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Playing beer pong at this one couple’s house and the rule was if the ball hit the floor and their cat got to it first everyone had to finish their drinks. Cat was wicked fast too.
Kitchen hours.I stayed at a friend’s house when I was younger. Nobody told me the entire family has breakfast at 7am, so I slept in (nobody woke me up either btw).I wake up around 9am and see my friend is gone. I wander into the kitchen and see them all sitting around the table laughing and eating a huge breakfast - pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, fruit, etc.My friend’s mom looks at me and goes, “Hey, look who’s finally awake! The kitchen is closed, but there’s cereal in the pantry if you want to serve yourself!”So I poured myself a bowl of cereal and went to sit down at the table, and the second I sat down they all stood up and left the kitchen - even my friend.To this day I don’t understand why they did that to me.
In 1972 we were amazed when a colleague announced that no one would be allowed to smoke in his house.
Went over to a classmates house and the children weren’t allowed on the furniture. She was not even allowed to sit on her own bed. All children sat on the floor. My poor classmate was hardly allowed to touch anything in her own room without “permission”. It was bizarre and uncomfortable. Never went back.
The most bizarre house rule that I’ve encountered was at my friend’s place, where they had a strict policy of ‘no talking’ during dinner, not because of any traditional reason, but because their elderly grandmother believed that a mischievous spirit living in the dining room would learn secrets and cause chaos.
If we slammed the door as kids, my dad made us kiss the door to make it feel better.
I went to see a college friend over the summer & stayed the night. Her parents weren’t home when I got there, and we went into the living room to talk. There were four recliners, no couch or other chairs. She sat in one recliner & I sat in another. She asked, “What are you doing?” and informed me I was sitting in her dad’s chair. The remaining chairs belonged to her mom & brother. Where was I supposed to sit? On the floor.
I cannot sit on the couch at my dad’s house if his wife is home because she will feel “invaded.” She has to have the whole couch to herself. So I get to sit in a dining room table chair.
That if I’m on my menstrual cycle I am forbidden to have tampons or cups. So I was at a friends house and I left my tampon wrapped in a small plastic bag in their trash. Their dad whipped it out and yelled at me for using tampons. (While holding the bloody tampon)
Guests eat last. My aunt’s ex husband used to make me sit and watch everyone eat before I could be served food.
A friend of mine has a rule that nobody is allowed to use his frying pan (his wife and kids included).Edited to add: For those getting outraged, this was not known or pointed out before I was already cooking scrambled eggs using said pan with a plastic spatula. I have 3 different sizes of the same pan and know how to use a non stick pan without damaging it - calm down.I was staying there for a few days after a surgery and used his frying pan without knowing and when his wife spotted it she quickly warned me nobody is allowed to use that, it’s his special frying pan and he doesn’t let anyone use it.I laughed and said “I don’t play that childish s**t” when he came in and got all upset about it.By that time it was too late as I’d finished cooking and was cleaning it.He then hid his frying pan from everyone.Because I had the time and have a bit of a malicious streak, and it was only a $40 pan I decided to prank him and I went and bought the same pan from a local store the next day while he was at work. I took photos of myself using it to cook, pretending to clean it with a steel wool pot scrubber, and drilling holes in it with his cordless drill, printed the photos at a local stationary shop and put them in about 20 photo frames around his house, and stuck one to the fridge.His wife and kids thought it was hilarious, and still have one on their fridge a year later, and anytime we go away together I take one and put in on the fridge of the Airbnb/hotel just to remind him that he’s a manchild and it’s just a frying pan.
I had a friend when I was a kid and sometimes I would go to he’s house. The kids couldn’t eat at the table at the same time as the adults, we had to wait for them to finish and leave the table, and we couldn’t talk at all at the table.Always found it to be weird, always felt a creepy vibe in that family, even thou I was a kid.Edit: oh, and they pour sugar in coke! Yes, they drank coke with even more sugar.
