Landlords Reveal The Strangest Discovery They've Made About Their Renters
I've never been a landlord, but I did run a property management company. Part of our job was to clean up and clear out properties after tenants had been evicted or abandoned the place. They say you can tell a lot about a person based on what they leave behind and how they live. Sometimes, though, you'd honestly rather not know.
There was one elderly gentleman who passed away, leaving his entire home full of his stuff. His neighbors all liked him, but his adult daughter told us he was a creep and she wanted nothing to do with him or his stuff. She even let us keep his car when we found his keys. We learned a lot clearing out that home. For the first three hours we thought the walls were painted seafoam green. Then we started taking down art. The walls were actually blue but years of smoking inside of the home had left a thick film of yellow nicotine all over everything.
They needed to be steamed and scraped before they could be painted.
He also had an alarmingly large collection of neon man-thongs which he kept stored with lotions, lubes, body washes, hair gels, and jelly - anything slippery.
It was ... interesting. One Reddit user asked:
Landlords of reddit, what's the strangest discovery you've had renting out to people? [Serious]
And yeah, our racist closet neon thong dude was NOTHING compared to some of these tenants.
40.
After evicting a tenant, I found multiple adult toys in a birdcage in the garage. I'm guessing it was art or something.
- Slappy_J
39.
Several years ago I rented to a Chinese family that had moved to town and opened a restaurant. One day they told me that the bath tub was clogged. I hired a plumber and went over there. While snaking the tub or whatever it is that a plumber does, it was full of chicken feathers and bones. They had been slaughtering chickens in the bathtub, presumably for the restaurant.
- drmzbig
38.
GiphyWhen a guy moved out of my parent's rental property, they found out he had a beach party before leaving. There was a wrecked boat in the backyard and the lawn and carpet were completely covered in sand.
37.
Rented an apartment for a 6 month lease. tenant paid all 6 months in advance as well as a deposit. never made a sound and never really saw him. One day the upstairs neighbor said he heard someone leaving in the middle of the night.
We went expecting the worst. Apartment was immaculate. Looked like no one ever lived there apart from some food in the fridge. Cleaned it out and went to the dumpster out back where we found parts of a hydroponics set up. Plastic sheeting, tubes, empty nutrient jugs. Guess they would rent a spot, grow and leave after a harvest or 2. Genius and not mad really.
Took the PVC pipes bout 8in diameter with 4 inch holes every few inches, put dirt in it, and turned it into a hanging outdoor planter for flowers.
36.
A few weeks ago the maintenance guy at my apartment complex brought me a guinea pig. I answered the door and he was like "hey, I know you have one of these hamster things. It looks like the one you have. Do you want it? I have no idea what to do with it." Apparently, the people next door had a guinea pig and didn't want it anymore so they just let it loose in their apartment and left. He found it in a closet hiding under some clothes they left. I was afraid it might a girl because my boy guinea pig started freaking out, he was hopping around his cage and squeaking really loud. I took the guinea pig to my vet who told me it was a boy. He was just excited to have a friend. They're best friends now.
- Zastance
35.
This was after said tenant was arrested, we had to clean out his place and it was full of garbage, used condoms, more clothes than one man ever needs, needles (used ones were in those nice biohazard containers at least but unused ones were strewn everywhere) and illegal testosterone + weight gain drugs (guy was a bodybuilder)
He had 14 Miley Cyrus shirts, and all 3 walls in his living room were plastered with her posters. It was very weird.
34.
My parents rented out their empty house while they were staying out-of-state to a couple who really needed a place to stay. The couple ended up trashing the place completely and my parents had no experience as landlords and were totally taken advantage of. Their small dog chewed up all the siding up to his height level in the backyard, all the fans were missing blades somehow (we found them in the bathtubs), they dropped a weight on the floor and it went straight through the subfloor (they covered it up with a sticky tile), they had their bedroom set in the living room and used the bedrooms as a living room because the wife said she was diagnosed with Claustrophobia...it was all really weird.
But the strangest thing we found when we helped my parents clean it up to sell it was that they had been using one of the bedrooms as a home gym and we couldn't figure out why there was grease stains all over the walls. It was like a border of grease all at torso height. We later found out from the neighbor (who the renter tried to get to join CrossFit in his home gym) that the husband would do handstand push-ups in that room and the grease stains were actually all sweaty butt prints.
33.
Poop sticks.
We did AirBnB for a while (>2 years) and had a variety of people come and go. One person did not listen to us when we said you need to hold down the handle when flushing a #2, just because our plumbing was old. A diet consisting largely of milk, butter, and bread resulted in lots of clogs. This person thought plungers were dirty, though. So they would go to the yard, get a large twig, and break up the clog with that then re-flush. The stick would then go into the trash.
When they (finally) left our place, we found a bunch of sticks in their closet for just that reason, waiting to be used.
32.
GiphyI worked for a company with rentals many years ago, and they had rented to a South-East Asian family after they had been relocated to the US after the Vietnam war (and subsequent violence there).
One day I went to the property and went downstairs which was ENTIRELY flooded (I'm talking like 5 feet of water) where they were raising hundreds of Carp and other fish... presumably for many years. Complete with other plants, rice, and as a result many other living things in there.
They didn't really know any better... old men and women ripped out of their homeland after 50-60 years, and transplanted to the Midwest. They did what they thought was completely normal.
- alecks23
31.
There was one lady, not a move-out, but was a welfare-check due to a really bad smell in her apartment. She had barricaded the door to the wall opposite it. Six cops couldn't take it down. Finally maintenance had to disassemble the lock from the outside (which means basically prying it open and destroying the siding). Come to find out she's alive and fine (albeit bat-sh!t crazy). She had gotten a frozen turkey and left it in the kitchen sink for three months. The carcass was the source of the smell, and the reason for the welfare check.
- cmarin17
30.
Some trashy tenants got evicted and they left behind pretty much everything they had except their TV. I found a cookie tin with old military photographs that I guess were their grandpa's along with two pipes and a lighter.
They also left behind a few hundred VHS tapes that were ruined and several of those huge gas station rolls of toilet paper.
29.
