Terrified People Share The Scariest Thing That Happened To Them In Another Person’s Home
When you visit a friend or a family member, what do you expect? A nice dinner, maybe a quiet movie, or some fun conversational anecdotes, right? Well, sometimes the craziest things happen when you least expect it. Life’s unpredictability means that a routine visit could end up being, well, not so routine at all. No one is immune to life’s curve balls, and they can hit you anywhere; even at a friend or family member’s house.
Whether you are spending the night at a partner’s house, house-sitting for your neighbors, or simply hanging out with a new friend, none of the following stories would be ideal! Get ready to thank your lucky stars—the next time you visit another person’s house, you’ll certainly see things differently!
Don’t forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Would You Say I’m Sorry?
I was house sitting for an aunt of mine while she was on holiday. She told me there was a leak in the lounge area but it had been fixed, so I should just keep an eye on it and let her know if any issues return. While I was inside, a massive storm happened a couple of nights in. I heard some trickling in the early hours, so I went to go check that there wasn’t a leak.
The entire wall was flooding with water. It was like an actual waterfall. Turns out, the spouting was blocked and the water was just forcing its way through the cracks in the wall. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but it was so terrifying watching someone’s house fall apart on your watch. All I could do was pile towels on the floor and shift the furniture to keep everything dry.
#2 Overall It’s Positive
I went to a stranger’s house to give him some money for accidentally hitting him on his bike. The first thing I noticed was that his house was really dark. In fact, I don’t think his house had lights at all. No ceiling lights or lamps or anything. The guy used a flashlight to get around his house and find things.
He kept taking me around his house until I’d been into every room in the place. He showed me a few of his prized possessions; all of which were odd, to say the least: a two-handed sword and a matching dagger were in one room, and his peculiar pet parrot in another (that thing was literally the size of an eagle).
He also just started handing me things to take with me, even though I was supposed to be the one giving to him. He ended up giving me: a pair of new $30 gloves, his old gloves that had a few scratches on them from when I hit him, five high-end protein bars, and a glass of strawberry lemonade. Definitely a strange experience.
#3 Worst Place To Be Sick
I got the stomach flu at a friend’s house after drinking loads of red Gatorade and eating popcorn. Puke came out blood red with tons of chunks (kernels) and I thought I was done for.
#4 I’m Just Visiting
I was watching my friend’s kids when I was in the army. I was crashed out on the couch early one morning when the door flung open and three kids who didn’t live there entered the house. The one in front had a weapon. They were making a bee-line for the kids’ bedrooms and had not noticed me on the couch, since I was lying down.
I was scared, but I was also not going to let them just hurt the kids. So I jumped up and barreled into the lead kid, taking his weapon. There was screaming and my friend’s kids came running out into the front room. Turns out, it was a BB gun. The kid with the gun had just received it as a gift and wanted to show the kids I was watching.
Also to note, they were all like, 13 years old, so it wasn’t exactly hard to take the BB gun. Still, the whole incident scared me!
#5 Horror Movies Come To Life
I had hallucinations from a fever while staying over at a friend’s house. I thought his dad was just downstairs, screaming all night. It was like living through a horror movie. I still have nightmares about it almost 20 years later. The fever was so bad I had a seizure the next day. Luckly, I never had a repeat episode after that.
#6 I Bet She Didn’t See That Coming
When I was around eleven years old, I went #2 all over my best friend’s bathroom. I got very close to her mom that night because I had no idea what to do and she came to help me clean it up. We grew apart after we graduated high school, but she still reminds me of it sometimes. Now it’s funny, but it was traumatizing at the time.
#7 I Would Never Go Back
I was about 14 years old. I was sleeping over at my friend’s house, and in the middle of the night, we heard some rustling around in her enclosed patio (which was adjacent to the living room we were sleeping in). We shrugged it off because she had two very active outdoor cats who generally slept on the patio.
When we woke up the next morning and went out there to eat breakfast, we saw that the screen door had been slashed and several pieces of furniture were gone. The rustling we heard in the middle of the night was actually burglars. We’re not sure if they knew that several teenage girls were in the living room. It still freaks me out when I think about it.
#8 Family Matters
I was spending the night at a friend’s place when I was in high school. We were taking a walk around the block about to turn onto her street when her little sister ran out of their house and screamed at the top of her lungs. She started running for us, yelling, “He’s hurting her! He’s hurting her!” We all ran to the house to see the mom in a fight with the stepdad. It was a scary night for sure.
