Some jobs require people to either enter or work in the homes of strangers.
To many of them, jobs involving visits to homes of people they don't know are better than toiling away for hours while being confined inside an office cubicle – not that there's anything wrong about that.
But there are a few who still get an unwelcome shock of their lives – even with the understanding that their particular work atmosphere can be unpredictable
Curious to hear about their experiences, Redditor jlbeekman90 asked strangers on the internet:
"People with jobs that require you to go into strangers' houses, what is the weirdest thing you've encountered?"
Not Alone
No one ever told these people they would have friendly intrusion while on the clock.
Got Goat?
"A goat in the living room. The mother came down and shooed it outside."
"human 'mother', or goat mother?? lol"
Stinky Critter
"Not me but my dad who can tell the story much better than I can. He was once repairing a furnace in the basement of one of his clients homes. Nobody was home when suddenly he heard a scurrying behind him, but when he looked nothing was there. This went on several times before he realized the noise was coming from behind a couch. Slowly, he began towards it. As he bent down, a skunk popped out from its hiding spot and met him face to face. Turns out he was a pet, but apparently it really spooked him at the time."
"Awful And Itchy"
"I'm an EMT, so I've seen lots of hoarders, human and animal waste, etc. But, the most aggravating day was when my partner and I got fleas from this dudes house. Our ambulance was swarming with fleas. Her and I were covered in fleas. We could see them jumping around there were so many. We had to mark out of service to decontaminate the truck and ourselves. It was awful and itchy."
The Zookeeper
"I work as a mobile computer repair/IT service guy. Went into a house to work on a laptop, and they happened to be my next-door neighbors. House had an animal smell (people with pets usually do not notice). But this was different. As I sat down to work on the laptop I heard a loud screech, and a pigmy marmoset jumped from a cabinet onto my head, pulling my hair violently. I then watched as an albino skunk, 3 house cats, 2 small dogs, and various large birds (a mynah, African gray, and what I think was some kind of guinea fowl) all appeared from various rooms and furnishings. All the animals were kind of friendly (there was no biting), but the sheer volume of animals in that tiny space was crazy. A few weeks later the Department of fish and wildlife and US customs raided their house. I found out later my neighbor smuggled rare animals. And had several aquariums full of rare poisonous snakes."
Basement Community
"Not me, but my SO. SO used to work for comcast as an installer and electrician many years ago. He has lots of odd/funny/alarming stories. My favorite is when he was in the basement of an old house running some wires. He couldn't find the pull for the lights so he was using a small flashlight to look around. So he's looking around and catches eyes in the dark with his flashlight. Goes back and realizes there's many eyes watching him in the dark. As soon as he realizes he gets creeped out and starts to head for the stairs. Then something starts screaming. Which makes him scream. Then the home owner comes down turns on the lights and apologizes for not telling him about the herd of goats that live in the dark basement. Apparently they are easily startled. He said there were probably a dozen of them down there."
Horror Movie Territory
People who enjoy going into scare houses during Halloween wouldn't dare experiencing the following.
Here Are My Digits
"So this was back when I was a student on a placement in community mental health services. I went out on a visit to see a man who was just recently discharged from a medium secure hospital, he had schizophrenia / psychosis. We were going in for a routine checkup."
"I knock, he opens the door, and this incredible stench just hits us in the face, and I thought I was gonna throw up right there. But alas, my supervisor urges me to go in, we walk into his house, and it just smells sooooo bad. My eyes were watering. I keep my composure, we chat to him, and I notice some black thing on his kitchen table, looks like rotting food/mould/tiny dead mouse... Idk. So after chatting, I casually ask him what that black thing is and if he needs help cleaning it up."
"Oh it's my toes"
"What. The. F'k."
"Yeah I cut them off, they didn't fit right on my foot."
"Needless to say he was immediately readmitted. He reportedly cut them off with a kitchen knife and then seared his wound with a lighter. I believe he had to have his entire foot/below knee leg amputated because it got infected."
Scare-bnb
"I used to help my dad who was a real estate appraiser. We went into this one house that was in the mountains, it was vacant. One room looked like it had black carpeting. When we looked closer, we found out the floor was covered in dead flies. The only room in the house like that."
Grisly Discovery
"A neighbor called the police after noticing the mail piling up outside of a neighbor's house, never ever a good sign. I get the check the welfare call and go with a back up car. No answer at the door so we try to look through all the 1st floor windows when my partner spots,a foot in the hallway. We forced entry and found the eldery female barely alive. She had fallen two days,earlier and had a broken hip. Fire/rescue came and got her to the hospital in time. I know not the weirdest thing finding her. We had to grab all the prescription medicine we could find to take to the hospital, it was then that we found her mummified husband sitting in the bedroom chair. Coroner said he had been there about six months."