My mother-in-law had rental property on the poor side of town. Most tenants were welfare recipients and though the rent was paid by welfare The money was given to the tenant to pay to the landlord As a result she had lots of people take the last 2 months of rent a skip out to Ontario or Alberta (she was in Newfoundland ). Her garage filled up with really sh!tty furniture after a Couple of years.
Funny footnote my girlfriend needed a toaster so I check with now ex mother in law. And sure enough she has one I can take for gf. It's an antique from the fifties one of those upright ones that can hold 6 slices. Gf is delighted at this beautiful appliance..... until she makes toast with it and instead of toast when the sides snap open it flung 4 fireballs across the counter. Lucky no damage was done.
28.
A long time ago a fellow rented a store from my parents. Was an artist he said and was going to paint landscapes . After 3 months he stopped paying rent and was ducking out and hiding. After a while mom loses patience and changes the locks and confiscated everything in the place. We found he was living in there ,no furniture ,no bathroom ,no water. All that was in there was sheets of masonite (some made into really shitty paintings ) a bunch of painting supplies and paint. There was several months worth of garbage ( think bread bags full of shit) and for some reason a deep freezer full of ice cream and nothing else. man did the place stink.
27.
I was the resident manager at the 'Y' for many years. Because we are right downtown next to the bus station and by all the social service agencies, we end up with people whose first step to structured housing is at the Y. We also have people who just left treatment, prison, etc - I strongly believe in second chances and for the most part, people didn't take advantage of that. However, there were so many incidents that would come and go with the times. Most recently, and the most heartbreaking was the amount of syringes and those orange needle caps I'd find. Everywhere. Others had hundreds of empty oxycontin and klonopin prescription bottles all over their rooms. Some were people I knew had a drug problem, others were people who I had no idea were using (or selling - I never could prove it).
I first arrived in the winter and the week after I started this job there was a woman on the top floor who we all knew would smoke with her window open and look out at the city. One morning I was woken up with frantic knocking and I went running outside to discover she had jumped. Sadly she was in her early 80's, found out she had cancer about a month earlier and decided she didn't want to go through all the treatment. Her life was not easy; she was one of the women on the 'women's-only floor' who moved in when she was in her 40's and never left. By the time she hit her 80's she couldn't get around much, and we had one of those old sliding cage elevators you don't see much anymore. When the elevator would break, she was trapped on the 5th floor and couldn't go anywhere. We would all chip in and bring her groceries, meals, etc. When she jumped it was especially difficult for me because it had been snowing, and there was blood and other fluids in the snow - that image has never left my memory.
We had an 18-year-old diabetic woman who moved in who had a very serious drug (oxycontin) problem. She told me this from day 1, she just finished treatment and wanted to start her life. She was estranged from her parents, but they sent the money for her deposit and first six months' rent. She was a small-town girl and I tried to look in on her to see that she was okay. She befriended this man on the 2nd floor who was in his 50's and very shady. Before I knew it she was spending the night in his room and he became more and more controlling. He came running down the stairs to the lobby one night and said she was very sick and needed an ambulance. We called and later on she died in hospital. Turns out he was withholding her insulin and not letting her leave his apartment...but we couldn't come up with anything to bring charges against him. It was just our hunch. The worst part yet was when her mother showed up and - didn't ask about her daughter's death or anything just 'where is the deposit money?' got it and left.
There were many interesting people who weren't addicts or sick or criminals. I'll never forget how many people I met from all over the world just starting their lives here, and just listening to their stories of where they came from or what they had to do in order to come to Canada; their lives back home and many held very prestigious jobs that unfortunately didn't have the credentials to transfer to a similar job here. Many who were white-collars back in their countries were night shift workers at 7-11 here or sold tickets at Greyhound or something. A LOT of the young girls were strippers who made decent money, but their drug problems ate up most of that money. Many of the young people moving in were gay/lesbian and had no family support, so we were the only sense of 'home' they had. Many evenings I'd be working at the desk and I'd invite them down to eat in the lobby. I think that gave them some sense of home - at least a home where they could be who they were without fear.
For the most part I liked that job, but such a dramatic change in the last 3 years in particular - so many overdoses, so many thefts to get money for dope or pills - that energy that I saw when I first started was gone. The drug problem here has been massive and has claimed a lot of lives. Many of whom were people I didn't even know had a drug problem. And I think that's one of the biggest problem we take on today working in housing. Especially in big cities in the middle of downtown in SRO (single room occupancy) places like the 'Y', you have people who sit in those little rooms and don't talk to anyone and never go anywhere. The loneliness is palpable. It's not hard to see why these addictions to substances that make someone feel happy and euphoric begin.
26.
GiphyI have a ton of stories about crazy stuff...there was a 3rd story apartment that was empty, or so I thought. I got a call from the cops asking for permission to the apartment so I go over there to find out 3 drug dealer squatters were living there. I kicked the door open since they had barricaded it. they then jumped to the next buildings roof and made a break for it. but left goodies behind. which included a ps3, 4 games, 3 remotes, a 42in Sony flatscreen tv, a fridge full of food. needless to say I got a free rv and ps3 that day.
25.
I lived in an apartment building and my next door neighbors were a Japanese family that owned a sushi place around the corner. One day I noticed them moving all their stuff out and asked the caretaker what was going on. He said he figured out they were cooking all of the restaurant food in their apartment and then carrying it around the corner.
24.
I've had a tenant renting a room for a month before the other tenants and yours truly discovered that she was a prostitute working from home.
Took me 3 weeks to realize that a new person coming over every day between 1 and 2:30 in the afternoon was suspicious.
23.
We rented apartments with autonomous heating and in one apartment from one time and on the usage of heating in the winter was minimum ( the tennant lives over 5 years in the same apartment).
After he left we found out that he had disabled the regulator in order to have hot water when the rest of the apartments used the heating. So every one paid his comfort.
22.
Guess strange might not be the most accurate word. Wild maybe.
We had a family in one of our houses who we struggled to get rent from regularly before they eventually got evicted. Which landlords know is a goddamn awful process when they want to resist.
Well we end up having to get an entirely new water meter installed when they're finally gone.
Turned out they were never paying their bills and cooking meth. When the power got shut off they stole it. Which isn't unheard of.
But they somehow stole water too and the water company came out and removed the entire water system. We spent a lot of money getting that fixed.
21.
My grandparents:
Rented an apartment to a nice family; mom, dad, three young kids. Always paid rent, were always easy to deal with, never reported any problems. Model tenants, right?