#9 When Did She Notice?
I slept over at my friend’s house one summer night during high school. I woke up to his mom calling out to him because his stepdad was unresponsive. We called paramedics and they brought him to the hospital. Turns out, he had a massive heart attack in his sleep and passed away during the night. That’s the most heartbreaking way to go if you ask me.
#10 Right Place, Right Time
I was 11 years old and at my friend’s house. His parents and all of his siblings were home. Everyone but his dad was in the front room of the house. His dad was doing yard work in the backyard. I got up to go to the bathroom, and while passing the backdoor, saw that my friend’s dad was on a ladder with an electric tree trimmer.
Before I looked away and continued on, I saw his dad fall off the top rung of the ladder and crash hard on the ground. The tree trimmer was still somehow on and landed next to his body. The trimmer was going full horror movie and slowly moving towards him and he was not getting up. I was the only one who saw this happen.
So I yelled to my friend’s mom and quickly ran outside to pick the trimmer up. By the time I turned it off and started focusing on him, everyone else was outside. We helped him up, then the mom took him to the hospital for back pain and a mild concussion while the older siblings watched us. Everyone was very thankful I had to pee.
#11 More Than Just A Fire Alarm
I stayed with my boyfriend and his parents for a few weeks. One night, they left me home alone for a few hours. I decided to take a bath. The ventilation fan was on full blast, the door was closed, and the water was running, so I didn’t hear the beeping. When I turned the tap off, I heard the alarms blaring and a robotic voice saying: “FIRE, FIRE, FIRE.”
Someone then started banging on the front door. I ran downstairs in a towel while calling my boyfriend. Neighbor is at the door because he heard the alarm. He has no idea who I am. The alarm company couldn’t get a hold of anyone, so they called the authorities. Cop cars, an ambulance, and fire trucks showed up. His neighbors all crowded around on the lawn. I was still in a towel. The firefighters concluded that the steam from the bath set off the alarm.
#12 Ghostly Presence
When I was around ten years old, my friend used to talk about a ghost in his house that would turn on the radio in the kitchen when you left the room. Well, about a month after, I was waiting for him to get out of the shower, so I went into the kitchen to have a snack. As I opened the cabinet, the radio behind me turned on… I jumped and turned it off, remembering the story.
I was afraid to go into the kitchen after that. It was scary but only happened the once to me. His mom didn’t want to throw out the radio or move it in fear of angering whatever it was. that was turning it on. I’m not sure what happened to that radio.
#13 Sad Ending
When I was eight, I slept over at a friend’s house with my little brother. Her father woke us all up in the middle of the night, told us to bundle up, and loaded us in the family minivan. He drove us to a gas station and talked the whole way about how a bakery exploded behind their house. He said that the resulting gases could hurt us, so we had to try and drive as far away as possible.
They were also our next-door neighbors, so I was worried about my parents’ safety. At the gas station, our friend’s mom bought us snacks while he canvassed the area. I told her I didn’t hear any explosion and asked about my parents. She must have called them from a pay phone during the snack run because they pulled up a few minutes later to take us home. I was, of course, terrified to go home.
Later, our parents sat us down to explain that our friend’s father was sick with something called schizophrenia that makes him hallucinate.
#14 Would-Be Robbers?
I was a freshman in college when I spent Christmas with my high school buddy who didn’t end up going out of town for the holidays with his family. I went to his kitchen to get a drink and when I looked out his kitchen window, I saw two figures jumping his fence. Luckily, I saw them before I had turned on the light, so they didn’t see me.
I quietly told him to get ready to call the cops as they made their way to his door. Without thinking, I ran to the door, opened it and yelled, “LAPD! Freeze!” The two figures got scared and ran away. Thinking back on it, they sounded really young and were probably just going to ding dong ditch the place or something. But to be safe, I stayed with him until his family came home.
#15 Fun Family Dinner
When I was like, eight or nine, I was at a relative’s house for a family gathering. One of my distant relatives flipped out and grabbed a kitchen knife. I don’t remember the details, but I’m pretty sure he was threatening people. I remember being ushered into a side room with everyone else and being cramped in there for like, a minute or two, just listening.
