that. and she has 3 brothers so I definitely don’t want them seeing me on the toilet.
Image source: kinokoai
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