A week after they move out, grandfather goes in to check the place out to sign off on security deposit and get the place ready for next tenants.
Everything was gone. Everything. Little stuff like curtains and light bulbs, but also the curtain hooks, rods, and light fixtures. Carpets. Interior doorknobs. Light switches, power outlets, and most of the associated wiring. The dishwasher, oven, kitchen sink, toilet. An attempt had been made on the bathtub, and that ended up being the only fixture in the place not taken.
Court happened. Grandparents were awarded almost the entire value of the apartment in compensation.
20.
My parents bought a place that they were renting to my brother and his friends throughout university and they would sublet it out for the summers. Anyways... some random day when I was in high school there was a knock on the door. Standing there was these two incredibly gorgeous women and their boyfriends. They explained that they were subletting from my parents and handed me an envelope of cash containing the damage deposit and all four months of rent for the four of them... in cash. I assumed they were involved in organized crime somehow. Nope. They were porn stars. 6 months later one of my brother's friends found all the pornos that they had been filming all over my parent's house.
19.
GiphyMy dad rented out a property a few years back where the tennant just stopped paying rent. Eventually she gets evicted and dad goes in to clear up and dispose of her stuff....
Well turns out she'd be using it as a brothel.
Loads of 'sexy' costumes. Oodles of porn. Just what you'd expect really. And a little black book of clients.
18.
Evicted a hoarder tenant after some serious issues with their cleanliness and late rent issues. Their hygiene was so bad that other people in the complex were actually complaining, and upon walkthrough I found some serious issues that were causing mold and other damage to the unit. One being that the toilet had fully over capacity and was filled with stagnant old feces.
Anyways about a week after cleaning out the unit, fixing the damage, and assisting the old tenant with finding new residence, the owner of the other unit called me Concerned because the smell coming from the unit was still present. I Realized we hadn't cleaned the garage.
When we went over, we opened it up, we found trash bags. Many. Old moldy fast food. Some trash. But lots of sh!t.
17.
Father-in-law and I are landlords; mine are upscale places, but his are more lower rent types. Anyway a murder had been committed in one of his small two room cottages. The coroner had removed the body and the police had finished their investigation so we were cleared to clean up the place.
There was no one you could hire to do this cleanup back then so we did it ourselves. The victim had been stabbed in his bed so the mattress was a huge sponge soaked in blood. The perpetrator had dragged the body off the bed and out to his car. There was this long blood smear across the bedroom floor, through the living room floor and across the porch where the body had been loaded into a car.
The police had gone through the rooms with a huge black marker pen making big circles around anything they thought important; like holes in the couch could maybe be bullet holes, they put a big felt marker circle around the holes. Sofa is now junk, it and the blood-soaked mattress went to the dump. Blood cleaned off the floors.
A suspect had been pulled over, the empty trunk of his car was filled with blood but NO BODY, so he wasn't charged. Never found out if anyone was charged or convicted for that murder. Cottage cleaned up we put it up for rent again.
16.
When I was younger, my mother rented out our basement suite to a woman and her grown son. She was dressed well and had great manners, the whole nine yards. After a while we noticed people coming all hours of the night, but no excessive noise, so my mom had no issues. After two months she didn't pay the third months full rent so my mom decided she'd just add it to the next month as a little leeway. The next months rent was the same, just a little, not the full amount. This is where things started to get weird and go down hill. One night my mom was taking out the garbage and saw the woman and her son making out behind the garage in the alleyway. My mom was shook and I remember her coming into the house as white as a ghost.
The next little while whenever she saw them they were really touchy feely and I remember the woman didn't look like how she did when she first showed up. She was haggard and her eyes looked sunken and her hair was ratty. She became pregnant soon after and I remember my mom and grandma talking in hushed tones about how she's having her son's child. It was scandalous. It took my mom close to a year to kick her out, she had to go through the courts and a lot of the rights are in favour of the tenants so we had a long uphill battle. But we finally got her out where the bailiffs came and she could grab whatever she wanted to take with her.
She left a lot behind and my mom had to clean it up and this place was a mess. Dirty clothes, diapers, and best of all, needles. So many needles all over the place. It looked like a dump site for junkies.
15.
Manage office buildings. One that comes to mind is a tenant that knew for some time they were going bankrupt and handled it in the worst possible way. Rather than tell us they moved out in the middle of the night. So instead of happily finding a new tenant in the several months they paid (building was 100% occupied and new tenants were about 10% above their rent) our legal team went after them. Ended up getting in to personal assets of the owner because we were entitled to several more years rent and unamortized costs under their lease.
They also left furniture electronics and supplies worth about two years rent in their space for us to claim and sell. Yet they took some rented or leased OT and office equipment and had vendors hunting them down.
14.
Had a tenant that was raising birds and would just hose down the bird poop and the water would cause a leak for the neighbour downstairs. And left a bad smell in the building. We asked him to leave so before he left he poured cement down every hole in the apartment (sinks toilets. Bathtub. Gutters). Needless to say repairs to get the apartment ready for the next tenant wasn't easy.
13.
Rented to a family (mom, dad and son) that practiced Santaria. My wife entered the property and found a decapitated sheep hanging in the garage. There was a pentagram drawn on the floor beneath the carcass. She ran home screaming "Call 911 call 911!" Turns out there's no law against sacrificing a sheep in our town.
12.
GiphyAlright boys and girls, hold onto your hats cuz I got a story for you.
The tale of Two dead bodies.
- There was this one particular property I was involved with a few years back... it wasn't a particularly bad property, but it wasn't necessarily a great one either... mostly due to minor stupid things... like people stealing random sh!t like two large blue recycling bins went missing one summer... we figured it was most likely local university kids using them for some drunk stunt or whatever... Jackass was popular back then and it was a university neighbourhood.
So on one fine summer weekend the on-site super gets a complaint that there is a horrible stench in the hallway on one of the floors. He heads over to investigate, upon arrival the smell is overpowering... anyone that has experienced decomposing bodies knows the smell all too well. The super proceeds to enter the apartment that the stench seems to be emanating from, and he immediately discovers a guy keeled over, back of his head bludgeoned to smithereens, face down on the couch. Blood is splattered everywhere and it was pretty recent by the looks of it.
