Exploring a person's home is like looking through a window into their unique world. Almost everyone who enters a home for the first time gives it a good look, with some nosier folks even taking a peek or two into the cabinets and closets. The experience of being a guest in someone's home and discovering their bizarre habits and behaviors can be truly enlightening.
Internet users from around the world shared some of the strangest things they've seen in someone else's home. Many of the stories were derived from past childhood sleepovers, while others were simply from impromptu visits where the homeowners were not expecting guests. In the end, how people choose to live in their homes is their own business, no matter what any outsider has to say about it.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Watch Out For Explosive Device
When I was ten years old, I slept over at a friend's house. We were completely asleep when her mom and dad came in and woke us up. Calmly, they told us to proceed outside. It was summer, so it wasn’t too cold or anything. We all went outside but it was the middle of the night, so it was extremely strange. Then the explosive device squad showed up.
It turned out, there was a grenade with the pin still in it from WWII in their garage—my friend’s dad would stay up super late cleaning and organizing his late father’s belongings when he came across it one night. My parents ended up coming to pick me up a short time later and the explosive device squad took the grenade, I believe.
#2 Don't Let The Clowns Scare You
A few years back, my friend would house sit for this family who went to her church. She always asked me to stay with her there because the didn't like the house, as it was decorated with like, 350 fully-painted clowns. We always slept in the living room because all of the bedrooms had giant clown figurines. It was terrifying and awful.
#3 What On Earth Is That Smell?
My wife and I toured a home that we were considering to buy. It was an old, vacant, fixer-upper, but had LOTS of potential. However, we couldn’t get around a smell that followed through the house. We got upstairs and the smell was worse. When we opened up a bedroom door, there were strategically-placed #2 piles all over the floor. We did not buy the house.
#4 Art Is Art
#5 Taxidermy Can Be Pretty Creepy
#6 Seriously Obsessed With Hamsters
When I was 12, I had a friend that owned several hamsters. Like, always like six or more at a time. The house smelled horrible. Anyway, I slept over one night and got up to get water at midnight. I opened the freezer to get ice and it was FILLED with hamster carcasses; almost two dozen. I practically threw up. I never brought it up and I never spent the night again. She moved away a couple of months later.
#7 High Scores In The Hoarding Department
When I was in high school, I visited a friend at her house. She never told me her mom was a hoarder. I did everything I could to be polite and not call attention to the fact as we walked through narrow paths in the house. There were some rooms that were inaccessible because there was just so much clutter. The weirdest part might have been that six people were living in this house like it was no big deal.
#8 "I Drank It And Nothing Happened"
When I was 13, I transferred to a new school. When I was walking home one day, a kid I didn't know ran up to me and said, "Hey, this is my home, want to come in?" Eager to make a new friend, I said, "Yeah, okay." When I walked in, I gasped. His house was an absolute mess. I guess three or four adults lived there with a couple of kids and they never cleaned up. There was trash everywhere—paper bags, fast food containers, soda cups, and bottles.
My new friend asked if I wanted a glass of water and we went into the kitchen, his older sister was there sweeping a pile of trash out the open back door into the back yard, which also had trash and junk everywhere. There were junk washing machines, car parts, refrigerators, you name it. The kitchen counters were stacked two feet deep in dirty dishes and pots and pans.
The kid grabbed a dirty glass and filled it with water. I drank it to be polite and nothing happened. In a corner of the kitchen was a 50-pound bag of dry dog food, opened. "Oh nice, you have a dog, huh?" My new friend grinned and said, "Oh no we don't have a dog." I thought about that for a minute and told him I'd better go home.
#9 It's The Wealthy Who Are Real Stingy Ones
When I was 12, my friend asked me to sleepover at his place. He lived in a pretty big house in a nice neighborhood and his family was definitely in the upper middle class. Anyway, here’s the weird part. They refused to feed me. The dad told me to stay upstairs while they had dinner. I was 12, so of course, I didn’t know what to think.
He tried to be normal about it, saying “We’re gonna have dinner, stay up here and I’ll bring you something to drink. What do you want? We have Coke, lemonade...” So I stayed upstairs and drank Coke. I tried to distract myself from my hunger by playing Nintendo. My friend didn’t bat an eyelash. Apparently, this was a normal thing.