A few male relatives had remained outside with the guy and they encircled him until he calmed down. I learned later that the dude’s brain was like, partially fried or something from illicit substances abuse. I never saw him at any family gatherings again after that, but I always wonder how he’s doing now or if his condition is any better.
#16 Always Keep The Sword
I was 18 and my friend and I were alone at her house. Her parents were going through a nasty divorce and her dad (who had anger problems) was not allowed to come near the house because the mom had a restraining order. He ended up banging on the door, trying to break in since he knew the mom wasn’t home. We hid in my friend’s room with a samurai sword while she called her mom to come home.
#17 A Literal Cat Burglar
I was cat sitting for some family friends. As I approached the house one evening, I noticed a light was on that hadn’t been on that morning. I walked in the front door and yelled up the stairs, but didn’t hear anything. There were small things that had been moved around (a knife on the counter and some trinkets), but nothing was missing except the cat (it never came running for its food). I checked all the rooms but there was no sign of the kitty. I even checked the fridge and noticed that the pepperoni had been moved from the shelf to the drawer. Why did the cat burglar move the pepperoni?
Well, it turned out that the family had a maid that I didn’t know about and she had accidentally closed the cat in a closet.
#18 Nighttime Is The Worst Time
One of my friends from childhood would have really bad night terrors. She would either wake up in the middle of the night screaming at the top of her lungs or she would randomly jump up and start running for the front door trying to get away from whatever she thought was chasing her. It was always pretty terrifying waking up to her screaming or tripping over me while trying to get to the door.
#19 So… Win-Win?
I house sat for my childhood crush when we were 12ish as her family went on a six-week road trip around the US. They had a cat and a bird and you see where this is going. This stupid little finch got out of its cage (the cage was closed when I returned the next day), and the cat ate it. It wasn’t my fault, but I knew I had to do something.
I was obviously scared out of my mind, so I did the only logical thing… I went to the pet store and bought both of the finches they had that looked identical. I had about two weeks to figure out which was more like the cat-bait. And then, not knowing what to do with the other, I kept it. They never found out or told me if they did.
And that’s the story of how I ended up with a pet finch.
#20 Not Really Any Less Terrifying
Forgetting to ask for a towel prior to getting into the shower.
#21 It Could Have Been Anything
A friend was doing some long-term house sitting and invited me over (the owners were aware and okay with this). We went down in the basement since that’s where the TV was. We got about halfway down the stairs and saw this thing just sitting on a shelf, chilling. It was about the size of a small dog, and kind of fuzzy.
It didn’t look alive, but the prospect of a dead thing was even worse. We noped out and went back upstairs to watch Netflix on the laptop instead. About a week later, my friend texted me. The thing was a mushroom garden that they’d put down there. Apparently, they had completely forgotten about it.
#22 Cool Prank, Bro
I was around 12. “Wanna see a cool trick?” my friend asked me. “Sure,” I replied. My friend then proceeded to bang his head against the wall, then fell flat to the ground, barely breathing. I panicked because we were alone. Turns out, he wanted to prank me but actually passed out. He woke up while I was panicking and decided to keep to his act.
#23 Lucky You Were Strong
I was babysitting a special needs two-year-old, and the kid wanted to go play outside. It was no biggie, but since it was fall in Alaska, I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t too cold out. I stepped outside to check their thermometer. The door locked behind me. I had no phone, and since it was Alaska, the closest neighbor was too far away for me to leave the kid alone in the house to get help.
So I ended up ramming into the door in a panic until the lock broke. The kid was okay; he got in the laundry but otherwise, he had no idea anything was wrong. I thought I would get in trouble for breaking their door but the mother said I could’ve broken a window and she wouldn’t have cared. I’m surprised I was strong enough to even knock the door down.
#24 Flirting Is Not The Same As Drowning
I think I was about seven or eight at the time. I remember being at my crush’s house for a pool party he had. We were swimming, and I think it was from the Lizzie Mcquire movie where I saw a girl and a guy swimming and flirting by pushing the other persons head under water. So, I did this to the guy, thinking it’d be cute.
After I did this, he did it to me, but for way longer than I did it. I couldn’t breathe and I remember I had to get out of the pool and sit down for a bit to catch my breath. Yeah, I don’t think understood that I was flirting with him.
