Bizarre Things People Saw At Their Friend's House That Made Them Realize Their Family Was 'Weird'

Different strokes for different folks, right? The world would be boring if everyone was exactly the same.

But sometimes, we meet people who are very different...

Reddit user BamMeister_ asked:

"What is something you saw at a friend's house that made you realize their family was 'weird'?"

TMI

"In order to get into the backyard pool you had to go through the master bedroom."

"The mom had boudoir photos of herself all over the walls."

~ beetreddwigt

Vampires

"I was friends with the girl whose house shared our back fence. During high school, her parents went through a messy divorce and her dad got primary custody of the kids and kept the house."

"All seemed well and once it was final, even her parents started getting along better, as long as they didn’t have to share a roof."

"Some time in our junior year of college, her dad got hastily remarried. The woman had 2 kids of her own and moved into his house. My mom reported that they seemed nice enough, but a bit odd."

"When our 10 year reunion came up, my friend and I agreed to go with each other. We settled it that we would meet at her dad’s before going to the party. When I got there, she answered the door with an odd forced smile, and she said under her breath You gotta see this' and yanked me through the door."

"The living room was painted a very dark teal and all the furniture was either painted black or was draped in black. There were blood red curtains over the windows and on the wall was a large framed portrait of her step-siblings at ages maybe 6 and 8 years old."

"The older boy was dressed as Dracula (white face, widows peak, cape, etc) and he was leaning in like he had just bitten his sister’s neck. The sister was dressed in a frothy white dress and was posed swooning with two bite marks on her neck. This picture was probably 24x36."

"I had no words. I said 'hi' to her dad, who was sitting kind of dejectedly in the dining room (which was the same awful color combination), but I didn’t see the step-mother or her kids (who were early 20s by then)."

"When we were on the road to the reunion, I asked my friend, 'what was all that?' and she said she had no idea; she always stayed with her mom when she was in town since her old room at her dad’s had been ‘commandeered’, and she hadn’t been in his house in a few years."

~ WillDupage

Hide And Hide

"I was over at my best friend’s house, we were 7 or 8 years old, and playing hide and seek. It was her turn to hide and I looked all over and couldn’t find her."

"I yelled a few times that she won and to please come out. Her dad came in and asked me what was going on, and I told him that we were playing hide and seek and I didn’t find her."

"He started yelling that she needed to come out now or she would get punished. She reluctantly emerged from another room."

"He immediately hauled her up onto his lap, demanded that she apologize to me, and then spanked her. I never slept over at her house again."

~ alphabetfire

Nope

"As a child, I would play with the girl next door. We usually played in her yard, but one day I was invited in."

"She was an only child and was super-mega-spoiled with tons of nice toys, but her room was unusually tidy and organized at all times. I wasn't allowed to touch any of her toys EVER, and she had to ask permission before touching or playing with them, every single time."

"But that's not the weird part."

"She went to the bathroom, then, while she was in there, she started calling for her mom over and over again. But her mom didn't respond, so she called for me and asked me to enter the bathroom."

"I did, and was shocked to see her bent over with her poopy a** pointed at me and her pants and undies down. She wanted me to wipe her! I ran out and got her mom."

"She was 7, and she had never learned how to wipe herself because her mom always did it for her. I was a year older than her, and this struck me as very, very weird."

~ Electronic-Muffin934

Dive Bomber

"They had a pet bird they’d let fly around. That’s cool and everything, but it sh*t all over the house, and they wouldn’t do anything about it."

"I had a difficult time finding a clean place to sit. That’s just gross and weird."

~ bzsbal

Bathrooms

"At my neighbor's house, when we were playing outside, we weren’t allowed to use the bathroom inside, boys and girls. We were expected to find a bush or something."

"When we asked, we would get laughed at, and they would close and lock the door on us."

"When me and my sister just went to our house to use the bathroom, the neighbor’s parents would scold us. When we invited the neighbor to use our bathroom, he got yelled at from across the block

"We weren’t allowed to play outside with him without our parents’ specific supervision."

~ madkandy12

Ranch

"A friend had me over for ice cream at her house, and they asked if I wanted ranch dressing on mine."

"The whole family would put ranch on top of vanilla ice cream."

~ beetreddwigt

Applause

"They clapped when the microwave finished like it just gave a TED Talk."

~ Redhead_RileyX

Safety Last

"When I was a kid, bike helmets went from being recommended to legally mandatory.I already had one because my parents felt that it was a good safety measure. My friend did not."

"Their parents decided since they had to have a helmet, that would be their birthday present. My friend showed me the helmet sitting in their parent's bedroom cupboard."

