The Strangest Things Ever Discovered During Routine House Calls

Let’s face it: some people live weird lives. We may be able to hide our bizarre homes from most people by keeping things secret behind closed doors, but sometimes, a plumber, electrician, or cleaner needs to take a look inside the property. Here are some true life stories of the weirdest things that workers found in people’s homes during house calls.

Roofing Optional

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. Story credit: Reddit / floridianreader

That’s Not Carpet

I remember looking down at the carpet at one house, and thinking that it was interesting that the carpet was not wall to wall carpet. Because the carpet stopped about a foot from the wall all in a straight line from the wall.

And then when I looked closer, I realized that it wasn’t carpet at all but dead bugs and dirt and mouse turds and stuff just lying next to each other so closely and uniformly that it actually looked like carpet. I don’t want to know what happened that caused that line. Story credit: Reddit / floridianreader

Family Shrine

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. Story credit: Reddit / humanoid1013

Let’s Be Frank

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. Definitely my kind of weird. Story credit: Reddit / x4ty2