#25 Crazy Kids
I was with a childhood friend at his house in the boonies. He lived in a real run-down house, but his neighbor down the road was pretty affluent, with a great house. He said he wanted to go exploring, and being a kid in the desert, I was down for that. He led us to the house, where he somehow convinced us to climb through the guy’s doggie door. Pretty great house, I still remember the layout vividly.
Anyway, there we were, exploring some random guy’s house when we heard a door open. My friend had thought the owner wasn’t home because the neighbor’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so he thought we were safe. We sprinted and hid behind separate leather couches in the guy’s living room. He came out into the kitchen, wearing a bathrobe and nothing else, and got a glass of water.
We watched him from behind the couches as he took his time and finally went back up the stairs. We sprinted out of that house and back to my friend’s house. I don’t think Usain Bolt himself could have beaten my seven-year-old sprint. It was pretty scary then, but it’s absolutely terrifying now to think about what could have happened.
#26 Tell Your Parents I’m Here
My cousin brought me to his friend’s house. We all hung out in the basement. My cousin forgot his cellphone and asked me if I could grab it from his car outside. I said yes, thinking nothing of it. As I walked around the house by myself, I ran into the friend’s dad. This guy’s father (who I’ve never met) looked me up and down and said, “WHO ARE YOU! WHY ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE!”
Mind you, we were in New Jersey and this was an Italian family, so I was basically getting yelled at by a discount Tony Soprano. This guy was flipping out and I got scared until my cousin came storming upstairs to clear everything up. All my cousin had to say was, “Frank, this is my cousin,” and just like that, crisis averted. Love you, New Jersey.
#27 I Would Scream So Loud
I was playing hide and seek at my best friend’s house and found an awesome spot under his parent’s bed. When I looked to the side, I saw a human foot, with a calf attached, wearing a shoe and everything. I felt my soul leave my body and made up some excuse to go home. Turns out, his mom was an amputee and it was her prosthetic leg, but I didn’t know that until my parents mentioned it a while later.
#28 Stuck In The Worst Place
In the third grade, I had a sleepover at my friend’s house. During dinner that night, I had to use the bathroom, and when I finished up my business to return, I couldn’t get out. The door handle wouldn’t budge and I had to shout for someone to save me. I was stuck in my friend’s bathroom for about 30 minutes and it freaked me out a good deal at the time.
#29 They’re So Nice
Their “friendly” 80-pound dogs that “don’t bite” tried to tear me apart.
#30 Poor Kids?
I was house sitting for an older neighbor who had gone to visit her grandkids a few states over. I didn’t have a place to stay anymore (as the term for the place I was living at was over). So, I agreed to do it since she would be gone long enough that I could stay there until I moved in with my grandmother and eventually to college.
I was sleeping on the couch and I heard panicked voices coming from the back of the house. I was already pretty on edge since I lived in a bad neighborhood and this was basically prime time for petty thieves. I slipped off the couch and started sneaking towards the back of the house. All the rental properties are laid out the same—you walk in the front door and you’re in the living room with the attached kitchen (which was separated by kitchen counter). Off to the side, you go into the hallway and you have two bedrooms on either side with a bathroom or laundry room at the end of the hallway.
I grabbed a knife out of the holder on the counter and started creeping down the hallway. I could hear one of the people freaking out. I could barely make it out since they were in one of the bedrooms, but it sounded like they were holding back sobs. I flung open the door and flipped on the light. There were two kids in the room; middle school kids who went to the school across the street.
Turns out, they were in the process of robbing the place when I showed up and they didn’t want to go to jail. They thought that they’d be able to sneak away when I went to the bathroom or something but they chickened out because they didn’t want to risk getting caught. They sat in that room for hours until night fell so they could sneak out.
#31 Close-Watching Neighbors
It was my parents’ home and they asked me to house sit. The neighbors knew they were gone and they thought I was just some random person, so they called the cops on me. I guess the cops just hung out outside waiting for the (presumed) burglar to come out, but when that didn’t happen and the lights went out, they decided to come in. I awoke to a bunch of cops shouting at me with drawn weapons and flashlights shining in my face.
#32 That’s Why You Don’t Work Out
Years ago, I was babysitting an infant who was down for his nap. The family had an inversion table and I decided to try it out. It’s one of those things where you lay down on a table, strap your ankles in and then flip the table so that you’re pretty much upside down. Well, stupid me couldn’t figure out how to flip the table back up so I could get out.
