People Who Work In Strangers' Homes For A Living Share The Weirdest Thing They Ever Experienced

Not Alone

No one ever told these people they would have friendly intrusion while on the clock.

Got Goat?

"A goat in the living room. The mother came down and shooed it outside."

– TheLightningCount1

"human 'mother', or goat mother?? lol"

– Cryptographer_False

Stinky Critter

"Not me but my dad who can tell the story much better than I can. He was once repairing a furnace in the basement of one of his clients homes. Nobody was home when suddenly he heard a scurrying behind him, but when he looked nothing was there. This went on several times before he realized the noise was coming from behind a couch. Slowly, he began towards it. As he bent down, a skunk popped out from its hiding spot and met him face to face. Turns out he was a pet, but apparently it really spooked him at the time."

– PlanesAreExtinct

"Awful And Itchy"

"I'm an EMT, so I've seen lots of hoarders, human and animal waste, etc. But, the most aggravating day was when my partner and I got fleas from this dudes house. Our ambulance was swarming with fleas. Her and I were covered in fleas. We could see them jumping around there were so many. We had to mark out of service to decontaminate the truck and ourselves. It was awful and itchy."

– herbharlot

The Zookeeper

"I work as a mobile computer repair/IT service guy. Went into a house to work on a laptop, and they happened to be my next-door neighbors. House had an animal smell (people with pets usually do not notice). But this was different. As I sat down to work on the laptop I heard a loud screech, and a pigmy marmoset jumped from a cabinet onto my head, pulling my hair violently. I then watched as an albino skunk, 3 house cats, 2 small dogs, and various large birds (a mynah, African gray, and what I think was some kind of guinea fowl) all appeared from various rooms and furnishings. All the animals were kind of friendly (there was no biting), but the sheer volume of animals in that tiny space was crazy. A few weeks later the Department of fish and wildlife and US customs raided their house. I found out later my neighbor smuggled rare animals. And had several aquariums full of rare poisonous snakes."

– peakbaggers

Basement Community

"Not me, but my SO. SO used to work for comcast as an installer and electrician many years ago. He has lots of odd/funny/alarming stories. My favorite is when he was in the basement of an old house running some wires. He couldn't find the pull for the lights so he was using a small flashlight to look around. So he's looking around and catches eyes in the dark with his flashlight. Goes back and realizes there's many eyes watching him in the dark. As soon as he realizes he gets creeped out and starts to head for the stairs. Then something starts screaming. Which makes him scream. Then the home owner comes down turns on the lights and apologizes for not telling him about the herd of goats that live in the dark basement. Apparently they are easily startled. He said there were probably a dozen of them down there."

– SkrEEpeChEEze

Horror Movie Territory

People who enjoy going into scare houses during Halloween wouldn't dare experiencing the following.

Here Are My Digits

"So this was back when I was a student on a placement in community mental health services. I went out on a visit to see a man who was just recently discharged from a medium secure hospital, he had schizophrenia / psychosis. We were going in for a routine checkup."

"I knock, he opens the door, and this incredible stench just hits us in the face, and I thought I was gonna throw up right there. But alas, my supervisor urges me to go in, we walk into his house, and it just smells sooooo bad. My eyes were watering. I keep my composure, we chat to him, and I notice some black thing on his kitchen table, looks like rotting food/mould/tiny dead mouse... Idk. So after chatting, I casually ask him what that black thing is and if he needs help cleaning it up."

"Oh it's my toes"

"What. The. F'k."

"Yeah I cut them off, they didn't fit right on my foot."

"Needless to say he was immediately readmitted. He reportedly cut them off with a kitchen knife and then seared his wound with a lighter. I believe he had to have his entire foot/below knee leg amputated because it got infected."

– altaccforpron1

Scare-bnb

"I used to help my dad who was a real estate appraiser. We went into this one house that was in the mountains, it was vacant. One room looked like it had black carpeting. When we looked closer, we found out the floor was covered in dead flies. The only room in the house like that."

– aradia1313

Grisly Discovery

"A neighbor called the police after noticing the mail piling up outside of a neighbor's house, never ever a good sign. I get the check the welfare call and go with a back up car. No answer at the door so we try to look through all the 1st floor windows when my partner spots,a foot in the hallway. We forced entry and found the eldery female barely alive. She had fallen two days,earlier and had a broken hip. Fire/rescue came and got her to the hospital in time. I know not the weirdest thing finding her. We had to grab all the prescription medicine we could find to take to the hospital, it was then that we found her mummified husband sitting in the bedroom chair. Coroner said he had been there about six months."