So the super calls the cops who come in, cordoned the apartment and do whatever it is they need to do, the coroner removes the body, and everyone is gone after several hours. The body had ID, and it was NOT the renter. This is an important detail... the renter was nowhere to be found. The cops obviously peg the renter as the main suspect, they now need to find him. Low and behold they find him a couple of blocks away at a bar having the time of his life. They pick him up for questioning, he admits to the murder of random dude, and that's that... case closed right? Na uh... now when the police inform him he's being charged with one account of murder supposedly he responded by saying something along the lines of "Ay, just one?! That's great, there's at least one more in there."
... the cops were completely bewildered... there was a second body and somehow NO ONE seemed to have noticed it. Very odd considering they had cordoned the apartment and conducted an investigation or whatever. So confused they quickly called the on-site super to stand by and unlock the apartment when they arrive, they're coming back to take another look around the apartment. Long story short they show up, cops and super enter the unit, stench is still as strong as ever and finally the super makes the discovery. In a closet is one of the missing large blue bins, the second body (female) was inside. Why the cops didn't think to look inside of an obviously out of place giant blue recycle bin that clearly doesn't belong in an apartment and is hidden (barely) in a closet is beyond me.
So what was the story here... simply the killer's girlfriend was cheating on him, he finds out and kills both. Stealing the buildings blue recycle bin and stuffing the girlfriend in it and shoving it in his closet.
Now the part that still irks me to this day... we had two blue recycle bins stolen... we only found one of them... and the killer admitted there was "AT LEAST ONE MORE IN THERE"... as in there is at least one more in the apartment, but also maybe Hinting at the possibility there's another body (in a blue bin?) somewhere. What are the chances we had two bins stolen around the same time by different people... too much of a coincidence if you ask me.
Now for those very perceptive readers out there... how is it that the woman's body was decomposing and rancid, but the dude was freshly bludgeoned? I left out some details that I will now share with you. Apparently the killer discovered his girlfriends infidelity several weeks prior... when he found out, he killed her, stuffed her in the bin and shoved it in his closet. Knowing he was running on borrowed time and not giving any f***s about life from that point forward, he gave his notice that he was vacating (60 days legal notice is the requirement in my area) and planned to bugger off into the sunset at some point. Meanwhile, for a couple of weeks our leasing staff proceeded to show the unit to prospective renters... and one peculiar issue that was discussed was that the unit had a very bad odour when entering it, and the renter always apologized for the smell making excuses that it was his girlfriend and some such nonsense that honestly the leasing staff weren't paid enough to care. They had several apartments to rent, they eventually focused on others and figured they'd let maintenance sort out the smell issue when the resident moves out.
So initially for weeks people had been entering the apartment smelling the rancid smell of a decomposing dead body that had been shoved hidden away in the closet. Oh my god yuck...
As for the dude who got killed, after not being able to contact the girl, he must have been concerned and come looking for her... which is when the killer exacted revenge to the back of his skull.
I got plenty more great stories, but this one by far stands out as the most insane/interesting/funny/cringy story I have from my days in operation.
11.
I had a tenant I had to evict. Found that he had taken out the electric hot water heater & installed his own (not approved for houses) gas hot water on demand. He replaced the electric dryer and the electric stove with gas units all by himself without a certified professional. All in 4 months. Cost me $4000 to fix the damage
10.
My grandma was renting out the bottom half of our duplex for a long while. We ended up evicting the tenants for not paying rent. Well several days after they left we heard strange noises coming from down stairs. We thought they had broken in the house.
Finally after looking around we found an older black cat. They gave their cat a bowl of water and some dry food and left the poor thing there for us to find. They had stashed the water and food in the back of the closet and we didn't see it when we changed the locks. Cat lived with us for a year or so until it got out the house and became an outdoor cat.
9.
My Mom rented our old house to a nice young couple with a newborn. A year later the wife called to say she was moving out because the husband was shot and killed in a bank robbery in Florida. Apparently he travelled around the country robbing banks.
8.
I had a restaurant rent my storefront for their dining room. They did a quick renovation of the space to repaint and remove all the shelves and counters from a small pharmacy that was there before. Instead of hiring a dumpster they piled all the construction debris in my basement.
7.
I was doing a property investigation at an apartment complex for new purchase. The second floor tenant tore out the entire kitchen and lined the floor with plastic and filled it with water, 18 inches deep for an orgy. It was nsane. We noped out on that property after that.
6.
I've had family that worked in property management, and the one story that sticks with me, was that one tenant managed to get a jar of peanut butter into the toilet pipe.
We're not sure how this happened, because we're pretty sure a couple laws of physics were broken doing it. It was a plumber hired to fix the toilet and... he was the one that found it.
5.
GiphyTenants skipped town owing one month's rent. Left a ton of stuff behind, including: a bottle of HIV meds, several perfectly good mid range watches, lots of special edition gaming merch, and the entire back wall of the garage was lined with heavy duty trash bags that were filled with used kitty litter.
4.
My parents had rented out an apartment to an Indian couple who had a 5 year-old boy. When it came time for them to leave my parents went to do the routine check and found all the corners of the walls were chewed roughly three feet up from the ground.
Turns out their son would gnaw on the walls because he had some sort of calcium deficiency. The parents tried to argue that it wasn't their fault and that they wouldn't pay. Eventually my parents got them to pay for the damages and then sold the apartment.
3.
My grandparents rent out rooms in their house. They rented one out to this guy who kept all of his dirty dishes in a suitcase in the closet with empty BBQ containers from fast food spots. My grandparents provided all the dishes and had a dishwasher they just asked that the tenants rinse and they would load them. It was odd.
2.
Dudes mom in the unfinished basement that wasn't fit for human habitation. It was sealed off, and had to be accessed from outside. Basically just the furnace room. She was in a hospital bed and buckets laying around.
1.
I got a great deal on a house because of one of these.
My former landlord showed up to an empty house needing a complete renovation. Broken windows, blood. Walls had been knocked down. Electricity rewired to bypass the meter. Remnants of a grow-house.
And a nice friendly note from the DEA demanding that he proved he was not involved.
The funny part to me was that he had a security screen door on the front of the house that apparently was too hard for the DEA to bust through. So they broke down three doors on the side of the house.
