People Who Work In Someone's Home For A Living Describe The Most Bizarre Thing They've Ever Seen

People treat their homes as their sanctuaries - so having a job that takes you into peoples homes gives you a glimpse into things that the rest of the world may not get to see.
Sometimes you kind of wish you didn't either.
One Reddit user asked:
We expected stories about adult toys or humiliating family portraits or something - Reddit gave so much more. Proceed with some caution - it's not all fun and games .
There are talks of animals and children in unhealthy conditions, mental health struggles, and some "interesting" anatomical wall art.
I'll Never Forget Him
Realtor here. I was showing a house that was supposed to be empty. I knocked and rang the bell to make sure.
Once inside I walked into a bedroom and found the current tenant butt naked absolutely slamming on an electronic drum kit in what was a mostly sound proof room.
He never noticed I was there, but I'll never forget him.
- nolatime
Counter Hot Dogs
Back in my teenage babysitting days, I regularly watched three kids whose parents kept one of those ENORMOUS packages of hot dogs out on the kitchen counter.
Everyone in that household would just wander by and grab a room-temperature hot dog as a snack whenever they felt like. I babysat for them 2-3 times per week for over a year and never not saw those hot dogs. I wonder about them all the time.
Seriously though, just the idea of this made me nauseous. Fleshy, slimy, overly salty, cold yet somehow suspiciously warm hot dogs... probably the worst combination of things for a food to be. How did the kids never get food poisoning?
A Hallway Toilet
Former babysitter, one house had a toilet in the hallway.
Not a bathroom - just a toilet literally in the middle of a carpeted hallway (against a wall) that totally worked. It was parallel to the wall not perpendicular- there was zero cover around it and it faced the stairway. So if you used it, and somebody came up the stairs, you were going to be making eye contact.
I never understood it. It looked like someone just set a toilet down for a minute.
There was a full bathroom 6' away connected to the hallway.
This was a small 2 story house with a family of 4. The hallway was narrow and if the toilet was perpendicular to the wall I'm not sure you could have walked by down the hallway without bashing your shins on it...unless you turned sideways.
It did work, it was clean, but probably wasn't used by the family since it was covered in child locks after the toddler discovered flushing things.
The Wall Plaque
I noticed a plaque the size of a large clock above someones' mantle. These people were middle aged white folks in the the middle of suburbia.
The plaque had names where numbers would be and a small trinket below the name.
I wished I would have never asked about it, because it turns out it was the preserved circumcision skin from all the men in their family. There is literally no appropriate response here... I literally just left the room and acted like I never heard anything.
She Never Mentioned The Naked Man
Installed sod at this lady's newly built home. She was in her mid 60s maybe. Anyway, she didn't know where the valve to the exterior tap was in the basement and asked if I could go down and turn it on for her. No problem. I go down the stairs to the unfinished basement and it's pitch dark. I find a light switch and then suddenly there is a 400 pound man naked and asleep on a mattress three feet away from me.
She never mentioned this before I went downstairs...
Kinship
A few years ago I was a social worker at a Child Placing Agency. In my state CPS can place children in kinship homes (relative, family friend, a person the child is familiar with) with little to no vetting- just some paperwork and a quick home walkthrough.
This woman was a distant aunt of four kids, making her a kinship home for them. Most kinship homes try to get licensed with a Child Placing Agency after the kids are placed because it will provide them more financial and therapeutic support for their kids. This is what brought me to her home.
She had a jaccuzzi in the center of her carpeted bedroom that she and the four (foster) children bathed in. There was no shower head or curtain. They also all shared a toilet in her bedroom that had no walls/ door around it. Absolutely no privacy.
All of the kids slept in the living room while she slept in the master bedroom.
During my home inspection I found three doors that had been completely plastered over and couldn't be accessed- she informed me that one was a full bathroom and the other two were bedrooms. None were accessible but she insisted that she used them to "store her tools."
I was so creeped the hell out.. there was no possible way for her to get to her "tools" from those rooms. The kids could have had bedrooms and there was no need for anyone to be bathing or using the toilet in front of anyone else.
One of them was a 12 year old girl.. imagine getting your first period in that home. ☹️.
I did everything i could to help the kids move.
I obviously did not license her home and I detailed all of my concerns about the children's living situation via phone and written report to CPS. I, of course, told them I did not think this woman should be caring for children.
One upsetting thing is that once her application was denied and I explained that I didn't believe the kids should be there or ever have been there I was basically removed from the picture. I did not technically work for CPS, so I couldn't tell you what happened after.