Trash Can Alternative
"I was 20 years old working as an internet installer (just over 10 years ago). A cute girl a little older than me ordered service so while I was at her house surveying (both flirting) I told her I had to trace some lines down. It was a studio type MIL suite she was renting behind a house as she was in college."
"Started tracing lines and had to look behind her bed. It was just a mountain of used tampons, she had been shoving them under and behind her bed. The rest of the house was relatively clean."
"Also lots and lots of hoarders. There are so many hoarders."
Wasteland
"When I was a caregiver, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I walked into a home where there was dog sh*t everywhere. No pads, no newspaper, etc. Just dog shit e v e r y w h e r e, of all kinds. Dried, fresh, broken into bits, whole pieces..."
"There was a capable adult in the household who could have let the dog out. I had to bite my tongue, every time I went there and was told to pick it up, because I so badly wanted to go 'What in the absolute f'k is wrong with you??? How do you live like this when I'm NOT here???'"
Pizza Delivery
These Redditors delivered pies and came back with bizarre stories.
The Gift
"As a pizza delivery driver, I wasn't required to go into anyone's house, at least on paper. In practice though, it happens. If I were doing the same job now, I'd be much more wary of going into someone's house, but at 19, I thought I was invincible and didn't care."
"I have tons of pizza delivery stories from back then, some I've even told on Reddit before, but I've never told this one."
"There used to be this log cabin looking house right in the middle of town. It's since been demolished but it was legitimately just a very large log cabin sitting in the middle of a city. It was probably 10pm when I went out on the delivery. I looked at the address, looked at the wall map to see exactly where I was going (the days before GPS), and realized it was the log cabin. I'd always noticed it but had never visited it, nor did I know anything about it. So it was kind of exciting getting to see who actually lived in this place."
"I arrive and pull into the driveway and for the first time, I noticed it had 3 separate doors. A, B, and C."
"'I'll be damned, it's a triplex,' I thought."
"The address was for unit C, so I went to unit C and knocked on the door. As soon as it opened a wall of stink knocked me across the face. It smelled like... I don't know, a mixture of piss and unwashed crotch? A woman answered wearing nothing but a t-shirt and panties, which wasn't particularly strange for my town, but when she raised her arms, I could see her boobs hanging out the bottom of the shirt."
She turned around and said "I gotta get my pocket book, will you set it on the counter?"
"Extremely hesitant, I crossed the threshold and saw the counter right next to me. I set the pizza down. She came back out with the exact change and a copy of The Last of the Mohicans on VHS. She handed me the money and said 'Have you seen this?' and plops the video in my hands."
"'Uh, yeah, years ago,' I say."
"'Well now you own it,' she says. 'That damn movie is so good.'"
"I stare at her and the tape for a moment and I'm like 'I mean if you like the movie I don't wanna take it from you."'
"'No it's fine,' she says. 'I got like 50 copies of it.'"
"Right after she said that, I noticed her tv was on and, no sh*t, Last of the Mohicans was playing. I remember clearly it was the scene where the guy was being burned alive."
"'Okie doke, thanks,' I said, and left."
"When I got back to work, I told my manager I'd just delivered a pizza to the log cabin in town and he looks at me and says 'Did she give you a copy of Last of the Mohicans?'"
"'SHE DID!' I replied."
"Yeah I got a copy from her too."
"Not particularly scary or anything, just weird. I never had a delivery for her again."
– CDC_
The Excited Teen Customer
"Similarly, I had a young guy once open the door in nothing but some track pants and I couldn't help but notice his raging hard-on and a semi-nude old lady lying on the couch behind him."
"Pizza delivery doesn't pay enough, but it's a crazy job with limitless stories."
– CDC_
Pizza Museum
"I was an internet installer about 10 years ago, too! I actually just recently got back into the industry, but yeah..... There are a lot more hoarders out there than people typically think. And for weird stuff, too. I had a guy that had stored about 4 years worth of pizza boxes in his basement, stacked to the ceiling and piles sorted by where he ordered them from."
Many employees who deliver items or make home visits for inspection and repairs have continued doing god's work throughout the pandemic – as long as they abided by safety protocols and were healthy.
With much of the pandemic seeing an uptick in such services, these itinerant workers undoubtedly have endless anecdotes to share.
Hopefully, stories about finding corpses or severed toes inside homes were not a frequent occurrence.
Because no thank you.
They asked:
"Native Americans of Reddit, what are your or your tribes ghost stories, legends, or supernatural occurrences?"
Here are some of the interesting legends and superstitions of North America's First Nations and Indigenous tribes.
Uktena
Brice Cooper on Unsplash
"Uktena. It's a legend about a horned snake in Tsalagi [Cherokee] legend. Uktena is said to be very large and round like a tree trunk, with horns on his head."
