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
Lawnmower Man
My dad was a firefighter. He has a call where the husband has put the riding lawn mower in the walkout basement. Couple returned from their honeymoon and he went to move the lawnmower back outside, started it and the gas fumes caused the house to explode.
House was a total loss but luckily no one was severely injured. Storing anything with gas in a place with no ventilation; not smart. Story credit: Reddit / maybeCheri
Floating Glass
Used to work in a glass company awhile back and while I was training I would tag along with the old vets. We did a lot of shower door installs and stuff.
Anyways we are in the wealthy part of town, beautiful large house. Lady needs the silicone around her massive 3/4 inch glass shower door. It was fixed, so it didn’t swing or anything. I forgot the name for it. But this guy was huge, like 9 feet tall by 7feet and 3 quarters inch thick.
The old guy said “poor guy to whoever installed this.” So we are working for a while getting the old silicone off the tile where the glass met the floor. Nothing out of the ordinary, usually seal fixed glass with silicone in the shower.
But then he stops scraping and sits up and says “what in the world?” And looks around the edges of this monster piece of glass. He just realized that this monstrosity was being completely held by silicone alone. Usually there is brackets drilled in the walls to hold in place, silicone just keeps the water in.
But this thing had silicone caked along all the edges where it touched the wall. He immediately stopped working and went and found the owner and told them this shower is a death trap and should not be used. He was baffled on how the hell they even got it to stay up, seeing it takes 24 hours for silicone to dry.
He seriously had never seen anything like it. “40 years working glass and I’ve never seen something so wild.” Story credit: Reddit / thunderstriken
Classy Art
Very large vanity style nudes of the lady, probably from a decade prior. Some were normal frames, one was like an old style velvet painting.
The apartment was in squalor. Bugs everywhere, food just left out. Then you had those pictures. That was the weirdest. Story credit: Reddit / Muliciber
Febreeze Heals All Wounds
Worked in fire/flood restoration, and have seen some stuff, literally and figuratively, lol.
Most memorable was an older ladies' house, she had two small dogs, while we talking, one of them takes a dump in the main floor living room. She "Febreezed" it, like nothing happened, keeps chatting, I looked around and there were multiple urine stains and about a dozen land mines, just in the one room.
I noped out of there quickly and we refused the gig. The basement would have been horrible as the flood would have brought out all the problems... Story credit: Reddit / Fair_Shake_For_aDad
Bleach Stockpile
A drawer in the kitchen dedicated to neatly folded plastic bags, another one dedicated to bread closure clips and twists, and 8 gallon bottles of bleach in the basement bathroom. I think she bought bleach whenever it was on sale, not that anything nefarious was going on with it.
The house itself was a '70s time capsule - green hi-low shag, glitter popcorn ceiling, split-level with iron railing for stairs and linoleum landings and kitchen, pink bathroom and avocado bathroom. Amazing time capsule. Story credit: Reddit / Plethorian
Branching Out
A literal tree. I install garage doors and needed to go through someone's house to do some repairs and right in the front entrance was a tree that almost touched the ceiling about 30 feet up.
They had cut a huge chunk out of the floor, filled it with dirt like a small garden, and grew a tree inside their house. Story credit: Reddit / Luminro
DIY Sauna
Not mine, but my friend was working in a moving company after high school. Entered an apartment they were about to clean out, but the tenants were still there.
They had set up shower curtains around the stove (on full heat) and were using it as a sauna, dudes were just sitting there in their undies and throwing water on the stove. Story credit: Reddit / SnooDonuts3448
Coming Out of the Closet
We were called to move a service panel out of a walk-in closet in an apartment. The young gay couple that lived in the place were super nice and they took us to the closet in question.
It was absolutely packed with their drag outfits; the most amazing collection of lame, animal print, feather boas and boudoir clothing that I have ever seen. We all moved everything out and got the job done in about two days.
