Reddit user, ConAir161057, wanted a look into stranger's homes when they asked:
"People whose jobs require them to enter someone else's house, what was the weirdest thing you've seen at a customer's house?"
Everyone has hobbies, and sometimes those hobbies involve collecting things. While you might imagine glass cases filled with small, porcelain baby angels or a wall of comic book art, some people choose to collect "different" things.
When Plants Are Your Children
"Customers built an additional room for their plant, Frank. It was a +30yo schefflera. It had the best sun and a huge pot and automatic watering."
"Def my kind of weird."- x4ty2
Everyone Collects Something
"Taxidermy chickens dressed in raincoats"- TheCookMan1
Leaving Behind What You Don't Want To Use
"I've done foreclosure clean outs. I'm amazed at how many people own sex machines, and how often they are left behind."- turningfoodintopoop
We Just Want Our Guests To Be Comfortable
"One Easter week, I tuned a piano in the home of a girl who was my music student."
"Her mother greeted me at the door in a Playboy Bunny suit and kept offering "refreshments" as I tuned her piano."- Back2Bach
playboy bunny GIF by PlayboyGiphyWhat people do in their own bedroom with their partners in whatever consensual manner they deem acceptable is up to them.
It's when those choices leave the bedroom and start to impact other people that we have to raise our collective eyebrows.
That's One Way To Discipline...
"I babysat for this family that had a live in maid."
"A little weird but whatever."
"She was nice."
"Dressed in a strange outfit but whatever."
"Parents get back and ask me how the children were."
"Told them I changed a few diapers nothing big."
"Then they asked how the maid was."
"I told them she was fine."
"Woke up the kids once while she was cleaning."
"Mom gets this look on her face and disappears."
"Dad pays me and tips me well!"
"Asks me to check on the kids one last time."
"I do."
"As I’m leaving I go to say goodbye to the Mother."
"She has the maid over her knee, and is just spanking her."
"Obviously I’m horrified."
"They explain their live in maid is actually a live in sex partner."
"So the strangest thing I’ve seen is a live in sex maid while babysitting."- cleaning-meaning
Classiness, Amid The Chaos
"Very large vanity style nudes of the lady, probably from a decade prior."
"Some were normal frames, one was like an old style velvet painting."
"The apartment was in squalor."
"Bugs everywhere, food just left out."
"Then you had those pictures."
"That was the weirdest."- Muliciber
Homes are supposed to be safe space, areas where we can unwind and be ourselves. Unfortunately, who we are can be a lot sadder than anyone might have ever known.
An Inescapable Odor
"It's not what I saw, it's what I didn't see."
"Old cat piss has the pungent aroma of ammonia."
"In this house it hit me like a truck."
"I saw no cats. I saw no dogs. Only humans."- Rhomagus
cat box GIFGiphyWrong Definition Of A Skylight
"Home healthcare worker."
"Met with a patient who refused to let me enter his house."
"Our first visits were conducted on the street, between his car and mine."
"As he grew to trust me, we graduated to sitting on his front porch."
"The outside of his house had seen better days, and could use some fixing up, but it really wasn't all that bad."
"It was the inside."
"At some point the roof had progressed from 'needs work' to 'caved in' and he essentially had no roof, as it was all hanging down in his living room."
"He didn't have the money to fix it, or a good tarp."
"But he did have the money for a tent."
"And so he lived in a tent inside his house."
"He still had electricity, and a partial roof over the kitchen."- floridianreader
A Testament To What's Lost
"Not really weird but sad."
"An 80-year-old woman who lived alone had a Christian type of 'shrine' dedicated to her daughter in her living room."
"That's pretty normal I guess, she said she had lost her 40 years ago and kept her pictures and small items in it."
"But the thing is, it turned out that her whole house was filled with similar items."
"She had written things that she wanted to say to her daughter on small pieces of paper and taped them all over the walls and the cabinet doors."
"It was everywhere, and it was clear from what she'd written that she had been on her mind 24/7 for the past 40 years."
"My job was to do household chores and basically keep her company while I did it."
"One day she asked me to look for some items that her daughter had made."
"She had misplaced them and was worried that someone had thrown them away by accident."
"I couldn't find them at first, but she looked so defeated that I went to look for them again and actually found them in the back of her storage room."
"She was so happy."
"She said that I reminded her of her daughter because I searched so adamantly and didn't give up."
"She couldn't move very well and had chronic pain and would often talk about wanting to be with her daughter already."
"She was a super nice person, one of the nicest I've worked for."
"She was just in so much pain that I almost hope that she got her wish."- humanoid1013
A most bizarre display
"I’m a forensic entomologist."