The next door neighbor was a sheriff and had no idea until the raid.
People Break Down The Cooking Hacks They Swear By
Reddit user Penya23 asked: 'What are some cooking hacks you swear by?'
Adults, who told you that you were going to have to come up with something to eat, three times per day, every day, for the rest of your life?
That fact feels like a false advertisement for life sometimes, but there are ways of making what can be a tough requirement go much smoother than what some of us may be currently putting up with.
Redditor Penya23 asked:
"What are some cooking hacks you swear by?"
Reduce Waste with Water
"Revive veggies that have lost their water by cutting their edges and soaking them in cold water. Lettuce, carrots, and celery will be crisp again."
- Rosy180
"Old produce guy here. Luke warm water is best, then refrigerate. The warm water makes the plant cells open more to absorb more water; while the refrigerator makes them hard to retain water and crisp."
- tjipa84
Buy the Good Scissors
"A quality set of scissors will save you so much hassle..."
- Mitchs_Frog_Smacky
"They should be able to disassemble at the hinge point for cleaning purposes."
- adamadamada
"And for sharpening. I hate MLMs as much as the next gal, but those d**n Cutco scissors my mom has are still going strong 25 years later."
- burnt00toast
Perfect and Easy Stuffed Shells
"When making stuffed shells by hand, mix the filling in a zip-lock bag, then cut a corner off and use it as a makeshift piping bag to fill the shells."
- PApauper
Include That Extra Zing
"If your food is bland even though you've added salt, then it's missing acidity. Lemon juice, lime juice, or vinegar are easy additions."
- PhreedomPhighter
Use the Power of Salt
"Salting your food 20 to 40 minutes before cooking makes a world of difference in the salt permeating the food."
- illusiveXIII
"Pat the meat dry first, then salt. This shift in osmolarity between the surface and the inside allows better penetration if the salt."
- tossthedice511
The Soy Sauce Secret
"I use soy sauce in a lot of stews and soups to help bring out savory flavors. My minestrone, for instance, usually has some soy sauce in it."
- potentialEmployee248
Don't Forget the Cocoa Powder
"Don't knock unsweetened cocoa powder. I add this to stews and chilis, and it adds a rich depth of flavor, and no one can pick out the cocoa."
- rthaw
"Everybody raves about my pecan pie and always wants me to make them for potlucks or gatherings. It’s literally the Karo syrup bottle recipe with a teaspoon of cinnamon, the tiniest dash of ginger, and 1.5 tablespoons of cocoa powder, and it’s exactly like you mentioned, a depth of flavor without actually tasting like chocolate."
- loyalpagina
MSG is Not All Bad
"Try a little powdered MSG. It will make any stew better. Chili and gumbo in particular really benefit, in my honest opinion."
- Red_Spork
"It's not called Makes Stuff Good for nothing."
- aquila-audax
Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
"Not my tip, but my wife browns the butter before she adds it to chocolate chip cookie dough and they're the best freakin cookies I've ever eaten!"
- dcbluestar
"If my recipe calls for cinnamon or other spices and melted butter, I let the spices cook in the butter for a bit to bloom them."
- screech_owl_kachina
Know the Difference Between Spices
"One thing that took me embarrassingly long to learn was that some spices are fat-soluble, and others are water-soluble."
"When I first started learning to cook, I wanted to figure out how to use each of the common spices."
"I put a dab of paprika on my finger, licked it, and it tasted like... nothing. I concluded that it was a useless spice and took it out of my cooking."
"I was wrong, of course. Paprika is fat-soluble, so when I put it straight on my tongue, there was nothing that could break it down. If I'd mixed it with oil or butter first, the taste would've been apparent."
"We have to be conscious of this in our cooking. Water-soluble compounds can be readily broken down by the saliva in our mouths, but fat-soluble ones need to be mixed with a fat (e.g. 'bloomed' in butter)."
"And a lot of spices (including garlic and cinnamon) contain both types of compounds, so they'll have one flavor on their own, but a different, fuller flavor when bloomed."
- FutureBlackmail
Easy Safety is the Best Safety
"Leaving a potholder on the handle of a cleaned cast iron pan to let anyone who might put it away know it may be hot as it cools down."
- Huntsmart2000
"Ditto for any skillet that comes out of the oven after roasting or braising. A towel immediately goes over the handle to remind myself not to instinctively go for the handle."
- Drach85
Avoid That Bitter Note
"If a recipe says to sauté onions and garlic together at the same time, DON'T."
"Do the onions first, and then add the garlic when the onions are just about done. Garlic can be over sautéed and it takes on a bitter flavor."
- dcbluestar
Prep Before, and Clean As You Go
"Prep everything first. Have all of your veggies cut and ingredients ready. You will be more relaxed."
"Clean as you go. Wash your dishes while waiting for your food to finish cooking. Fewer dishes to deal with at the end of the night."
- Draginia
Nothing Like High-Quality Knives
"Knives, get good knives and a sharpener."
- Pews_TRB
"Also, knife quality has NOTHING to do with how sharp it is in advertising or when you get it."
"If it dulls after cutting a few soft items, you probably got scammed."
- Ciryl_Lynyard
Small Additions Make All the Difference
"If your executive function is betraying you and you rely on microwaveable or premade meals, find something small you can add to make them more substantial and to feel more like a meal."
"Add chopped broccoli to ramen noodles. Cumin and red pepper flakes are great to toss in, too. Cook minute rice with a chicken boullion cube and some butter and pretend it’s risotto."
"My personal favorite is to dump a can of corn into a microwave-safe bowl and mix in a bunch of taco seasoning."
"And if clean-up is a struggle too, use paper plates and bamboo flatware. Disposable chopsticks are super cheap and easy to find online."
"When you’re struggling with depression, fatigue, or anything that makes taking care of yourself harder, taking shortcuts isn’t laziness, it’s how you survive to make those more daunting tasks a little less scary."
"Unrelated: if you’re making a soup or stir fry with lots of veggies, sauté the veggies a bit before adding other ingredients until the onions are translucent. I’m sure there’s some food science reason that this makes soups taste better but I have no idea what it is."
- ThunderDash
"As a multiply disabled person, f**k yes!"