Not only did the cats get to walk on the table DURING meals, but you were supposed to let them eat off your plate because otherwise you were “interfering with the will of a sentient being.“I love my own cats- honestly I love practically all animals - but they don’t get to eat off my plate or stroll around on the table and even if I was ok with that I certainly wouldn’t expect a guest to share their plate with one of them.
if the lights were on you got yelled at for them being on and wasting energy, if the lights were off you got yelled at for being in the dark
I once went to a party at the home of a colleague of my now ex-husband, where we had a very nice and collegial potluck dinner with another couple. So, there were six adults and two children of the hosts, age maybe 8 and 10(?). After we ate and moved to the living area, the two hosts declared a period of silence to “concentrate on digestion.”It wasn’t like a moment of silence, either, but like ten minutes or so. We and the other guest couple were looking at each other like, “wtf”. It was awkward AF, not knowing when it would be over and ok to resume normal conversation. I felt like a little kid put in timeout and hated it. We cut the visit short and never accepted another invitation from them.
I just thought of one! Although, it was not something I encountered.At the time, I lived in a city where it was well over 105F for over 14 days. During an informal office get-together, a few of us women commented how the 1st thing to “come off” at home was our bras.As teenagers and young adults, she and her sisters HAD to wear a bra while sleeping. Her Mom or Grandma would occasionally do a bed check. If they were braless, they would be beaten. As an adult, she still could not break the habit of wearing one. Her own girls were warned to always wear one while visiting Grandma and Gt Grandma.
A schoolfriend’s parents had a rule where you couldn’t wee directly in to the toilet water and had to aim for the inside edge of the bowl.I forgot one time and was never allowed back again because they’d heard me wee.
My former step father only wanted the toilet flushed if you went number two and only once a day per person. Cheapness is a sickness.
They had a room in their basement that they let the dog s**t in if they didn’t feel like taking it for a walk
Once stayed at a relative’s place where they had a strict “No Radio Waves After Dark” rule. Post sunset, WiFi was shut down, phones were powered off, and even the microwave was a no-go zone. They believed that radio waves interfered with sweet dreams. The first night I was there, I felt like I time-traveled to a pre-internet era.
When I was a child, my mom had a friend who would watch me for an entire weekend, or a week during the summer. She had a daughter that was a year younger than me.She was an absolute clean freak. I liked her because she would take me places, but she had a lot of rules. Couldn’t wear shoes in her house. Ok, not all that weird… but she would take your shoes to the basement utility sink and scrub the bottom of your shoes. Can’t have your pants too long, because they might drag on her floor and get dirt on her floor, so I had to roll up my pants. Can’t touch the walls, because the dirt from your fingers might get on her white walls. If it was nice outside, you’re eating outside, because your crumbs may get on the floor. She was also an English teacher. Even at 6 years old, I couldn’t say “yeah”, you say “yes”. Only ignorant people say “yeah”. Can’t say I’m going to take off my shoes. “Only rockets take off. You REMOVE your shoes.” Couldn’t say “I’m done!” According to her, “only turkeys are done. You are FINISHED.””
My wife stayed home with our two kids, and their various friends were frequent guests. She was happy to have them over, but she established that she was NOT there to entertain them. They had quite a bit of freedom to do things, or to do nothing, but if they tried to involve her she would have them clean something around the house.So one day our daughter had two friends over, one who knew the ropes at our house, and one who didn’t. The latter started to say, “I’m bored!” and the former quickly said, “Quiet, or she’ll put us to work.”
No talking about or watching anything that contained “magic.” Harry Potter was banned along with many shows and cartoons.
Everyone needed to be patted down and searched just in case someone was the feds wearing a wire 😂
If you need to pass gas you have to go outside and all the way to the mailbox.