– Harvard-23

Trash Can Alternative

"I was 20 years old working as an internet installer (just over 10 years ago). A cute girl a little older than me ordered service so while I was at her house surveying (both flirting) I told her I had to trace some lines down. It was a studio type MIL suite she was renting behind a house as she was in college."

"Started tracing lines and had to look behind her bed. It was just a mountain of used tampons, she had been shoving them under and behind her bed. The rest of the house was relatively clean."

"Also lots and lots of hoarders. There are so many hoarders."

– fault_in_theAE35unit

Wasteland

"When I was a caregiver, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I walked into a home where there was dog sh*t everywhere. No pads, no newspaper, etc. Just dog shit e v e r y w h e r e, of all kinds. Dried, fresh, broken into bits, whole pieces..."

"There was a capable adult in the household who could have let the dog out. I had to bite my tongue, every time I went there and was told to pick it up, because I so badly wanted to go 'What in the absolute f'k is wrong with you??? How do you live like this when I'm NOT here???'"

– EgyptianDevil78

Pizza Delivery

These Redditors delivered pies and came back with bizarre stories.

The Gift

"As a pizza delivery driver, I wasn't required to go into anyone's house, at least on paper. In practice though, it happens. If I were doing the same job now, I'd be much more wary of going into someone's house, but at 19, I thought I was invincible and didn't care."

"I have tons of pizza delivery stories from back then, some I've even told on Reddit before, but I've never told this one."

"There used to be this log cabin looking house right in the middle of town. It's since been demolished but it was legitimately just a very large log cabin sitting in the middle of a city. It was probably 10pm when I went out on the delivery. I looked at the address, looked at the wall map to see exactly where I was going (the days before GPS), and realized it was the log cabin. I'd always noticed it but had never visited it, nor did I know anything about it. So it was kind of exciting getting to see who actually lived in this place."

"I arrive and pull into the driveway and for the first time, I noticed it had 3 separate doors. A, B, and C."

"'I'll be damned, it's a triplex,' I thought."

"The address was for unit C, so I went to unit C and knocked on the door. As soon as it opened a wall of stink knocked me across the face. It smelled like... I don't know, a mixture of piss and unwashed crotch? A woman answered wearing nothing but a t-shirt and panties, which wasn't particularly strange for my town, but when she raised her arms, I could see her boobs hanging out the bottom of the shirt."

She turned around and said "I gotta get my pocket book, will you set it on the counter?"

"Extremely hesitant, I crossed the threshold and saw the counter right next to me. I set the pizza down. She came back out with the exact change and a copy of The Last of the Mohicans on VHS. She handed me the money and said 'Have you seen this?' and plops the video in my hands."

"'Uh, yeah, years ago,' I say."

"'Well now you own it,' she says. 'That damn movie is so good.'"

"I stare at her and the tape for a moment and I'm like 'I mean if you like the movie I don't wanna take it from you."'

"'No it's fine,' she says. 'I got like 50 copies of it.'"

"Right after she said that, I noticed her tv was on and, no sh*t, Last of the Mohicans was playing. I remember clearly it was the scene where the guy was being burned alive."

"'Okie doke, thanks,' I said, and left."

"When I got back to work, I told my manager I'd just delivered a pizza to the log cabin in town and he looks at me and says 'Did she give you a copy of Last of the Mohicans?'"

"'SHE DID!' I replied."

"Yeah I got a copy from her too."

"Not particularly scary or anything, just weird. I never had a delivery for her again."

– CDC_

The Excited Teen Customer

"Similarly, I had a young guy once open the door in nothing but some track pants and I couldn't help but notice his raging hard-on and a semi-nude old lady lying on the couch behind him."

"Pizza delivery doesn't pay enough, but it's a crazy job with limitless stories."

– CDC_

Pizza Museum

"I was an internet installer about 10 years ago, too! I actually just recently got back into the industry, but yeah..... There are a lot more hoarders out there than people typically think. And for weird stuff, too. I had a guy that had stored about 4 years worth of pizza boxes in his basement, stacked to the ceiling and piles sorted by where he ordered them from."

– SFAwesomeSauce

Many employees who deliver items or make home visits for inspection and repairs have continued doing god's work throughout the pandemic – as long as they abided by safety protocols and were healthy.

With much of the pandemic seeing an uptick in such services, these itinerant workers undoubtedly have endless anecdotes to share.

Hopefully, stories about finding corpses or severed toes inside homes were not a frequent occurrence.

Because no thank you.