I think about it a lot and hope that the children are in a loving and caring home.
Karma And Bugs
I was working in this one hospital where this mother/daughter pair always came in with their two little chihuahuas. The women were always rude and obnoxious no matter how we bent over backwards.
Anyway. They'd been coming in repeatedly complaining their dogs had fleas and no treatments we'd sold them were working and the dogs still "had bugs."
So this one day they come in and demand to see their usual vet, who goes out and is greeted with a bag of "fleas" and shouting about how they were right/we were wrong cause look, they were still battling fleas despite treatment!
If you've ever had, seen, or known anything about fleas, good f*cking luck catching a bunch of them to put into a ziploc bag alive. They were definitely not fleas - but he didn't know what the hell they were, so he brought them into the back and asked if anyone had any ideas.
I'd just seen an episode of Monsters Inside Me about bed bugs. I said they were bed bugs and I was right (later confirmed it with a friend of mine who was a state entomologist who specialized in them!).
Apparently these always-obnoxious women had recently gotten a used couch for their basement from somewhere.
Karma? 🤷♀️
Those Poor Rats
I volunteer for a breed-specific dog rescue and do home visits/inspections for people who want to adopt dogs. It's usually mostly a formality to make sure the potential adopters know the quirks of this breed and are well prepared to live with them and allow them a chance to ask me questions about living with this breed.
One home visit though.... it was in a rough part of town. A woman and her 17-year-old child living in an elderly and incapacitated man's home. They helped care for him in exchange for a place to live. The home was just generally not in great shape, cluttered, not super clean.
The woman and her daughter lived upstairs, which was 3 small bedrooms, all with the doors shut. They open room 1... it was being used to house foster kittens.
The 2nd room was the girl's bedroom, but they opened the door and it was just crammed with junk. You couldn't even get into the room. So the mom and daughter shared a bedroom.
They open the door to this 3rd room. The smell of ammonia instantly hits me. My eyes are burning. I feel like I can't breathe. There was a mattress on the floor that took up most of the room. Lining the walls were 20 gallon aquarium tanks, all filled with rats.
Dozens and dozens of pet rats in each one. No bedding or toys for the rats, just bare glass, food and water. The glass sides were covered in pee from the rats trying to climb out with their pee soaked paws.
The woman mentioned she had cleaned these aquariums the day before. I felt so so bad for those poor little rats. The way she spoke about them, I could tell she loved them very much. She just clearly couldn't care for them the way she should have.
I only stayed in the room for a couple of minutes before wrapping up the visit. I had a pounding headache from the overwhelming smell. I have no idea how they actually slept in that room. That was the only home I ever visited that I didn't recommend as an adopter.
Wild And Elderly
Was tasked with removing a rattlesnake from an elderly ladies home. What was found was her sex toy lodged between furniture and the wall while on/vibrating.
Poor thing thought it was a snakes rattle lol.
Turned it off (with gloves) and told her the snake had been removed! Makes me laugh, she was a sweet lady.
That Skin Smell
I used to do home health and just go in and help people with everyday things they couldn't do because of their condition.
Had this really sweet older lady with a bad case of psoriasis. Her floors had a layer of dead skin covering nearly every square inch of the apartment. It was even in her dogs water bowl.
I did my best to keep it clean, and visited twice a week. Each time it was just as bad. I can still smell it if I think about it.
Goat Head Stew
Used to live in south Florida and worked an apartment complex.
One day we cleaned out this apartment after tenants moved out, wasn't too bad as it was mostly clean, but the shocking part was finding a severed goat's head in the fridge (on a platter not just stuffed in there), it was skinned and everything. Startled the f*ck out of me and wasn't sure what to do.
Supervisor said it was no big deal, It's common among Haitian/Jamaican/Island populations to use the whole head for a stew.
My partner is Jamaican, as is his family who lives in south Florida. This is a common dish that's made, literally called goat head soup. Just asked them to confirm and the response was "yeah, it's good as hell" haha.
Goat cheek is some of the best meat I've ever had. Bought a head off some Persian guys I knew from the jewelry stand at the mall. Made an epic stew. Scared the sh!t out of my roommate's gf when she got home lmao.
They Come At Night
I worked for 18 years as a cable/phone service tech in a big city. I've seen a lot. A few stick out, but the one that always made me sad was an apartment of someone with extreme schizophrenia living in government housing.
This disease tends to make people think that they are being monitored, so often in a bout of extreme mania, someone with it will tear out all of the phone and cable wiring in their place and then later realize that they need it and call for a service call.