"The law had come in to effect, my friend knew they were getting a helmet for their birthday, it was already bought, and they were allowed to look at it, but they weren't allowed to WEAR it until their actual birthday, several months later."

"In the meantime, they had to ride their bike around, helmetless."

"There were several little things going on in that household that made me realize they were weird, but this was the biggest 'your parents are nuts' moment for me."

~ Frozen_Feet

Self-Serve

"Their dogs didn’t have a water bowl, they just kept the toilet lid up."

~ MydogisCrazy

Inspection

"I was at a friend's house to have tea. She went to the loo, and returned with a full-on turd in her hand, on a loo roll to show her mum."

"Her mum declared it was a good one, it was flushed, and I never went back."

~ Rainbow_dreaming

Beverages

"When he played outside, he wasn’t allowed to drink water. Only cream soda."

"They would offer me and my sister water but not him and when they did give us water they said he wasn’t allowed to have any. "

Strange people.

~ madkandy12

Collection

Once, we had a sleepover at a friend's, and we decided to do some pedicures. Start clipping my toenails when my friend suddenly jumps up and hurries off."

"Comes back a minute later with a rather large glass jar half full of nail clippings. Friend proceeded to ask me to add my toenail clippings to the jar. It was a thing her family did."

"Kept all their finger and toenail clippings. Later noticed another 3 jars full of nail clippings on display throughout the house."

~ confusedhandle

Pet

"They had a 'pet' bobcat that lived in their home with them."

"When other guests and I would visit, the bobcat would be put away in his 'room' which was an enclosed space in the bathroom."

"The bobcat roamed freely otherwise and was shown in all the family photos around the home."

~ geejaykay2

Live-In

"The mom's boyfriend was living above the garage to the annoyance of the dad. This happened in the late 90s. The couple was an extended family member of mine and his wife. They were both in extremely prestigious careers."

"Since I was around 8, I started doing sleepovers at their house. Their daughter S was really close in age to me and we got along well. At first, this was only in December. They'd bring me home after the extended family Christmas Day party. It started as a few nights and then became tradition that I'd usually go there from Christmas Day to New Year's Day. S and I became closer and it shifted to spending a week or two over the summer as we got older and wanted to spend more time together."

"It was the wife's dream to own and renovate a historic house. She had the means to do it and they bought it before S was born. Part of the way to fund it passively was renovating an old multi-car garage and adding an apartment above it. They lived in a fancy part of a metro area and usually rented to college students. The wife had us look at applications with her one year to see what the process looked like."

"As I got older, I was often used as a babysitter for my younger siblings. The break I'd earn was time at S's house over the summer. The husband took big chunks of the summer off. It was amazing. He is a great cook and taught me how to fold fitted sheets. It also gave me time off from the responsibility of watching my siblings every day off from school."

"The year I turned 13 was when sh*t went down. I was asked if I'd want to spend most the summer vacation with S. Most of her local friends were going to overnight summer camps right after her birthday and she had to stay in town due to an athletic team practice."

"My parents were annoyed because it meant they'd have to find someone else to watch my siblings over the summer and nobody besides me did it for free. I'm not sure the deal that was struck but part of me thinks the husband probably covered part or all of the childcare cost to ensure S had my company."

"I realized years later that not only was I company, I was supervision. She had been lashing out after realizing her mom and dad were 'staying together for the kids' but not actually together anymore. Several weeks into my stay there, I met the new tenant, a man close in age to the couple. S took me aside later and said that the tenant was her mom's boyfriend and felt that it was disrespectful and blatant cheating. My more nuanced take was 'well, you said your parents weren't together' so the concept of a boyfriend was understandable, but the proximity was inappropriate."

"The husband got very mad when he found out I met the boyfriend. S said there was an agreement she overheard her parents make that the boyfriend would fly under the radar that summer that the wife never communicated. The boyfriend had been traveling for most of the summer as he was in education and had the summer off. A large part of the reason this agreement was made was because of how the discovery of the relationship impacted S. We overheard the husband and wife yelling outside about this as her bedroom window overlooked the backyard."

"It was not good that I as a family member had met the boyfriend, even though nobody but S said anything directly to me about the relationship. The husband asked me not to say anything about it to our extended family members, but said it was okay if I wanted to tell my mom. Thirteen year old me just decided not to say anything and support S through whatever the f*ck was going on."

"After S graduated four years later, the husband and wife divorced. The husband moved and remarried twice—once to a friend and then later to a childhood sweetheart. From what I understand the boyfriend and wife didn't even make it a few years and broke up before the divorce. She's not been in a serious relationship since. She still owns the house."

~ teagemini

What odd things did you notice when visiting friends?