And as we were wrapping up, the tenants brought us a little cake congratulating us for coming out of the closet! We actually sat down and had cake and coffee together before we left. Story credit: Reddit / kd6hul
"Refreshments"
One Easter week, I tuned a piano in the home of a girl who was my music student. Her mother greeted me at the door in a Playboy Bunny suit and kept offering "refreshments" as I tuned her piano. Story credit: Reddit / Back2Bach
Bobbing for Squirrels
I used to do tree removals all summer and in the winter I got this job cleaning houses. I go into this old ladies house and open the toilet and there was a dead, bloated squirrel floating in there.
I told the old lady and, not even a bit surprised or phased by the situation says “okay what you’re gonna do is grab the guy with this plastic bag and then turn it inside out and throw it out the window”.
She was very large so it was hard for her to get around and she’d just sit on the phone at the kitchen table smoking cigarettes and trying to get extra work out of me that was never mentioned in the contract. I never went back. Story credit: Reddit / _StirThePot_
Hitchcockian
Birds - many birds. Uncaged and flying free. In a one bed flat. I'm a mental health nurse. It was initially terrifyingly but less so as the months went on. Story credit: Reddit / mrssmith1979
Monkey Business
I was a test prep tutor for very wealthy families in Fairfield County, CT. A mom answered the door with a gibbon in a diaper wrapped around her. It was one of the most surreal moments: “you’re so rich you get to have a monkey?!”
Daughter came down stairs and hugged the gibbon before our tutoring session started. Turned out mom was a zoologist …so all good I guess? Story credit: Reddit / jmattchengdu
Miniature Zoo
Cleaned windows in college. One house was the home of a pediatrician with kids and grandparents living there along with a small zoo. I'm talking 10 dogs, 20 cats but also multiple birds, lizards, aquariums, etc.
The smell of the animals was so bad we had to wear masks dabbed with cologne. She was a pediatrician! With kids! That air was anything but safe. Story credit: Reddit / knuckboy
Horsing Around
A full sized horse statue. It was right in the entry way too, so anybody could see it if they had the door open. Oh and a broken into ATM. Story credit: Reddit / Simmer_Down_Now
Pokémon Training Gone Wrong
So some years ago there was a big rooster fight ring that was broken in NYC. So Howard Stern went on the radio and called the ASPCA asking about the roosters since that’s where they were sent. You could just imagine how that day went lol. Anyway this was taking place all over northern NJ as well.
So I’m dispatched to a building in order to check their electric and I find myself cornered by…you guest it escaped roosters lol. And they’re trained to be aggressive since they fight to the death in these fights. My report was classic lol. Story credit: Reddit / Ajjos-history
Hidden in Plain Sight
I'm a Door Dasher, so I don't go into people's houses, but sometimes they request I hand the order to them, so they open the door. Anyway, I make a delivery to a business park. Building looks like all the others. Go inside. It's REALLY fancy in the lobby. Go up to the receptionist.
Tell her I've got food for [customer]. She calls that person. She shows up, she's absolutely gorgeous, and wearing revealing lingerie. Another woman walks by and she's dressed the same way. It was a brothel. A high end place from the looks of it. I hand over the food, she tips me $20 in cash. I leave.
That was bizarre, because it's the last place you'd expect a brothel to be, which I suppose was the point of it being where it was. Story credit: Reddit / Local64bithero
The Goose
A Ken doll sitting up against the lamp on their nightstand with a cutout of Ryan Gosling's face taped to it. Story credit: Reddit / 7ordank
The Onion Murderer
The local police got a surprise when they called to my house one afternoon, I was a taxi driver and they wanted directions to a certain house.
I was in the middle of making chutney and I was chopping up a huge pile of onions hence I answered the door with my swimming goggles on and a huge knife in my hand. The older cop, Whom I knew, went into convulsions laughing and the younger one whom I didn’t know, went white as a sheet.