"I swear by those 90 second rice packs. I get Ben's Original (Kroger, $1 sale), as well as Walmart and Target store brands ($1.25 to $1.50). Is it so much more expensive? F**k yes, but it's worth it."
"Frozen vegetables, canned beans, and rotisserie chicken are shortcuts that many poo poo on, but for me, they mean the difference between not eating and eating."
"And my personal favorite, adult Lunchables made from a handful of nuts or a spoonful of nut butter, crudites, and fresh fruit with cheese and crackers/pretzels/mini bread is such an easy thing to throw together and snack on for hours."
- annimdi
While cooking may not be everyone's favorite past time, there are ways to make the whole experience easier, much more enjoyable, and tastier than anything you've whipped up before.
We all have our own ideas about what our lives should look like and how we want our individual households to run.
When a young person wants different things for their home than their parents do, it might be time to move out.
Redditor RavenGreekGod asked:
"What made you move out of your parents' house?"
Too Many Cooks
"Too many adults under one roof. I needed to branch off and be my own person in my own space."
- cmf1990
Simple Independence
"I love my parents, and I honestly have a great relationship with them. In fact, I'm moving across the country to be near them in about a month, and I'll be living with them for a bit while I search for my own place."
"However, when I live with them, I struggle to act as an independent adult. It's as much my fault as everyone else's, but I still prefer living on my own long term."
- retief1
Financial Trouble
"Mom was downsizing due to financial difficulties and didn’t have room for me in the new apartment."
"So, I struck a deal with the manager of the little restaurant where I worked part-time to rent a room from him and his wife while I finished high school. It was a good growing-up experience."
"The only downside was I’m pretty sure my manager didn’t bother mentioning to his wife that some awkward pimple-faced 17-year-old would me moving in until that Saturday morning when I was dragging all my crap through their living room towards the back bedroom."
"She gave me a frosty reception and frankly, I couldn’t blame her."
- Southern_Snowshoe
Not So Merry Christmas
"My brother's friend called home from college in early December, to make travel plans for coming home over Christmas break."
"His parents said, 'Oh, uh, yeah, about that, we meant to tell you before... we moved... to a one-bedroom apartment... but I guess if you wanted to come here and sleep on the couch for the break, I guess that would be okay...'"
"He did not go home over break, or to my knowledge, ever again. He spent Christmas at our house that year, instead of with his own family."
- DaddyBeanDaddyBean
"Crippling Disability"
"Living with my s**tty, controlling parents for 18 years was enough to make me move out and run to the farthest, most remote college I could without having to pay out-of-state fees."
"They wanted me to stay home and go to community college because I was their 'precious, delicate little girl' and because I had ADHD, it meant I was destined to be incapable of looking after myself, and they needed to shelter me."
"Everything I accomplished, my grades, my awards, my honors, they attributed it all to themselves, not to me (I couldn't achieve those things, I had ADHD after all. In their eyes, it was all them). They believed being verbally abusive somehow helped me succeed (it didn't, it just stunted my growth)."
"I took my diploma, my scholarships, and my PC and got the f**k outta dodge. Best decision I ever made. I did just fine, and I am a successful electrical engineer with a husband, a house, and an active healthy social life."
"So much for my 'crippling disability.'"
- McMew
Severe Anxiety Attacks
"I found an okay job and left immediately. I’m lucky I did. I can survive about a week with my dad before remission into panic attacks and severe anxiety. The last time I spent more time than that, we had an argument that ended with me in the hospital (no violence, just fear)."
"Yeah, no thanks. I’ve since gotten a support group of friends that I can stay with if something goes wrong, and I’m lucky I can live without him spending much time in my life. I don’t think I’d be around if I couldn’t."
- MountainMan2_
Packed the Bags
"We didn’t have a house. We lived in an apartment. I had been paying half the rent since I was 15."
"One day, I got home, and my mom was packing bags. I asked what’s up, where was she going? She said she was going to go stay with my sister and see my nieces. I was like okay, cool, see you in a few days, I guess."
"I got a call two weeks later that she wasn’t coming back and already told the landlord I’d be out in 24 hours. I called the landlord and told him I had no idea what was going on. He gave me a month to move out."
"I put all my mom's stuff in storage and started life on my own. To this day, I don’t know why she chose to up and leave me. I’ve asked her and she just says she missed my nieces and wanted to be with them."
"Really going to drop a 17-year-old and give them 24 hours to move out. Took a long time to get over."
- captainkrakin
18 and Homeless
"She kicked me out the day after my 18th birthday because I turned 18. She dropped me at a homeless shelter with a small laundry basket of clothing and no money."
- AkKik-Maujaq
Time to Cosign
"I went to college. When I graduated, I moved back until I could find my own place."
"After a week of living there, I felt it was time to go. I had a fine childhood and my parents are nice and all. But my dad went right back to treating me like a high schooler. If he wanted me to do something around the house, I had to do it right then, like I didn't just work 8 hours like everybody else."
"The funny thing is, he told me that I had six months to find my own place (which is fine, this was in 2006). I asked him to cosign on an apartment and moved out after two weeks of living there."
"He then told me he was joking about the six months. I think he missed me."
- CaptainAwesome06
Unreasonable Standards
"My dad raised the rent to pay half of his mortgage while I was 17 and had barely gotten my first job. Talk about killing your kid's economic future."
"It was an easy decision to move out. He was also an alcoholic and smoked like a chimney. You live and move on."
- Intrepid-Ad-3871
Anxiety-Inducing
"I could practically feel their breath on the back of my neck."
- burn-babies-burn
Classic Scapegoat
"I was already in the process of finding a place to live when I got kicked out by my mom. And it was for something I didn't even do! (It's so ridiculous that I can kinda laugh about it now, but the situation was so messed up.)"
"My parents have a terrible marriage and apparently, my dad decided to use something I said in an argument against my mom. Thing is? I never said the things he claimed I did. I was asleep for most of this screaming match (they happened daily, so you learned to sleep through it) and was entirely unaware that I had been thrown under the bus."
"I woke up the next morning to my mother waiting for me in the kitchen, going absolutely bananas, yelling at me, and I could not get a word in. I had to leave with no warning and just stuff as much as I could into my backpack and two plastic bags and drag my belongings with me to my first-year uni math lecture. I had to explain to all my friends why on earth I was dragging so much stuff around all day, fun times."
