WEIRD HOUSE RULES

(December 2023) Ever go to someone else’s house as a kid and discovered they had a strange way of doing things? Reddit asked, “What’s the most bizarre ‘house rule’ you’ve encountered at someone else’s home?” Some of the responses:
– “My great-aunt wouldn’t let kids inside during the day, and when we visited, if it was mealtime, she’d just hand the plates out the window to us.”
– “I had one friend who, every weekend, had to still wake up early and clean the house from top to bottom both days even though her mom was a stay-at-home mom and cleaned every day. When I slept over, I learned the girls (guests included) had to clean, but her brothers and father got to sleep in and never cleaned.”
– “My mother visited a long-time friend and stayed at her apartment. The bathroom at night was off-limits as it would ‘disturb the cat.’ She was given a bucket instead. My mother never went back.”
– “I went over to a new friend’s house after school once, and when I got there, I asked to use the bathroom. The mom handed me two squares of toilet tissue and directed me to the bathroom. There was no toilet paper in the bathroom, and you only got two squares.”
– “I was eating lunch over at my neighbors and it happened to be tomato soup and crackers. I grabbed some crackers and crushed them with my hands over the bowl and the mom told me, ‘Oh, we don’t do it that way around here!’ She proceeded to tell me that they put the crackers in the soup and crushed them with their spoon.”
– “At my friend’s house, we had to drag a rake behind us when we walked down the carpeted hall so as not to leave footprints.”
– “If we slammed the door as kids, my dad made us kiss the door to make it feel better.”
– “I went over to my best friend’s house for a sleepover, and I got in trouble for taking my shoes off. They had a strict ‘shoes on all the time’ rule except when sleeping.”
– “My friend’s mom was very stern and severe. The house was filthy and the girl’s mom would brush her teeth for her at night. She said it was because she got a cavity once, and she wasn’t allowed to brush her teeth anymore.”
– “My father-in-law used to turn the Wi-Fi off at nine p.m. every night, so it wasn’t ‘wasted.’ Told him it didn’t work that way, he didn’t believe us.”
– “Must be up by 9 a.m. and fully clothed. No pajamas or sweats, even if it was the weekend and even if you had no plans to go anywhere or do anything. We would wake up and just sit there.”
– “I slept over at a friend’s house when I was, like, six or seven. In the morning his mom had made muffins. The only way you could get a muffin is if you sang ‘The Muffin Man’ song. I did not know it, so I didn’t eat.”
“When I was around 8 at a friend’s house I asked for a drink, her mom gave me a baby bottle with juice in it. I laughed, but she didn’t laugh back. My friend took her own bottle and started drinking. I asked if I could please have a cup instead, but she told me children drink from bottles in their house. I never went there again.”
* PHONE TOPIC: Did you ever stay over at a friend’s house with a nutzo rule?