I had to bring them in and give them tea lol. Story credit: Reddit / Rosieapples
Egg O'Clock
This one is pretty innocent, not creepy or anything, just super weird to see! It wasnt my job. But i went to help a my great aunts neighbor haul all her shopping stuff inside her apartment because she was really old.
She had eggs everywhere. The whole kitchen was just eggs. Not even easter decorations either, just regular eggs. It wasnt a chicken theme like some old people would have. It was just eggs. Tiny porcelain figurines of eggs. Egg wall paper. Egg magnets on the fridge.
The living room had framed eggs on the walls. She had egg shaped latch hook rugs and pillows. A fancy metal bowl on the coffee table full of different eggs. My great aunt said that lady was a weirdo, that her bathroom was egg themed too.
(My great aunt was a weirdo herself and knew it, she had her own little collections of things too, just wasn't eggs for her lol). What was even weirder, was that in the midst of all the eggs, this woman had another smaller collection all set out on a coffee table against a wall.
A series of probably like 50 snowmen. And as a thank you for helping her, she gave me... An egg timer! Little sand glass thing. I think I still have that. But it was super bizarre lol. Story credit: Reddit / NotOfThisWorld2020
Homemade Fireball
A an old coworker of mine was a volunteer firefighter. He used to tell me all sorts of stories about the job and it was fairly common for him to enter peoples homes. One story that definitely stood out to me was about a time he entered this one families house.
It was a rental house where the smoke alarms were actually hooked to a central system that went straight to the fire department. He said this is fairly common with off-campus college rental housing as well.
Well, the smoke alarm went off one day in this particular house and in addition to that they got two calls from neighbors who smelled and saw smoke coming from this house.
He and his guys arrive to find that these idiots were attempting to deep fry a turkey in a giant home made deep fryer in their basement... Sure enough a fireball erupted and lit the drop ceiling on fire for a period of time..
He said the basement was cluttered as all get out too with all sorts of flammable stuff and in addition the drop ceiling was noticeably lower than a standard ceiling.
The fire was somehow out and the deep fryer off by the time they got there but he said that was the only time ever that he actually yelled at someone for being an idiot. He didn't hold back and didn't feel bad about it later. He just couldn't handle how moronic those people were.
Even if the deep fryer didn't emit a fireball, the heat from all that surely would've started it's own fire and messed up all sorts of things on its own.
He said one of the factors of him ripping into these people was that in this particular housing development the houses were like 1-2 feet apart so if this house fully went up in flames, they'd be dealing with a multi-house fire in no time.
Apparently the fire got put out by a neighbor who heard the commotion and saw the smoke coming out of the basement window from their kitchen window 2 feet away and ran over with a fire extinguisher. These morons didn't even have a fire extinguisher in the house.. Story credit: Reddit / HughJa55ole
Animal Abuse
I saw a 10 inch turtle in an eleven inch tank, in 1 inch of filthy water. I called the SPCA on them. Story credit: Reddit / ThatMeasurement3411
Butt of the Joke
Personal chef here… Dude had pictures of his lil dogs… behind. Some were paintings in various mediums others were photographs. Color or black n white. All of his dogs butts.
The one with the dog looking over his shoulder at you kinda winking was cute but seriously. Story credit: Reddit / MissMurderpants
Fair Point
I'm a housekeeper. Once had a client (who is also a friend) who lives alone in a smaller house. I pretty much always start with the kitchen or bathroom. I went into the bathroom with my cleaning bucket, pulled back the shower curtain and gasped.
Totally thought there was a dead body in the tub. Turns out to just be a very realistic (at first glance), high end doll and he forgot to warn me she was there. When asked why she was there, he says "How else am I supposed to clean her?" Fair point. Story credit: Reddit / vyletteriot
Amazing Painting
Realtor here. Weirdest thing I saw at a showing was a big painting of a shark fighting an octopus. Looked really out of place in an otherwise perfectly normal looking house. Story credit: Reddit / mrmonster459
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
I saw a house made up entirely of Christmas decorations on every possible piece of available space. They had 3 spinning Christmas trees.