I had to go back to this woman's place a few times for this. She had written on every square inch of her apartment walls - sentence fragments, different thoughts and things that seemed to be written in different voices.
She had cut a 1x1ft hole in her wall around her phone jack and ripped all the wires out. I patched up what I could and assured her we wouldn't bill her.
She also cornered me at one point to tell me that it wasn't her writing on the walls and that people come at night and do it.
The Mandela effect is when multiple people share the same, incorrect memory.
Its name stems from when paranormal researcher Fiona Broome falsely believed that the future president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, died in prison in the 1980s.
A false memory she shared with a number of others.
Our memories have been known to deceive us, as we might frequently forget someone's name or one of our numerous online passwords.
But when we share a memory that turns out to be false with many others, convincing ourselves it wasn't the truth can be a very difficult ordeal indeed.
Redditor Mysterious_Boat_1701 was curious to hear people's most unsettling experiences with the Mandela Effect, leading them to ask:
"Which Mandela effect freaks you out the most and why?"
A mysterious gym
"Just had one personally."
"Went to a mall where there was supposedly a gym, asked around and nobody that worked at the mall knew what I was talking about."
"Looked around and couldn't find it."
"Come back a few months later and it’s right there in front of my face, you'd have to be strung out to not notice it."
"idk how or when it just appeared but it freaked me out."- prex320278
A "fruit"ful logo.
"That the fruit of the loom logo never had a cornucopia."
"What’s crazy about that one is that someone emailed the creator of the logo about it and he said even he remembers it having one."- mrcock2·
Less well intentioned than they thought.
"I Mandela effected my whole family once."
"Years ago there was a football player on a rival team that always did a dumb celebration after he got a sack and my family and I always hated it."
"One night after he did it my family started trashing the celebration and I said as a joke 'we are all going to feel terrible when we find out he is doing that celebration as a request from a make-a-wish kid'."
"Fast forward to years later and our team is playing that team again."
"The player got a sack and did the celebration."
"I rolled my eyes and said 'I hate that celebration so much' my mom instantly turned and said 'don't say that, he is doing it for a sick kid'."
"'I actually like it."
"So I was like 'what?'"
"'No there is no sick kid', my whole family then proceeded to argue with me'."
"They all vividly remembered reading articles about it, seeing special report segments before games about it, and other information."
"Some of them even thought they knew the disease the kid had and even extra details about why the kid chose that specific celebration."
"They all had these shared memories that they were sure were true."
"I was floored by all this and insisted none of that was true."
"So we looked it up.'
"Not true."
'No kid like that ever existed.'
"They still have trouble wrapping their heads around this one."
"Turned out human memory is not near as reliable as we think"
"It was American Football and the player was Jared Allen of the Minnesota Vikings and his cattle roping sack celebration."
"This was maybe 10 years ago."- AUSpartan37
His eyesight was better than we thought.
"Mr. Monopoly's monocle."- Additional_Day9903
It's not easy being green.
"I have a personal one that to this day a decade later still destroys my mind."
"I had an old(ish) 2001 dodge neon."
"With BLACK SEATS.'
"I drove this car for years and years, like 80,000 miles.'
'All through college."
"I took work breaks in my car, commuted hours every day total, to college and then the opposite direction to work and back."
"I even lived out of this thing on several occasions.'
'The day I go and trade it in, I'm pulling misc things out of the car at the dealer."
'And the seats are GREEN."
"Not even a little."
'Like very unmistakably GREEN."
"In my black Neon, with black interior, that ALWAYS HAD BLACK SEATS."
"My girlfriend then, wife now, goes oh they've always been green."
"EXCEPT THEY F*CKING WEREN'T DON'T LIE TO ME."
"This is still upsetting to this day..... life is a lie and nothing is real."- ZakuLegion
An urban legend was born.
"Not a global one, just a family thing."
"Back in 2002 my grandma had her 60th birthday, my father took us home at 10.00pm, ready for bed."
"We, me and brother, were 12 and 14 at this time."
'All went well."
"Over the years, a story was made up that we went missing after visiting the local playground after dinner at said grandma's birthday party."
"Some neighbors help to search us, the whole train of 'missing children in a smal village'-thing."
"Fun fact: we never went missing."
"Dad brought us home, put on 'Toy Story' on tv and left."
"My brother and I heard first about this in 2015.'
"From different people on different occasions."
"'Ah your one of the missing boys'."
"I first thought they were mocking me for a different event.'
"I got lost, but it was 2013, alcohol inflicted, different story."
"But then they ALL tell us the same story about us going missing."