"The only way to wound him is to shoot at a singular spot on his forehead that emits bright light. It's similar to a diamond. If you defeat Uktena, you become a miracle worker."
"A great warrior. Yet, once you see the light of his forehead, you run toward it instead of trying to escape."
"Even to see Uktena sleeping is death. Not to the hunter, but to his family."
~ Faith-Hope-TacoBell
Dog Tails or Why They Sniff Each Other
gotdaflow on Unsplash
"Lenni Lenape story about why dogs sniff each other's butts."
"When the humans slept, dogs would get together and party, but not before taking their tails off. They'd dance the entire night, put their tails back on and return home."
"But one time a wolf found them and all the dogs had to scramble away to their homes for safety, but a lot of them grabbed the wrong tail."
"They never danced again at night because they were afraid of the wolf, so they were stuck with weird mismatched tails for the rest of their lives."
"This is the reason that dogs sniff each other's butts; to see if the other dog has their tail."
~ ChurroChick
Haida Raven Brings Light to the Earth
Cristina Glebova on Unsplash
"In the beginning there was no light in the world, because an old magician kept it hidden in a box inside his house. Raven, who was always hungry, didn't like the darkness because it was difficult to find food."
"One day he was looking for food near the old magician's house. He heard a voice saying, 'I have a box, and inside this box is another box, and inside this there is another box, and inside the smallest box is all the light in the world'."
"Raven decided to steal the light."
"Raven waited until the old man's daughter went down to the river to collect water. Just as she was dipping her basket into the river, he changed himself into a hemlock needle."
"The needle floated into her basket. When the girl drank some water, she swallowed Raven too."
"Inside the girl's belly Raven took the form of a human baby. He grew and grew, and in time she gave birth to a funny looking child with black eyes and a big nose."
"The old man loved his grandson so much that he gave in to the child's every wish. Raven became spoilt and greedy. He was bored with all his toys, and wanted to play with the box that held the light."
"Finally the grandfather opened the box and tossed the glowing ball of light to Raven."
"As soon as Raven caught the light, he immediately changed into his bird form. Holding the light in his beak, he flew up the chimney hole into the dark world."
"The magician was angry. He wanted to get the light back into his box."
"He flew after Raven."
"The light was heavy in Raven's beak, and he was getting tired. The magician was coming closer."
"Raven broke off some pieces of the light and threw them into the sky. They became the stars."
"The magician was still coming closer, so Raven broke off another piece of the light and threw it into the sky. It became the moon."
"Finally Raven became so tired that he tossed the last and biggest piece of the light into the sky. It became the sun; and that is how daylight came to the world."
~ deviety
Nakani
Oliver Roos on Unsplash
"Dené from northern British Columbia here, my mom used to always tell me stories of the Nehgunni [Nakani], or bushmen/wild-men when I was young."
"They were people who lived in the forest and took away people who wandered too far out, specifically children."
"I always figured these stories were created by my people to serve two purposes, first to teach young children to not wander far off, and second to give explanations to kidnappings or missing people."
~ spanishLION
See-at-coh
green trees near lake under blue sky during daytimePhoto by Jasper Gronewold on Unsplash"See-at-coh (don't know the translation in English) is a Cowlitz legend. Lived at this lake and it was his spot."
"We DO NOT go there or he will kill you. Used to have nightmares about him based on what I was taught as a kid."
"Like how you could stand at the edge of the water and be looking in and he would come out of it and just grab you. No whistling at night and keep windows covered."
"But then the mountain blew up [Mt. Saint Helen] and filled in the lake so don't know if he's still around or not."
~ kalimah1
Nahual of Mexico
Joshua Wilking on Unsplash
"I live in rural Mexico. There are many, many different Indigenous peoples in what's now Mexico."
"The ones who settled here speak Nahuatl—the language of the Aztecs. This legend took place in the early 1900's."
"One of my favourite Nahuatl myths is the Nahual."
"Some people were thought to be able to turn into an animal. Most of them could only turn into one, but the most powerful Nahual could turn into different animals."
"There was a man who owned a hacienda where my town is, and he had a sort of overseer that everyone was afraid of."
"Said overseer could take a message all the way to the next state (think hundreds of miles) and bring back a sealed response in a single day."
"He also seemed to know everything everyone did, all the time. He was rumoured to be a Nahual that could turn into a coyote and an eagle."
"His quarters were heavily warded in his absence, which only added fuel to the rumor. You can only kill a Nahual if you find the human skin he sheds to transform and burn said skin."
~ CTalina78
Yamǫ́rıa & Yamǫǫ̀zha
Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
"Yamǫ́rıa & Yamǫǫ̀zha—the giant twins [of the Dené]."
"There are landmarks all around the territory I live in that is exhibited as 'proof' they were alive."
