I think we've all had the experience of going into someone else's house and being completely baffled by something that seems normal to the occupants. Heck, some of us have been the occupants of one of these weird houses.
The r/AskReddit thread, "What's the weirdest thing you've seen happen at a friend's house that they thought was normal?" is an absolute goldmine for just that sort of thing.
"I remember one time I was at my friends house in middle school and we were watching TV. It was a sitcom. Everything this entire family laughed at during the show was not funny at all. They would all burst out laughing and I would look over at them confused trying to figure out what was so hilarious.
"Then something would happen in the show and I would laugh and none of them found it funny. I know a lot of humor is cultural. They seemed to be presenting themselves as normal middle class type of family. At one point their sense of humor was so weird I thought they might be some sort of spies."
"Not really weird I guess, but first time in my husband's parent's house (just a friend at the time), I got to see what a hoarder house looked like. It wasn't even a well known term/condition back then so it just really shocked me seeing the giant mounds of stuff everywhere and having to navigate through it all. His room was clean, the rest of the house, not so much."
"Was on a date with a guy who was cooking dinner for me and his dog took a giant horse piss in the living room. I jumped up, a bit panicked, trying to get the guy's attention to what just happened. The guy didn't even look up when he said "Oh yeah, she does that sometimes" and that was it. I asked him if there was a towel and disinfectant I could use to help clean it up and the guy says "I'll just throw some Febreez on it after dinner". I suddenly realized the musty smell I noticed earlier wasn't from his cool and rustic cabin being under a canopy of trees, or that the floor in the same location that bowed when you stepped over it was because it was old."
Photo Cred: PuppyHero.com
"I babysat for a family on occasion and the kids would always ask for a "cool cup" and I had no clue what it was. They asked for them constantly but were too little to really describe them enough for me to understand. I mentioned it to the mom in passing one day and she started laughing and cut the tops off of some bell peppers and took out the seeds and.then filled the peppers with tap water. The kids went nuts over them like there were treats."
"After eating we settled in to watch a horror movie and at some point I looked around me and everyone in that family was sitting in the same criss-cross-applesauce position and slowly rocking back and forth while watching tv."
"Visit a friend house who live in san Francisco around 3rd street (bad neighborhood area). Upon entering pass by the kitchen 4 gas stove flame was in full blast not cooking anything, no vent, you can literally see a big burn hole in the ceiling all the way thru the 2nd floor room. His mom was upstairs one of those rooms far away from the bottom floor kitchen, watching tv in full blast. Long story short. They are basically using their gas stove as a centralize heater for the whole house. I'm a certified fire safety director at my work. This almost gives me a heart attack."
"Went to a sleepover at this girls house and her mom was obsessively taking pictures of us all night. At one point, we were watching a movie and my friend passed out and her mom , I [expletive] you not, pulls out a huge newscast-type heavy duty camera and starts recording her daughter sleeping for a solid 5 minutes ."
"Had a friend who’s family lived on a huge property and kept cows for the property tax exemption, not odd.. he told me to come by and get some purple ringers he collected for me.. invited me in to meet his parents and I swear to god, there was a fullsize cow chilling on one of their couches in the living room. That sight was way more wild than any of the hallucinations later experienced. Really nice people though lol."
"Everything about my friend’s room/sleeping situation was normal. But her brothers’ room was bizarre. They shared one big room, with three bunk beds. Each mattress a fitted sheet, a pillow, and nothing else. No top sheets, no blankets, no comforters. Also, the boys didn’t have pajamas. They all just slept in the clothes they had worn that day - with their shirts tucked into their pants, and belts on, too. Their room didn’t have a door, and neither did their connected bathroom or their closets."
"My house but looking back it’s unusual. My Dad was a doctor and it was not uncommon for him to take a patient’s blood on the way home and store it in the fridge next to the orange juice over night. Then take it to work the next morning. Can’t do that these days of course but the 70s was pretty wild."
"They walked around nude at home 24/7. He invited me over to play nintendo after school. When he had gotten in, he stripped down butt ass nakked, and went to make a sandwich. Everyone else was already bare ass and loitering."
"My dad was a truck driver who was able to bring home boxes of food if it's packaging was damaged. All my friends would go home with full boxes of cap'n crunch and pancake mix.
"After a while my friends would have to tell my dad that their parents told them to come home empty handed."
"A neighbors dad was an avid fisherman and he world use these electrode things in the lawn to get worms to come up that he was gonna use as bait...he would also eat some of the first ones to come up to check if they 'tasted right'...if not he would remove the electrodes and try again another day."
"My friend had 9 siblings. Whenever I was there and we ate, he always told me to 'protect my food.' He literally covered his plate by surrounding it with his arms. His brothers kept stealing food from the younger ones and their parents didn't do anything to stop them, it was just normal."
"Went to friend's house as a kid. Sitting at the dinning table for lunch. House phone rings. Everyone falls to the floor around me including the mum and dad. I'm the only one left sitting there. The dad informs me that I now must answer the phone. 'Hello... Johnson's house.' I hold the phone out to the dad. "Ummm it's for you". Everyone laughs. I am so uncomfortable. The next time that phone rang. I was the fastest to the floor I can tell you that."
"My friends mom always gave me a box of food when I came over. One day as I left she just handed me a box of hot pockets. As if it was just a small trinket."
"I will never forget the family that shared milk -- if you didn't finish it, it got poured into someone else's glass or the carton...including the friend guest. for some reason, drinking someone else's backwash milk is repulsive to me and has remained a memorable post."
"Being sent up to the friend's room while the fam and friend was eating dinner. Yes, this was common practice in Sweden in the 80's and early '90's but it still [expletive] up. Why'm I sitting here alone playing gameboy while you peeps are eating?"
"[The] amount of smoke alarm battery warning 'beeps,' all going off every 10 minutes. No need to replace the batteries. Just get used to the beeps going off randomly, and then sometimes all at the same time. How do you live, or even sleep with that happening?"
"I walked into my gfs living room and out of nowhere their chocolate lab, from outside, jumps through an open window and lands on the couch. I just froze and her sons like 'oh he does that' This was in Florida."