Later when I told him I was hungry, he acted like I was bothering him. He ended up sneaking into the kitchen and stealing a can of tuna fish. He then handed it to me as it was, with no can opener. When I asked if he could open it he said, “I don’t know where the can opener is.” I ended up using a butter sharp tool.
#10 They're Either Really Lazy Or Really Weird
#11 Where Do You Even Get A Pet Piranha?
#12 Holy Guacamole!
For a whole month, my friend's parents kept the entire house (i.e. the fridge, freezer, cabinets, outside fridge, basement cabinets) completely stocked and full of mini guacamole containers. Like, the pre-packaged ones. It was the strangest occurrence and my friend didn’t even know, they just all showed up one day and his parents never spoke of it. I’m pretty sure they were doing some underground black market trading with them.
#13 The Tale Of The Fake Flatscreen TV
#14 There Is Such A Thing As Too Much Butter
I went to a friend of a friend's house, and the whole place smelled like butter. It was like opening a tub of butter and sticking your nose in. I consider myself to have a strong stomach, but after less than five minutes inside I started to gag and feel light headed. To this day, I have no idea what that odor was. It smelled like butter but no way it was that strong.
#15 You Might Want To Fix That Before It Rains
#16 Just Tell The Clock To Chill
After I first got my drivers license, I would drive to Missouri to visit my grandparents and my cousin every summer. They live in what used to be two hunting cabins in the woods that they had connected. I'd sleep on the sofa in that living room. One time when I was out there sleeping, heard this loud BANG from the kitchen.
I looked in there and the old wood-framed mechanical clock fell off the wall. Since they got minor earthquakes out there sometimes, I figured there one had just occurred that was light enough not to feel, but just strong enough to vibrate the clock off the nails it was hung on. I thought I'd just go take care of it in the morning so that my grandma wouldn't trip over it when she got up.
As I was thinking that, the clock just shots across the floor and hit the wall on the other side of the dining area, as if someone had kicked it hard. I woke up my cousin and told him what happened and he just nonchalantly said, "Yeah, that happens sometimes. If it keeps happening to tell it to stop and it'll stop." He then rolled over and went back to sleep. I just stood there for a few minutes, then spent the rest of the night on my laptop because I couldn't go back to sleep.
#17 Things That Should Definitely Be Removed In A House That's For Sale
When my parents were house shopping, they ended up checking out this really nice house in the city. The real estate agent was showing them around the place and at some point, they got to a little side room. The agent was showing them around and my mom just happened to glance into the adjacent living room. Right above the fireplace was a massive portrait of a German dictator. The real estate agent was just like, "Oh yeah, that belonged to the previous owner."
#18 The Ants Go Marching 10,000 by 10,000, Hurrah, Hurrah
I worked for a plumbing company in Baldwin Park. While I was employed there, I probably visited 250 homes, so I’ve definitely been in more houses than not. We ran a special ad saying we would "Clear any drain for $79.99,” so naturally, we had a lot of requests. Whenever we were in the van and the tablet dinged, that meant we had a new service request.
One time, the tablet dinged and we proceeded to the address. It was down by the beach in Laguna Niguel. At this point, I was already rolling my eyes in the passenger seat because the house was on the far end of our operating zone. We pulled into the gated community and drove up to the house, which was luxurious.
I feel like calling it a “house” is a disservice. It was a mansion. I mean, white Doric columns on each side of the door, lawn manicured perfectly, plus a marble fountain. We knocked on the front door and for about four minutes, no one answered. As we were about to walk back, a very short old man unlatched the door and greeted us.
We then headed on in. There were marble floors, big fake plants, a small bronze bust of someone I didn’t recognize—all kinds of nice things in the foyer. But it seemed like a room that was never actually lived in and only used for “company,” which I guessed they never had. Other than that, everything seemed normal still.
Once we walked further into the home, I started noticing the smell. We got to the kitchen where the drain problem was and it turned out that the drain in the sink had backed up. Because of that, they had stopped doing dishes for a while. But it was way worse than that. By the looks of it, these people stopped doing dishes 90 days ago, at least.