'And the stories are damn close to 'true' in every story my mum is driving around the same neighbors to different locations to search, old wine yard, old mill etc."
"Sometimes I think I got lost on the most brutal way."
"I was lost and changed this plane of existence with another one."
"It sometimes made me think about my whole life."- tjorben123
Memories are a fascinating thing.
They can be changed or altered with even the tiniest suggestion.
And making the truth seem less believable than lies.
One last time. One last meal.
How do you chose a last meal?
Let's hope we never have to find out.
People on death row get that option.
Do they deserve it?
Whose to say?
But they have it.
A steak. A pizza... Burger King.
The food world is their oyster.
Oyster. Also an option.
The menu is endless...
Redditor No-Caterpillar4212 wanted to know what our menu choices would be if we faced the end. They asked:
"You're on a death row, you have one hour left, they ask for your final meal - what is it?"
I'd want 2 hours in a Golden Coral with a bar. Covers it all.
Years
"I want a nice filet mignon, medium rare, a baked potato with everything on it, and a nice Cabernet from a good year - I'm thinking 2135."
cleon42
"'Sorry, we couldn't get the Cabernet from 2135. So instead of what could have been a great wine request from a more plausible period of time, you get this crappy stuff we sourced from Wal-Mart. Enjoy your meal, I hope that maintaining your sense of humor was worth it."'
Until_Morning
Take Me
"Something badly cooked so I will be sick and want to die sooner and have diarrhea so bad it will be a last revenge!"
ratchet0101
"Taco bell it is!"
No-Caterpillar4212
"If Taco Bell makes you poop a lot, it's a sign that you probably need more fiber in your diet."
RDAwesome
The Yuck Factor
"A huge bowl of baked beans, a bowl of shredded wheat, a six egg omelette, and a gallon of apple cider. I'm gonna make it awful for everyone."
"Save yourself the hassle of eating all that, just ask for one pack of sugar free Haribo gummy bears. Should make for an interesting time for the folks watching you die."
MamaSweeney24
"You void your bowels when you die too so that should be lovely."
IDontControlTheFood
Perfect
"Fried chicken with some Fanta."
Aggravating-Year-776
Fried chicken is on the top of everyone's list!
Details
"150mg of MDMA. I’m dying happy."
W0nderfu1W0nder
"This should absolutely be allowed. If our leaders insist on the practice of capital punishment then the condemned should be able to ingest any substance they damn please."
forewontoi
Broken
"McFlurry. Those machine are always broken. I just bought myself some time."
Curiousuk_South9566
"Is this like an American thing? I worked at a McDonald's in Denmark once and our machine was never once broken when i was there."
oliv111
"I saw a video about this once. I'm a little fuzzy on the details but I think it has something to do with the contract that was signed in America. Only one company is allowed to do maintenance on the machines and they basically lock out if it's cleaned incorrectly. It's a crap system."
grilled-pbj
Sorry
"Cabbage!! Add some cabbage. I don’t know if an hour if enough to take effect but there was an old coworker on a cabbage diet. Omg she smelled, like it was coming out of her pores. She knew she smelled and kept apologizing and reminding us of the diet."
ImStillaPrick
The OG Always
"Olive Garden. Unlimited soup and breadsticks."
thegodfaubel
"I saw a sketch once, can't remember who it 2qs from. But a an inmate ordered the all you can eat buffet and had been eating for like 8 years. He's constantly on the toilet and takes micro-naps between bites."
KingOfTheGoobers
"Unlimited for 1 hour. Cool."
anticlockclock
How Golden
"If my grandma is still alive her potato soup and cheesecake. Hopefully I'd be able to cook said meal with her one last time."
ATLAS_IS_LOST
Let's hope none of us has to make this decision.
Most people have friends they've been close to for most of their lives.
But at the same time, friends evolve, and everyone finds themselves losing touch with any number of people they at one point considered their friends over time.
Most of the time, this isn't intentional, but just simply happens.
On rare occasions though, people might realize that their friends were not exactly who they thought they were, and didn't like who they revealed themselves to be.
Redditor One-Refrigerator69 was curious to hear stories of people who realized their friends were not exactly the nicest people to be around, leading them to ask:
"When was the moment you realized that your friends are assholes?"
Compared to others...
"When I started hanging out with better people."- Darklink326
All it took was getting my life together
"When I quit drinking ‘cos it was killing me."
"There were people I literally saw every single day who just disappeared as if by magic."
"12 years ago this week, as it happens."
"I’m not anti-drink, far from it."
"Some people, me included, just can’t enjoy it without it becoming a problem."