"To this day, six years later, they still have not acknowledged that it happened and just pretend that it was a 'disagreement' where I was equally at fault."
- mihio94
A Golden Scapegoat
"I was every parent's dream. A law-abiding, obedient, straight-A student going to college on scholarship."
"I nannied, tutored, chauffeured, and cleaned up after my three younger sisters. My part-time job went to groceries for the family instead of luxuries or even savings for myself."
"But somehow Mom was unable to communicate with me in any form other than lecturing. I was never good enough."
"I left at 17 and never looked back. I have a chill, successful, happy life surrounded by people who appreciate me and tell me so. Mom doesn't understand why I don't call her (for more lectures)."
- bluescrew
The Circle of Life
"I got pregnant at 18, married, moved out, and had the baby at 19."
"Then I divorced, went back home, and then out, and then back in a few times over the following years."
"Finally at 26, I moved out again with a degree, a career, and the best husband ever."
"And then five years later, my parents moved in with me. Life is crazy."
- Gladyskravitz99
There are all sorts of reasons that a young adult will decide to move out beyond simply turning 18.
Though some will move out because of toxic homes and parents who make them move out, there are others who move for far more independent reasons, like going off to college or wanting to start a life of their own.
Outdoorsy People Break Down The Most Terrifying Experiences They've Ever Had In The Woods
Being surrounded by nature by going camping or hiking is a yearning many people have to escape their everyday metropolitan trappings.
However, as much as a breath of fresh air is a good thing for everyone, not everything encountered in the woods can be utopian or blissful.
Because we just might encounter a wolf disguised as grandma, or even worse things.
Curious to hear what other horrors might be lurking in nature, Redditor Inevitable-Print-702-702 asked:
"Outdoorsmen of Reddit, what’s your most terrifying encounter in the woods?"
Some things are better left undiscovered.
Lost Hearing
"Man I don't even go out that often but the one time I do I found a severed ear on a hiking path."
– hausenbergerdorff
Fertilizing The Grounds
"A grown man taking a sh*t, when I was maybe 8-9. He was squatting in the trees off the trail, dressed in business casual. We made eye contact, he looked absolutely terrified, and I turned and started walking away. For some reason, he said, 'Wait!'"
"I did not wait and took off running."
"He might've been some kind of pervert with a sinister post-dump plan, but I think he just panicked and probably didn't know why he said that. I like to imagine him fleeing through the woods, watching for the police and thinking, 'why the hell did I tell him to wait???'"
– FoldedaMillionTimes
Ominous Dwellers
"In the 90s, I was on a week-long backpacking trip with my uncle in the Colorado high-country. He was a professional rock climbing-trail guide at the time, so he knew his stuff while off-the-grid."
"The second day in, we were following some old trail that hadn't been groomed in years, and came across the outskirts of some random commune deep in the woods. We knew there were people there because we could see campfires and laughing/talking in the distance."
"My uncle immediately freaks out, tells me to keep quiet, and then made us back track nearly five miles, and then around. It was the first and only time I've actually seen him panic off-the-grid."
"Afterward, he lectured me that it was some kind of small sect or cult that had a rep for being very territorial in the area at the time, and was known to shoot at trespassers without provocation."
– Avery_Di_Umbra
Animals are cute...when you're not invading they're territory.
When Comes Mama
"I was all dressed up in a ghillie photographing bee-eaters and then some little boar piglets start getting near me sniffing at me. 10 seconds later I hear a very loud noise and the mom was running towards me. I left there my camera and climbed the nearby tree faster than a monkey. I stayed up there like an airborne turd half afternoon."
– Ares982
Adrenaline Rush
"While on horseback came across a deer carcass. Horse was spooked and about 30 yards away saw a grizzly stand up...... Felt my heart pumping hard."
– Quiet-Cancer
Bear-ly Breathing
"Had an over-curious bear climb up the tree I was in during a hunt and man I almost jumped out of the tree. He just wanted to say hi but sh*t yo I definitely was scared to death."
– MaximumMajestic
Bye, Kitty Kitty
"Face to face with a cougar while making my way to the deer stand. I had to check my drawers afterwards."
– otcconan
Welcome Cow-mittee
"I was on a month-long canoeing trip though the sub-arctic tundra. I was looking for a good place to set up my tent, I hadn't realized I had just accidently stumbled within 10 meters or so of a massive Caribou bull and two cows."
"We all just stared at each other for a minute or so, then they ran off."
– Drach88
Unpredictable dangers befell these innocent Redditors while in the forest.
Open Season
"When I was like 14 I was hunting deer with my dad and heard a weird sizzle. I heard 2 more and my dad screamed at me to get down. It was the sound of another hunter shooting in our direction. He hadn't seen us despite the orange. I will never forget that sound. It's a very different experience being on the other end of the bullet."
– Post-Scarcity-Pal
Close Calls
"Slipped and tumbled backwards head over heels down a rock face. There was about a twenty foot drop after that but I got wedged in between a tree and the rock face. Ended up walking away with just a couple bruises."
"Another time in the Sierra Nevadas I fell through a hole that was covered in snow. My rifle stopped me from falling straight through and I yelled for help. When I was getting pulled out all I saw was a black hole beneath me that covered in snow again. No idea how deep it was or if anyone would have heard me if I just poofed through the snow into a crevasse."
– COCKBLOKALYPSE
Raining Bullets
"Bullets whizzing over my head. Some smooth brains were target shooting in the middle of an established hiking trail. Wasn't a one off experience either!"
– _old_relic_
Woods in general freak me out due to the lack of clear line of sight.
For that reason alone, I tend to avoid wooded areas and prefer prairies, meadows, or a clearing when I go hiking.
So if I find anything that doesn't belong out on my hike, it won't raise alarm because being out in the open somehow makes it less ominous for me.
Now, if I see a wild animal that might want to cause me harm or views me as lunch, I'm pretty much screwed since I won't be able to scamper up any trees or hide behind one.
Well, so much for that.
There is little people fear more than their home being broken into.
Particularly when they're inside it.
Unlikely as the prospect sounds, there are a staggering 1.65 million home invasions in the US per year.
And in many of those cases, people were unlucky enough to have been home when these invasions took place.
Those who lived to tell the tale, however, might consider themselves lucky.