The two sink basins were STACKED with dirty plates. The counters too. Their cabinets were empty because they had used all available dishes and after those were gone, they used Tupperware containers. You could tell that at one point, they just stopped using their china and bought paper plates instead, which they would stuff into large garbage bags once they'd been used.
THERE WERE ANTS EVERYWHERE. Again, I can’t emphasize this enough. THERE WERE SO MANY ANTS EVERYWHERE I THOUGHT THE COUNTERS WERE A DIFFERENT COLOR THAN THEY WERE. Truly a staggering number of ants. They were just swarming this huge stack of rotten food and plates and trash. The counters looked alive, like a fuzzy countertop that moved.
I mean, to think these people were living in such conditions inside such a nice house was beyond me. My boss and I looked at each other in disbelief. We spoke to them and respectfully declined. Basically, the guy was very wealthy early on in life. Bought the house and married. His wife was about 15 years his junior but she was completely senile.
The entire time we were in the kitchen, she was by the glass doors, sitting at the breakfast table and staring into space. The man himself was probably on the edge of dementia since speaking to him was difficult. He would get off topic and completely forget what we were speaking about. It was a very sad situation. They were in serious need of a caretaker or live in nurse. I'd never been so taken back walking into someone’s home like that. It felt like a horror movie.
#19 A Strange Box Of Photos
#20 Some People Just Can't Let Go
#21 Those Catholics Do The Darndest Things
I had a family friend growing up and I went over to his house all the time for sleepovers. Their family was relatively normal outside of a few strange rules. They were VERY Catholic, which could be why they were a bit weird to me. Anyway, there was one thing they did that was particularly bizarre. If I was over for dinner, they would always put on a Josh Groban CD and crank it up fairly loud. Then for some reason, at the end of dinner, usually when "You Raise Me Up" came on, everyone was required to quickly drink a relatively large glass of milk. I didn't really mind doing it, and there was not really a fishy ulterior motive, but it was just so odd to me.
#22 Perhaps They Were Nudists
I was sleeping over at my friend's house. We were about to go to bed and I couldn't get my sleeping bag zipped up, so my friend went to get her mom to help me. I stood up in the sleeping bag and as I was fiddling with the zipper, the mom came into the room uncovered. She walked up to me yanked up the zipper and then left the room without a word. It all happened as though nothing was weird at all. I didn't know that I could have such an impressive poker face at 10. How I managed not to make a face as I stood at eye line with that obese 50-year-old woman's giant chest, I'll never know.
#23 Why Conflict Veterans Should Get Mandatory Psych Evaluations
I went to the house of an old friend of mine when I was little and his dad had a little case from Vietnam with a bunch of rotted fingers in it.
#24 Someone Was Not Too Happy About That Marriage
In a friend's basement, I found a little setup in the corner consisting of a chair, an empty gallon jug of booze, an ice pick, and a framed wedding picture with the glass broken. It was all set up so nearly, and the people in the picture were not his parents or anyone he knew.
#25 "Remains"
The first time I visited my then-girlfriends house, there was a huge box on a shelf nonchalantly labeled "Remains." It turned out, her dad is an archaeology professor and kept a lot of oddities and artifacts as training materials.
#26 A Literal Doll House
#27 Skeleton In Her Closet
One time, a girl I knew said she had a skeleton in her closet. I laughed and figured she was talking figuratively. Nope, she took me to her closet and sure enough there was a skeleton hanging in it, staring back at me. Real skeletons look like real skeletons, not the stuff you see in classrooms. Discolored bones and everything. Her grandfather was a doctor and I gather if you donate your body to science, there is not a lot of paperwork. So you can end up as a joke ornament. I admire her for the dedication towards the joke... however the thought of sleeping in a room with a skeleton in the closet still freaks me out.
#28 Excellent Craftsmanship Gone To Waste
#29 Lindsay Loham
I once went to pick something up from a guy who turned out to be a psychotic Laotian bandit. He threatened me with a piece the moment I got to his place. After he calmed down, I was sitting on his couch and looked over to see a 250-pound pig sleeping on the floor a few feet away. She had a lace doily draped over her. Her name was Lindsay Loham.
#30 Of All The Places To Put Carpeting
#31 A Grade-A Stalker
I was invited to a friends house. I had only known the guy for a week, but when I got to his room I found a framed picture of me.