"Everyone is different."- bigdaftgeordie
A little perspective goes a long way.
"After I realized that other people don't sh*t on each other on every possible occasion in their circle."
"And that it isn't right when a 'friend' uses every known insecurity as an argument against you when you do not behave the way he/she would want you to."- ViscousPlateman
Lack of respect for other people's things
"I let my friend borrow my ps2 when I went to boot camp."
"When I came back, he said he sold it and gave me $50 I think?"
"This was in 2006."- madmike-86
Lack of mutual respect
"When he does sh*t to me and acts like it’s no big deal, then I do the same back and he gets offended."- Primary-Maybe-2749·
Constantly being taken advantage of.
"They only bothered with me when it suited them."
"I'd rather have nobody than have to deal with that."- zombi33mj
When they literally revealed themselves to be criminals
"When they robbed me at gunpoint."- Ok_Student8032
When they stopped liking them after a change of situation
"Fourth grade, when my parents economical situation went downhill and suddenly no one invited me to their birthday party."
"Until Seven years later no one had never invited me to their birthday, or to anything at all actually."- Justalittletoserious
Not being able to get a word in...
"When they tell me to shut up when I say anything."- the_golden_cheese
Violently playing with emotions
"She got a boyfriend and would let him listen to our phone calls and not tell me, even if I was crying about personal stuff that I would only ever tell her."
"Then they both started lying to me about my crush liking me back, forcing both him and me into awkward positions, telling everyone we liked each other so they'd play along, swapping places constantly to make us sit next to each other, pressuring him into giving me a lap dance, making him kiss the prettiest girl in the room, etc, and encouraged me to shoot my shot more and more."
"All the while they knew he didn't like me, he had told them both directly."
"One night I was crying on the phone cause I was so confused why my advances weren't working, and they just kept explaining it away, blaming some other bullsh*t reason and telling me to try again."
"The next day they told me they were laughing throughout the whole call, because I didn't get it and I was so upset."
"I should add I had no dating experience at all and nobody had ever liked me at this point."- Juliemj
It's always sad when our friends disappoint us.
But when our friends proved to be completely different people than we thought they were, it can be devastating.
As the saying goes, one never truly knows who their friends are.
When visiting any foreign country, one should always be familiar with the laws and customs of the land.
After all, what might be generally accepted on your home turf, might be frowned upon, if not illegal, elsewhere.
For that matter, even locals might need a refresher course on what they can and can't do while at home.
A recent Redditor was curious to hear what tourists and locals alike should avoid doing in the USA, leading them to ask:
"In the United States, what should you never do?"
Stay out of the skies!
"Don't fly a drone in Washington, DC."
"The whole D.C. Area is a no fly zone."
"It's a federal offense."
"Just don't do it."- PeytonCarrK
Cops can't be bribed.
"Don't try to bribe cops when you get pulled over."
"I had some Argentinian friends immediately pull out their wallets and start pooling their cash when they got pulled over once.'
"Fortunately someone in the car noticed and told them to put it away immediately."- PeytonCarrK
"Don't pay off the police."
"My dad has friends from several third-world nations where it is common practice to give the police some cash when you are pulled over."
"However, if you try to bribe a police officer here, you'll get into a lot of trouble."- JohnASmiley
Know your rights.
"Everyone, including foreigners, has the right to be silent and have a lawyer when being questioned."
"Don’t say anything."
"Also, even if you speak English fairly well, ask for an interpreter."- WickedLilThing
Enjoy all that nature has to offer... carefully!
"Don't wander off in the national parks."
"It's very real wilderness and you can get lost and die out there."
"This includes going over railings you aren't supposed to, or off trails."
"People have died accidentally falling into a steam geyser that looked like normal water, mauled by animals or left to the elements."- AlphaOhmega
Allow plenty of time!
"Expect consistency at TSA in airports."- WickedLilThing
Some terminology doesn't translate...
"If you’re from England, they’re called cigarettes here."- Yung_Onions
Make sure your license is up to date.
"If you come from a walkable country don’t come here expecting the same."
"There are some areas with good public transportation and bicycle/pedestrian friendly streets but for the most part, especially outside of cities, the areas are designed to accommodate cars more than anything else."
"The reason a lot of Americans drive everywhere is because, depending on where you live, we have no choice."- The_Cars93
Wait for instructions.
"Get out of your car and approach the cop when being stopped by a cop unless told to."- hildrash
Whether your'e waling down a street in a foreign country, or the street you've lived on for your entire life, it's always wise to be on guard and aware of your surroundings.
Not to mention, obey the law.