The wife was cooking like ginger snaps or something? And the whole house smelled like the holidays. It was literally the middle of summer. Story credit: Reddit / Fomalhot
Down the Pipe
Installing internet at a house we were greeted by a woman, she had her kids and were busy so she just directed us to the basement where the cable would be.
Going down the stairs we open the door to an empty room, no windows, concrete floor and walls, the only piece of furniture was a small wooden chair in the middle of the room.
Upon that chair sat an older man smoking a pipe. He was surprised but greeted us and told us the thing we were looking for was in the next room. We thanked him and closed the door. Story credit: Reddit / MurderDoneRight
In the Dark
No bell sign, had to find out the apartment by ringing at the neighbors and none of them really seemed to know him. When i finally got to the right door, a weird looking man opened the door and i got into his messy and dark room. All the lights we’re out and the windows shut.
While i was working he was standing behind me, breathing heavily and i had to use my phone light to do the work. In my mind i was already getting ready to fight him with my screwdriver. Story credit: Reddit / bigswinag
Life on Rails
I wouldn’t say it was weird but it was super cool, I had an old man take me into the basement to run some more outlets and this old man had an entire model city and a bunch of model trains and tracks that went EVERYWHERE, there were trains running on tracks in the ceiling.
I haven’t really seen anything “weird” other than some peoples disgusting houses but the train basement was by far one of the coolest things I’ve seen in someone’s house, this man told me he spent the last 45ish years building this basement for his trains.. Story credit: Reddit / thelilmandan
Night of the Living Dummy
Did Instacart during the lockdowns. One disabled dude had a collection of ventriloquist dummies in his living room.
I’m talking hundreds. On the shelves on the couches seated on the floors. I got TF out of there FAST. I read goosebumps as a kid. I know where this leads. Story credit: Reddit / Grotesque-penguin
Admiration
Had this one old lady we were delivering a sauna to, she was probably in her late 70's. She had some exposed live wires sticking out from the porch where we were removing an old hot tub to make room for the sauna and she didn't know how to turn the breaker off to cut that power.
(Before I went in she was super flirtatious. And like way too old for me but it was really uncomfortable). So i walked into her living room which exited right on the deck where we were. And as soon as I walked in she had naughty magazines all over her table and pinups of this woman all over her walls.
Turned out to be her when she was younger and she stopped me so we could "admire" them together. Story credit: Reddit / LoosKiii
Month After Month
Thousands of used maxi pads, spread out on nearly all of the surfaces. Someone else walked in first and I saw the look on their face before closing the door, so I had to peak. It is scarred into my memory. Story credit: Reddit / DerpWilson
Friendship is Magic
I did warranty work on PCs & laptops for years. The absolute weirdest thing I came across was a 70 year old guy that was OBSESSED with My Little Pony, both the original and the newer show. This went far beyond what even a "Brony" would do.
He had every toy he could get his hands on (all on shelves displayed), posters everywhere, 3 tv's all playing different episodes on repeat (I was there long enough to verify that one) and even had a mural painted of all the pony's from the newer show on the wall of his living room.
When his PC booted up, it played the theme song and every icon was changed to one of the pony's. During the whole repair, he kept asking if I liked the show, who my favorite pony was, etc. Story credit: Reddit / Kervon37
Mysterious Buzzing
Responding to a noise that the customer thought was coming from our electrical equipment she heard a constant hum. Upon further investigation I was able to determine the sound came from her daughter’s closet it seems her electric massager was on.
Yes, we both were embarrassed since we found it together. Story credit: Reddit / Ajjos-history
Exterminate!
I did painting and decorating with my brother, one day we went to paint a flat at assisted living facility the place looked nice it was 2 bed room flat occupied by a single guy in his 50s his bed room living room and kitchen were normal and he had no issues from him when painting them.
However when it came to painting the second bedroom he informed us that the fabric of time and space depended on him and we shouldn't disturb that room.