#32 A Shrine To The Cats
They kept their cats' ashes in urns. But not just any urns and not just any place— all of the cats had Egyptian names, so their urns were designed to match the Egyptian god they were named after. They were all lined up on a ledge in their screened in porch, right by the front entrance. There were a good five or six urns front and center when you entered the house.
#33 The Ghosts Must Have Really Wanted Those Gumballs
I was sleeping over at a friend's house and in the middle of the night, the glass globe of her gumball machine exploded, causing gumballs to litter everywhere. Nobody and nothing was anywhere near it. To this day, we still don't know why it happened.
#34 Mouse House
In middle school, I went to my friend’s house for the first time. It was very messy and dirty but I tried to brush it off. We decided to go to the kitchen for some food, and it turned out that they had a mouse problem. They were dealing with it by putting glue traps on different surfaces, so when I walked up to a counter, I saw live mice with their whole bodies stuck flat on the glue traps. Not just one or two, but like four or five in that one area. Needless to say, I didn’t eat anything.
#35 For The Love Of Jesus
#36 A Bit Too Much My Little Pony
#37 Goodbye James
My friend James was having a house party. We were 20 years old at the time. He told me it would just be music and drinks and all of our class would be there. So I went, and when I got there I quickly realized it was not a house party but in fact a sit-down meal with his whole family. I instantly felt awkward as I was wearing party clothes.
They had prepared a large meal and it was very obvious he had told them I was his girlfriend. His family kept saying "aww" whenever he was near me and they kept asking how we met. I had a real boyfriend at the time and James knew that, but I felt too uncomfortable to tell his really nice mom that I was, in fact, not her son's girlfriend.
All of James' brothers were there and for some reason, I didn't want to embarrass him so I just kept quiet. When I asked around the next day, nobody in my class had been invited to any party. My boyfriend was so angry. James harassed me for two years after that.
#38 The Primary Downside Of A Pet Pigeon
#39 Strange Way To Decorate A Room
I went to a friend of a friend's house while in a high school. He had the basement to himself as a living space and we hung out for a bit playing Halo 2. I went to go upstairs and passed by his room and I saw a lawn gnome in the corner of my eye, just chilling there. I peeped my head in and his room was filled with lawn gnomes; on his dresser, by the side of his bed, on the floor, everywhere.
#40 Would You Like Some Butter To Go With Your Butter?
#41 Dog Saliva Is The New Dish Soap
#42 Everyone Locks Their Bedroom Doors From The Outside With Chains, Right?
I went to a party at a friend's house. I had never been there before, as he had just moved in. As he was showing me around, I noticed that a previous resident had installed chain locks on the outside of all the interior doors in the house, even the closets. It seemed like they meant to keep people inside the rooms. The only exception was the master bedroom, which had a chain on the inside.
#43 Those Poor Elephants
#44 Deceased, Staring Eyes From Every Corner
When my son was in pre-kindergarten, he had a little friend in his class. We invited the kid over a few times and he also offered to have my son over at his house. So, one day, the other kid's mom picked the two boys up from school. I was expecting two extra kid-free hours that afternoon but after about 30 minutes, I received a phone call from the mom.
She told me that my son wouldn't stop crying. This was not my son's first playdate, so I hurried over to pick him up. I knocked on the door and the mom let me in. I kid you not, there were probably 50 to 75 taxidermy animals staring at me. From birds and bats to a full body bobcat and various other large game heads. It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen.
There were deceased eyes staring at me from every corner of the room. Of course, my son came running to me, clinging to my legs. I picked him up but curiosity got the better of me and I stepped a little further into the room. It was filled with more animals. The mom was apologetic and admitted that her house could be a little overwhelming. We left and my son had nightmares for a week. A little heads up sure would have been nice.
#45 Not Exactly The Way In-Home Security Cameras Are Usually Used
I work for a moving company of sorts. We were moving the stuff from one house while the homeowners were out. We got around to one of the hallways and I noticed that the hallway had security cameras. In-home surveillance is kind of spooky enough on its own but you’d usually expect the cameras to be fanned out in different directions to cover as much area as possible. There were four cameras all pointed at the room at the end of the hall. Every single camera was pointed at the same door. I couldn’t help but wonder what was in that room.