"People who were in a real home invasion situation, what was it like and what did you do?"
He Didn't Know Who He Was Dealing With...
Dude came knocking on the front door and my mom and I ignored it."
"I was about 10 and my mom didn’t want to answer the door to a stranger."
"He knocked a while then went around the back and hopped the gate to try the back door."
"My mom got her gun and opened the back door with it visible, right before he tried to smash the glass."
"He took off running and was arrested on B&E charges the next day after he broke into someone else’s apartment and couldn’t run."- SilverSunrises
It's Always Lunch Money That Gets Stolen First...
"Was in 7th grade home alone after a half day when suddenly there was very hard knocking on my back door."
"I knew immediately something was off because we never have visitors and my father did not knock like that, and froze up in my room."
"I peak out of my room (right in front of back door) and suddenly it's quiet so I go back to my room."
"AS SOON as I close my door I hear glass shatter."
"Turned off my computer and TV and dove under my bed."
"For the next 40 minutes I hear him thrashing around my living room and parents room, then hear them leave."
"During this I'm on call with the cops who think I'm PRANK CALLING THEM and take 70 minutes to finally come over."
"The station is 3 streets away from my house."
"They come and investigate only to find out it was our next door neighbor that broke in and was actually looking for drug money, as it turns out the previous person to live here did at-home haircuts and sold weed on the side."
"The neighbor was arrested and his family moved out a week later."
"THE ONLY THING THIS GUY TOOK WAS MY LUNCH MONEY I LEFT ON A COUNTER OUTSIDE FOR THE NEXT DAY."- level 1Ogletreb
whatever you say bully GIFGiphyThey Actually Apoligized...
"Four guys knocked on my buddies door at 11pm."
"He lived with a bunch of other guys so this wasn’t anything new."
"They burst in and held a gun to his neck and demanded the drugs."
"He stammered that there weren’t any drugs but they could take what they wanted."
"One guy held him there with the gun as the others searched the house."
"Since they didn’t find anything they realized they had the wrong house and left."
"As they were leaving the last guy said ‘sorry, this wasn’t my idea'."- discostud1515
A Gun Needs No Explanation
"My in-laws were home when a young guy broke into their house."
"They don’t speak English very well so my FIL, in the clearest English he could muster loudly said, 'Get me my gun!''
"At that point the intruder left in a hurry."- TheManInTheShack
Could Have Used The Teethmarks As Evidence...
"I was at my friend’s place when it happened to him."
"We were both teenagers then."
"The guy thought everyone was sleeping and he got startled when he saw us, he bit my friend (his arm required stitches from the bite) and ran away."
"No idea who the guy was or what he wanted, never happened again and we never saw the guy again."- Melancholic84·
He Should Have Chosen Which House More Carefully...
"Tackled the guy."
"The hardest I’ve ever hit someone, and I’m a pretty big guy with a football background."
"But he didn’t see me coming."
"It felt very much like a do or die moment so I didn’t hold anything back."
"Broke a few of his bones, messed up his face, and got him sentenced to 6 years."- The_SunDancer
Still Had To Replace That TV...
"Not me, but my aunt."
"She was at home alone in her backyard making food, and when she walked into the living room, she saw a couple of men in the middle of carrying out the tv."
"It seems that they didn’t think anyone was at home; they got surprised, dropped the tv, and ran out after she started screaming."- RitaSaluki
Feline Intuition
"I was in bed asleep at 7am when I heard a loud bang."
"I thought nothing of it because of the large cat tree I have downstairs that's always getting knocked over, so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep."
"Not long after my elderly cat comes running into my bedroom, jumps up on the bed and tries to hide under the blankets."
"This immediately woke me up because that old fat cat hadn't ran nor jumped on our bed for years."
"As I came two I see two men coming up my stairs."
"At that point it felt like time stopped and somehow ran incredibly fast at the same time."
"I jumped out of bed and started screaming 'GET THE F*CK OUT OF MY HOUSE!' and I remembered thinking while chasing these guys through my house and screaming again and again at the top of my lungs that my voice sounds exactly like my brother and I wondered how strange that was.""I tackled one of them on my front lawn, but he struggled free and got away."
"I saw the get away car and tried to keep repeating the license number, but it faded away in my mind as I was repeating it."
'I remember vividly being so mad at myself that I couldn't remember 7 numbers, and how stupid I was for not grabbing my phone! "
"Looking back on the situation there are so many things that happened that I never noticed, like how I fractured my arm slamming into the wall at the bottom of my stairs, and that I cut my feet up on the splintered wood of my front door."
"The adrenaline rush of a true fight or flight situation is something so strange it's almost impossible to accurately describe."
"The sense of time, not being aware of pain and injuries for hours, and the hyper focus on some details but the complete loss of others."
"Luckily I wasn't seriously hurt and nothing was stolen, but I installed cameras all over my house the very next day."- robot_boat_loan
camera surveillance GIF by MOST EXPENSIVESTGiphySometimes Size Does Matter...
"Girlfriend and I were sleeping in bed, some dummy broke into our apartment, ran real quick when he saw how big my naked a** was."- Croceyes2
FIVE DAYS?!?!
"Blocked the doors when it became clear that someone was trying to break in."
"My husband and I were staying with a friend and her husband; her step son and elderly mother in law were also in the house."
"Someone had heard the old lady had jewelry and decided to try their luck."
"We heard this later through the town grapevine."
"Said person then escalated to trying to kick his way in through the windows (they were leaded)."
"My husband called the police while my friend tried to keep the gap and child calm and her husband and I screamed a lot and sort of flailed at the protruding feet with pokers from the old fireplace."
"On realizing there were more of us than there were of him, he ran off."
"Good thing too; the police never showed."
"They called 5 days later to see 'if we still needed their assistance'."
"Bloody useless."
"In comparison 6 months later I arrived at work to discover the door and cash drawer had been jimmied and the £50 float nicked and they were over and taking fingerprints inside the hour."
"I wonder why trust in the police is so low."
"Total mystery."- Haunting-blade
It's a hard call to decide which is worse, being in the house while it's being burgled, and potentially saving your valuables, or being out and losing them.
Either way, it's a terrible situation no one deserves to be in.
Making the notion of buying a security system and bolts for your doors seem better with every passing second.