" I’ve observed every grotesque remnant of human decomposition and its concomitant evidence of heinous crimes but the most perplexing was a victim’s extensive taxidermy collection congregating like a macabre audience in her living room where she was decomposing."
"They were frozen perpetually in scenes of frenetic gaiety with miniature champagne glasses and a chess table with a vulgar mouse in a tu-tu salaciously positioned upon it for a line serenading rats."
"Debauched rodents were ubiquitous in her living room on every surface."
"I’m certain the white powdered snouts were simulated drug consumption!"
"These creatures solemnized her undignified demise with their impeccable suits reminiscent of debonair aristocrats and one anachronistic ferret petrified in a Liverpool united knitted jumper."
"Taxidermist rodent pornographer was her sobriquet, designated by my flippant colleague, and she became notorious in our lab and the story evokes raucous laughter every time someone remembers."- VelvetDreamers
mice GIFGiphyBarely acceptable for a pig!
"Babysitter here!"
"I’m not really one to judge people’s houses, but if conditions are bad, then I’m judging."
"When I say 'bad', I mean as in they COULD do something about it, they just didn’t."
"One time, I was babysitting a little boy."
"He was a cute little fellow, very friendly."
"His house was disgusting."
"The parents left for some sort of work dinner, I wasn’t really paying attention."
"Their house was incredibly outdated."
"Then, they give me a small tour of their house."
"It helps me get to know the area and make plans to keep the kid occupied."
"So I get brought up to this kid’s room."
"Unlike the rest of the house, it’s pretty clean."
"It’s your average 6 year old kids room, he seemed pretty proud of it."
"He opened the doors of other rooms, just to show me what’s inside."
"All of the rooms were just plain messy."
"Lots of stains, towels on the ground, SO MANY chips in the walls, the house looked so beat up."
"When we got to the parents room, the kids opened the door and I was horrified."
"The parents room was relatively clean, but it was full of animal pelts and rifles."
"I’m vegetarian."
"I felt like throwing up."
"I think that hunting like this even upsets many meat-eaters."
"These weren’t faux pelts or anything, no, they had been skinned directly by the hunter."
"Of course, I couldn’t tell the child my opinion."
"The best way to preserve the kid’s innocence was to just ignore the current situation."
"So I did."
"We spent a majority of the night playing games in his bedroom, he was a very nice and polite kid."
"I eventually put him to sleep and decided I didn’t want to sit down anywhere, the place was filthy, so I just saw paced around downstairs and scrolled through my phone."
"Parents got home, and the usual stuff a babysitter does happens."
"I get paid and I leave."
"I’m never accepting gigs from those people again."- BananaFatFace
Aracnaphobia!
"One home owner had 50+ pet tarantulas!"- Thief025
The perfect pet
"Not me, but recently had a window salesman out at my house."
"Asked him about the weirdest thing he had ever seen at a customer's house."
"His face lights up and he tells me this story about a trailer where the owners were letting a 500 lbs pot belly big free roam the house."
"Thought he might have been bullsh*tting until he pulled out his phone and actually showed me photos."- PsychedelicGoat42
First impressions can be misleading
"Found a couple who travelled a lot for over night dog sitting since dogs got separation anxiety and also had chickens who needed to be tended to."
"As we go out to this creepy looking storage shed to show me where the chicken feed was, it was floor to ceiling with mannequins all covered in gore, masks, chains, etc."
"Like a double car garage sized filled to the brim with limbs, torso's, heads, etc."
"I kind of froze and was shocked, there was probably like 75-100 of mangled gory a** mannequins in there."
"Wife could see I was like wtf and she laughed and said that they are huge Halloween buffs and every October they have a huge Halloween party for the whole block."
"They asked me to help them hang them a few months later and it was a lot of fun! "
"They had about 2 acre back yard with a trail, and they did hay rides through 'the haunted forest'."
"Even had a little cemetery with a bunch of spooky stuff! "
"Party kicked a**, and I ended up dog sitting/house sitting and other projects for them for about 6-7 years before I moved."- Woah_man34
Halloween Party Hard GIFGiphyMulti-purpose room
"86 yr old man’s house, a giant train set in a room full of tape cassette porno movies."- Jeebzus2014
Who knows what dangers lurk below...
"My husband is a chimney sweep in the North Shore of Massachusetts."
"He was working in a home that had an unused in-law basement apartment."
"While on the way to inspect the boiler room, he was greeted by a life size Crypt Keeper doll wearing a reflective vest sitting in a wheel chair in the kitchen."- SuperClassyKind
Be kind. You never know what someone might be going through.