I stayed at a friend’s house for a few days when my parents were out of town when I was 13 years old. I have always been someone who draws a lot (I went to art school for my undergrad.) When I started drawing in my own notebook after dinner, my friend told me that if her father caught me, I would be in real trouble because he thought drawing was a waste of paper. So I stopped drawing for 4 days. When I returned home, I rushed up to my room, grabbed a drawing pad and drew for hours. The funny thing is that her dad was a lawyer. You know how I said that I was in art school for undergrad? Well for graduate school eventually I went to law school and worked as an attorney for almost 30 years before I retired. Most lawyers waste an inordinate amount of paper, both in and out of court, especially when this guy was practicing.
I have a job that involves going into peoples homes. I had an inspection once at house where the homeowners insisted that I put on this light blue bath robe (over my clothes) and white slippers to enter their home. The husband, wife, and adult daughter who lived with them were all wearing the same blue bath robes. This was in the US Midwest… just a “typical” American midwestern family so it wasn’t even like a cultural thing that I was unaware of. I still wonder to this day if they were messing with me.
My friend’s mom wouldn’t let her put any trash in the bathroom trashcan. There was a trashcan there but it was just there for show (???) They were directed to put all trash generated in the bathroom down the toilet.
My friends thought it was weird that they weren’t allowed to go into the basement when they were at my house. I didn’t know this until we were all much older, which I then explained that my parents were major pot heads and the basement is where their smoke spot was located. Also discovered that’s why one of my friends wasn’t allowed back over; her parents recognized the ode de stoner on her clothes.
Knew someone who was an engineer for BT back in the 90s. He used his skills to build a household PBX exchange with a billing system.Once a month he would present his children with a printed bill for the calls they made.He also had a payphone for visitors to use.
My friends house rule when I was a kid. One square for pee. Two squares for poo. I did not follow that rule.
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Years ago Myself (8) and little sister (6) were having tea at a friends house ( the big bro (14) and big sis (16) and the little sis (8) was our friend ) a plate of jam tarts in little foul tins were placed in the table and told this was our dessert .Myself and sister only liked the strawberry ones and so had 2 each of those , my friend and her siblings had 2 each of the black current and lemon curd ones . Then the mum came in and my friend and her siblings literally went pale and froze , eyes darting at all our plates .Psycho mum flipped her s**t and screamed at my sister and me that we were ‘vile disgusting greedy pig gannets ‘for both eating 2 tarts the same flavour when the house rule is. ..When eating jam tarts you can only have ONE of any flavour if eating multiple tarts !!!!WtF l!! Like why would we know that was a house rule as it was the first ( and last) time we had been there and even at 6 and 8 yrs old a rule regarding any desserts was ever mentioned before anywhere. Myself and sister still now 30 yrs on still feel on edge when we see jam tarts .However the absolute obvious terror and visible shaking from her kids ( the teens reaction seemed more scary) made it more traumatic of a memory, as this was a BIG DEAL and clearly there had been severe consequences in the past for this broken rule .We never asked them all why this was a rule and why they were so scared and never talked about the incident with them ..probs because i was to scared to hear the answers.
Don’t sit in this one dining room chair because it was the dog’s. He was too short to climb up on it, but it was “his” chair.
You couldn’t ask for/get a drink half way through a meal, you either had to ask for/get one before you were served or wait until you were done, I could never understand it.
My aunt doesn’t let anyone kill flies in her houseShe also lets rats and raccoons live in her attic because “they have nowhere else to live”
Attended a birthday slumber in middle school for a girl that I wasn’t really close with. My mom wanted me to go because she knew the girl didn’t have a ton of friends.So, it’s a weekend night, probably a Friday. We’re all in our sleeping bags on the floor, giggling and talking like most middle school girls do. Her mom comes in at like 9pm and tells us it’s time for bed and if she hears any of us talking, she’ll call our mothers and make them come pick us up. Ffs. Who does that?
My aunt had a rule that nobody was allowed to use the bed comforters to actually sleep under. Comforters were just for looks, and had to be removed and folded up before going to bed.
I heard about a woman who, when she went to nursing school, would wash her feet in the toilet every night before bedtime. When asked why she did that, she said she was from a large family, and they would all line up at bedtime and do this.This would have happened in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
My mom’s house. Leave the mirrors in the bushes, all pennies stay where they are, no playing music, no cellphones and always apologize to/thank your food.