Inside was full of Dr Who memorabilia; Vhs tapes, dvds, posters, as well as a life sized Dalek he was rebuilding, the guy thought he was the real Dr Who but was super nice we didn't even end up painting it as it would of disturb the Dr's work that and there was no way we could empty that room to paint it. Story credit: Reddit / Siori777
Behind the Bed
I used to be a floor layer, carpets mostly. Few years ago we did a bedroom where the tenant was out and left us a key.
When we shifted the bed out, we found a large amount of condoms behind the headboard as well as clearly stained undergarments at the foot of the bed.
My mate flicked one of the undies with his foot at me and it landed clean onto the back of my head. Story credit: Reddit / Axceon
Seasoning the Pans
I was petsitting and the people asked me to stay at their house. The house is pretty cluttered because the woman is a compulsive shopper. There are unopened boxes everywhere. The garage is a complete cube of random stuff.
I open the cabinet to get a pan for dinner. They put dirty pots and pans back in the cabinets all crusted with food. I called the guy to say WTF and he said "Oh the pans are seasoning." That's not how that works, man.
I was outie. I just came over to feed the animals after that. No way was I going to stay there. Story credit: Reddit / Botryoid2000
Silence of the Lamb
I was a carer. I once walked into a new client and the house stunk!!! The sink was full of black water so I plunged in to take the plug out and when it drained there was a decomposing lambs head.
As I stood shocked and disgusted that I had been elbow deep I turned around to find this old lady lighting paper on fire on the gas stove and she nearly blew us up! It was a long night. Story credit: Reddit / Echoda
Giving Up
I was cleaning carpets in a house owned by a relatively well known politician during a contentious election. On the desk inside the den was a concession speech. I found out they were planning to concede the election before the rest of the country got the news. Story credit: Reddit / filthy_lucre
Secret Cycle
Not a work thing, but at 13 I once had to visit my friend’s cousin while we waited to be picked up from piano lessons. It was winter so rather than wait outside it was better to walk 10 minutes to their house.
Get inside and the cousin drags us to her bedroom and starts pulling grocery bags of something rotten out from under her bed. Bed was jam packed with these lumpy bags, which released a noxious stink as she opened them.
She proudly tells us it’s used sanitary napkins and tampons and she kept them there so her dad wouldn’t know she was menstruating and have to see them in the garbage. There had to be years’ worth. Stupid thing was, her dad was a mortician and funeral home owner.
I’m pretty sure he had seen much, much worse. To this day I wonder how long she kept those bags. Blech. Story credit: Reddit / Times-New-WHOA_man
When You Wish Upon a Star
They where obsessed with wind up musical toys/musical boxes, like from gipettos grotto in Disney's Pinocchio. They had a old british home that had a roundal that was two stories high. All shelved and filled with these musical toys/boxes. Was like something from a fairy tale. Story credit: Reddit / TotOverTime
Cigarettes and Cabbage
I'm in HVAC. My first job out of school I was installing hot water tanks; I went to a house where 1) they chain smoked so by the time I left it felt like I had taken up smoking and 2) they had at least 100 heads of cabbage in their dirty kitchen because they made the eggrolls a local pub was known for. Needless to say I never ate the food there. Story credit: Reddit / TheClayroo
Beam Me Up
I remember many years ago I did customer service work for a cable company and did ride-alongs with a tech. We went to one house where the guy there was clearly obsessed with Star Trek. He was watching a special or interview about it on tv and just sitting dead center on the floor almost unresponsive.
The wall of the room though was covered in memorabilia from top to bottom. The guy had some really cool stuff, but the sheer amount of it plus his near catatonic state just gave me some weird vibes. Story credit: Reddit / EticketJedi
Basement Sleepover
Stepping over bodies in a basement trying to get to the electrical panel to turn the power back on. Yes, everyone was alive just past out from substances. This was normal in the 80’s. Story credit: Reddit / Ajjos-history