"In the middle of the Mackenzie river( biggest river in the NorthWest Territories) there is a large stone sticking out of the river which looks like the petrified guts of a beaver, there is a giant branchless, leafless tree sticking out of the top of this stone."
"It is said that Yamǫǫ̀zha had hunted a giant beaver and gutted him there in the river. He used his spear to anchor down the cuts so fish may feed on them. They are still there to this day."
"Yamǫ́rıa's body can be seen laying down, it is essentially a mountain range that looks like a giant human laying on his back, completely with face and feet. This can be seen from the peak of the hill as you enter a town called Ft. Liard, the southwestern most town in the NWT."
Walking Sam of the Pine Ridge Reservation
Boston Public Library on Unsplash
"'Walking Sam' skulks in the shadows of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and convinces people to take their own lives, especially young people."
"He's 7 feet tall, very thin and has no mouth. When he stretches out his long arms, nooses hang down with Lakota children hanging from them."
"Walking Sam finds you when you're alone and puts thoughts in your head until you feel worthless and kill yourself.
"Sometimes Walking Sam is depicted looking like Abraham Lincoln, complete with the stovepipe hat. 'Walking Sam', 'Uncle Sam', I don't know if that's where the name came from."
"But Walking Sam is an evil infected upon the people when the Oceti Sakowin were forced onto the reservations; he isn't a legend of the people before Pine Ridge Reservation existed."
"Lincoln was President when the Lakota were being forced onto reservations. Lincoln also ordered the execution of 38 Lakota men the day after Christmas in 1862. It's the largest mass execution in U.S. history."
"I always thought Walking Sam was Lincoln. They carved his face onto Ŝa´kpe Tuŋkaŋŝi (Mount Rushmore was called Six Grandfathers) in the Paha Sa´pa (Black Hills)
"My Father attended Holy Rosary boarding school at Pine Ridge in the 1940s & 1950s, but our people didn't live on the reservation. My Grandmother said evil stalked the people there."
"My Father never wanted us to ever even visit any of our cousins or his Uncles there."
~ LakotaGrl
Este Lopocke or Este Lubutke
Morgane Perraud on Unsplash
"Miccosukee [Seminole] tribal member here (South Florida) and for us it's the little people."
"Essentially really small people (like barbie doll sized and smaller) that live in the trees. They play jokes and stuff mainly, unless you piss them off."
"Had family members get tricks played on them that couldn't be explained."
"And then we have our fair share of stories that circulate our reservation like a tribal member being taken by the little people."
"All on the reservation in the Everglades (like 40 mins west of Miami)."
~ SSBMBabyCakes
Haudenosaunee Rules
Chris Chow on Unsplash
"I know the Haudenosaunee [Iroquois Confederacy] rules."
"1. If you hear someone you know calling your name, but you also know they are not supposed to be there, DON'T respond. Especially if they are out of sight and insisting you come to them."
"2. Always play group games in counter-clockwise order, otherwise your playing with the dead."
"3. Also don't eat in the dark, this is considered inviting the dead to eat with you. If you can extend your hand all the way out and still see it clearly then your fine."
"4. Don't play card games past midnight. If you do, and someone knocks at the door, don't answer it."
"5. Try not to drop your cards, if you do then don't bend down to pick them up, or you will see hooves under the table. That's bad."
"6. Say thank you after meals, even if you're the one that made it. Even better if you say it in native tongue."
"7. If someone finishes their meal and says thank you, you say 'you're welcome', even if you didn't give it to them. Even better in native tongue."
"8. After someone dies, you should gather family as quickly as possible to have feasts for 10 days. The first dinner is large, then every meal after that is a smaller feast meant for portions of the family to come at different times to help.
"The last feast on the 10th day is the closing dinner, which is the largest, with the entire family expected to show up and help. For every meal of these 10 days, put out a plate of the deceased's favorite foods first."
"Contrary to rule 6, you do not say thank you at any time during these 10 days. This is because it is believed that it takes the dead 10 days to relive their lives before they pass on, so this is your last chance to eat with them."
"Saying 'Thank you' during this time will make them stop before they're done because you're saying you're done. This will have bad consequences."
"9. Don't try to contact spirits, especially with board games. This is not a tribe custom, it's more of an unspoken common sense among the Rez people."
"10. If a bird flies into your house, someone's going to die."
"11. Pregnant woman should not hold any child that isn't theirs."
"12. It's accepted that if you actually try to curse someone, literally going through all of the steps with the intention of harm, not accidentally wishing them bad luck, then your family will also be cursed horribly."
"13. If you play with fire you'll wet the bed."
~ kinda-always-hungry
To learn more general information about Indigenous mythology of the United States, visit the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian website.
For Canada, visit the First Nations in Canada website.
For information about specific tribes, visit their tribal government website for recommended resources.