I went to my childhood friend’s house for dinner and her dad legitimately refused to let us drink any water for an hour before dinner so we didn’t “spoil our appetite”
I had a high school best friend who had to change out of her school clothes the minute she got in the door. Her mom was also oddly obsessed with her patting her face dry instead of rubbing it. I guess that’s not a rule, but I can remember 2 separate occasions where she got in trouble for this. Apparently because it ages you (?) but her mother would also buy us smokes, so….EDIT: I’ve really been enjoying reading all these replies, and TIL that maybe WE were the weird house because we didn’t have this rule! :D
No eating in the dining room. A woman I know kept her dining room table set with all her china and crystal all the time. The family ate on tv trays in the den.
I was required to take my shoes off at the door. Totally normal, right? Except their house was neglected AF and every surface was covered in filth: dog hair, person hair, dirt, old spills, dirty clothes, etc. I would’ve rather kept my shoes on in her house.ETA: It was my best friend’s house, so I was over all the time for years. We didn’t use slippers and definitely walked barefoot/socks on that nasty floor.
It wasn’t exactly a house rule but more of a lack of one. I went over to a friend’s house for the first time when I was about 15 and her dog took a st on the floor. Well, it was a very new puppy and these things happen, I suppose, just needs more work on toilet training or let it outside more often. What floored me was that my friend just kinda draped a shirt from the hamper over the dog’s turds, shrugged, and said “my dad’s the one who usually cleans it.”It was the last time I went over to her house. If she couldn’t even be bothered to pick up dog st off the floor god knows what else was going on in that house.
Rented a basement room in a house after college for a couple months while my internship finished up. The family said no flushing the toilet after midnight-were VERY clear this was IMPORTANT. Being in college I was a frequent enjoyer of social establishments, so coming home late at night after the bar left me with few options…(sorry downstairs sink!)
I stayed on a friend’s house for a few days as a student, and he was adamant I put dirty toilet paper in the corner for the compost, rather than flushing it. I thought he was joking until I used the bathroom and saw it there.
Kids arent allowed to sit on the sofa
Parents that allowed their kids to use the most profane language as long as they used it in a proper sentence.
When we slept at my best friends house growing up we weren’t allowed water after 8pm because that’s when her mom went to bed and she didn’t want us waking her up to use tue bathroom. She had a little yippy dog who would bark at every little sound and if we came out to use the bathroom, she would bark. I only slept over there a handful of times lol
Pretty low on the bizarre scale just something unusual I guess.I had a friend whose family dressed up for dinner Sunday nights. Dad and the brothers were ties and a jacket, mom and the sister, fancy dresses. It wasn’t a religious thing either.
At one of my Aunt & Uncle’s house, everyone had to turn the water on and off multiple times during a shower. Like turn it on to get wet, turn off to shampoo, back on to rinse hair…etc
Grandparents of my childhood friend. We weren’t allowed to step on the doorsteps/thresholds. We always had to step over it, never directly on. Still don’t know why.
Not sure if it qualifies as a house rule but my now fiancé lived with some of his extended family when we first met, and the matriarch of the house absolutely insisted on my fiancé being on time and downstairs to eat dinner at the table every night while her son rarely came down for dinner.It was a little off for sure, her son usually stayed in his room playing video games until like 8-9 at night and he would pop down and make his plate and head right back to his room. But one time we were “late” for dinner (I should mention, dinner was served like over an hour earlier than usual this particular night) and we both got stern long texts about it and were told it was our responsibility to clean her kitchen up after dinner?? I didn’t live there, been dating my then boyfriend for like 4 months at this point.Thought it was a B I Z A R R E house rule
once I went to a house and the entire house is just covered in cloths…the parents were raising a big a*s rabbit in the kitchen which is also covered in clothes and they have an entire wall of dvds for some reason and we were not allowed to watch any of them…also we were not allowed to move the clothes around
No pda of any kind for anyone. Not like “no makeout sessions”, but no holding hands between couples, no kiss on the cheek, etc.