I started to panic, imagining that the family would come home to this scene with their baby crying in the crib… I was mortified. I’m sure there was some quick release thing but I couldn’t find it. I have no idea how long I struggled, but I eventually hulked out of it somehow. I still get sweaty thinking about how badly that could have gone. What an idiot.
#33 Weird Request
When I was eight or nine, my friend’s dad yelled at me, angrily, for going #2 at their house. I lived down the street, so he told me that I should have gone home to go #2. The funny thing is, I used their guest bathroom to do my business. It was a guest bathroom and he still got mad. Never again was I welcomed as a guest at their house.
#34 Not Funny
I slept on a former friend’s sofa. He decided to “prank me” by pretending to be a burglar wearing a ski mask, then he pretended to try and kidnap me. Long story short, I broke his nose and we are no longer friends.
#35 Families Are All… Different
I slept over at my best friend’s house when I was in fourth grade. Her brother had a fight with her mom, and they screamed at each other at the top of their lungs. He was very big and began to shake the mom against the wall. My friend woke up and ran towards them. The brother eventually calmed down and I was traumatized by what I saw. It’s kind of sad to realize that not all families are like mine.
#36 Some Headaches Are Just That Bad
I had a sleepover at best friend’s house when I was about 12. In the middle of the night after we’d fallen asleep, he woke up and started screaming that his head was going to explode. He just kept going, screaming and crying and thrashing around. His parents woke up, scooped him up, and rushed him to the hospital.
It turned out, he just never had a headache before, and his first was apparently a doozy.
#37 Dogs Can Be So Scary
I almost had a heart attack at 3 a.m. because my friend’s miniature pinscher jumped over the doggy gate and landed on my chest while I was asleep.
#38 That’s Why You Don’t Play With Fire
I tried to fill up a Zippo with butane, but as soon as I lit it, the Zippo exploded in flames. I went under my buddy’s couch and flames were coming from all edges of the couch. I flipped over the couch and grabbed the flaming Zippo with my bare hands, then threw it out of the window. My friend never knew about it and I never told him.
#39 Pranks Rarely End Well
It was decided that whoever fell asleep first would “get pranked.” I nodded off to sleep at around 3 a.m. About five minutes in, I got shaving cream sprayed in my ear canal. Not only did it freak me out, but I had the feeling like water was stuck in my ear for over a week. Pranks rarely end well, folks. Just stick to video games and pizza.
#40 The Real Danger
The toilet wouldn’t flush. It was traumatizing.
#41 Could You Fall Back Asleep?
The first time I met my boyfriend’s family, we stayed in his old attic bedroom. In the middle of the night, he reached over and shook me awake. I mumbled, “Huh?” to which he replied, “Shhh… Be very still… I think there is someone else in the house.” I immediately became motionless, thinking that someone with bad intentions had broken in.
I was listening to the sounds of the old creaky attic, convinced that every gust of wind was a footstep. He put his arm around my head, covering my ears. I didn’t move for hours in fear… until I hear him snoring. And that was the night I discovered, for the first time, that he talked in his sleep. It took me aback at first, but I’m used to it now.
#42 Why Are They All Different?
I slept over at my friend’s new house and I was about to take a shower. My friend had stepped out to get a couple of things at the corner store, so I was basically home alone. For a good half an hour, I was trying to figure out how his shower worked. When my friend came home, it turned out that I had forgotten to lock the bathroom door and since I wasn’t making any noise, he just walked in. I was butt naked.
#43 Death By Toothbrush
I was very young, seven maybe, when I slept over at a friend’s house. He was brushing his teeth, so I decided to sneak up and scare him. It worked, but he started choking on his toothbrush REALLY bad. The toothbrush got lodged in his throat and he was gasping for air. I don’t even know how it happened, honestly.
His dad saw this from the hallway, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, then led me to the living room where he briefly yelled at me. It was nothing too bad; I probably deserved it. He later apologized and we all had a laugh about it, but that was the scariest ten seconds of my life.
#44 Bad Timing
I was 12 years old, watching The Ring on VHS. About two minutes after the film ended, my friend’s house phone rang… We screamed bloody murder! It was her mom calling in to check on us. I was sleeping over that night and her parents were out at a dinner party, so we were all alone in a huge house that was silent and dark.
#45 It Doesn’t Come Out
I spilled some nail polish on her carpet and tried to rub it off.