When I was a teenager I went to my friends house and his mom was like “house rules: we’re gonna go around the table and introduce ourselves before we say grace (like hi my name is x and I’m y years old and I like z).”I got up and walked outside and called my mom to come pick me up.Mf psychopaths.
When I was young, my parents regularly brought me over to this couple’s house… we’ll call them John and Mary.John and Mary had no kids. However, John was a huge nerd that had toys and video games and so it was generally a fun time to go there while they went off and did “adult st”. However, they had a rule that nobody pooped indoors. It isn’t that their toilets didn’t work, or that they had plumbing problems, or anything that would make sense. Peeing indoors wasn’t an issue, they just didn’t like the smell of lingering st in the house.Any time someone had to make the poopies, they had to go to an outhouse and dump in there. I never learned what they did with it. It’s not like they had a garden or anything that I can recall would warrant doing this. It’s just… weird.
I met a girl at a new school and she invited me to spend the night and asked me “do you smell bad though? We had a girl over once and she smelled so bad, so my parents wanna know if you smell bad.”I never went to her house, went home one day and mom said we were moving back to our old neighborhood so i never went back to that school again
While on a Rotary exchange to Denmark for a year my host family post dinner always rolled dice. The Lower did the clean up and dishes. Sometimes I hit a bad stretch of roll luck and was in the suds for quite a while.
It wasn’t a rule as such, but my friend in our early twenties was living in the family home alone as his mum moved in with her boyfriend and she put post it notes all over the house with the rules. Like flush the toilet. Replace the loo roll. Turn the lights off. They were everywhere.
Wi-Fi turned off at 10pm. 2 grown adults. No valid reason.
I work in EMS and once got called out for an unknown problem. We get to the house , and this older woman stops us at the door, and hands us booties to put on. Nbd , our boots are gross , and we’re respectful. Then she asks us to sanitize our hands . Again, nbd. She looks us up and down, eyes our equipment, and asks us to wipe it down with lysol wipes . Ok? We aren’t sure why we’re there yet, so I ask if its ok if I wipe the bag down as we walk inside , and my partner can wipe down the monitor, and we’ll leave everything else on the porch. Cool. So we’re walking , we’re talking , we’re wiping , she’s telling us her husband was having some indigestion and she felt like he wasn’t taking it seriously , ok alright ok, we walk into a HOARDER HOUSE and fire is working an active arrest NO BOOTIES OR LYSOL SMELL. We kind of take a beat like , what the hell? And then the lady dumps some sort of salt/ash/herb mixture on us , tells us we’re blessed, and says she had to get rid of our evil attachments before we could come in and perform our medical duties .Im fully aware there may have been some mental health issues going on. Im also extremely well versed on various spiritual and cultural practices, and wasn’t even mad I got herbed or salted or ashed. I wasnt confused about being cleansed of attachments, st made sense .YOU DIDNT MAKE THOSE HO AS FIRE FIGHTERS WITH THEIR COMMUNITY DS AND ALL THEIR WHACK AS VIBES GET CLEANSED BEFORE THEY CAME IN? THAT ONE HAS FUCKBOY TATTOED ON HIS CHEST AND THAT ONE DID IT AND THEY BOTH WERE DRUNK! Respectfully maam, with love, that’s b*****t lmfao.
This one time my SIL told us to take our shoes off before entering the house and leave our shoes outside so for a brief split second we were walking on her little patio area barefoot.What was weird about this was that this was the first, last, and only time this was asked of us
don’t drink coffee with a spoon, “otherwise you will pierce your eye”…
This one time at a sleep over in the morning we got breakfast.. they filled up my bowl with cereal and poured like 2 drops of milk on it.. i was like wtf fill that s**t up..Then years later i realized they were trying to save money..
Once I broke down in front of this old guy’s farm. It was late at night so he offered for me to stay but I had to sleep in the bed with his beautiful single daughter.It was freaky weird.
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