Shoes off the second you walk through the door, dinner no later than 7pm, or no TV before bed – these are just a few examples of house rules many people follow; and definitely not the craziest ones there are. It’s not uncommon for families to have rules—saying yes and thank you reportedly being the most common one of all—but some can seem bizarre at best for those outside of that home.
Members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community have recently discussed house rules that would make many visitors scratch their heads in confusion or even fear some of the inhabitants there. User ‘Center_Power_Unit’ started the discussion by asking fellow redditors what was the strangest rule they had to follow when at a friend’s house, and quite a few people shared their experiences. Scroll down to find netizens’ answers on the list below and see just how crazy the rules in some households are.
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Alright, I’ll throw a sweet one in here to break up the depressing stories.
At my best friend’s house growing up, whenever we would swing by her house, her Abuela (who raised her) would always have a plate of hot fresh food for us and had us sit down and eat it before doing anything else. Not in an abusive, mess with your relationship with food kind of way, but in a “Abuela made you some food and it’s the best food you have ever eaten, and it was made with so much love”.
Food was her love language, and even though she only speaks Spanish (I didn’t), you always felt loved when you when to her house and that was never lost in translation. I still miss her tamales.
(Belatedly realizing this sounds depressing since it sounds like she is dead. She isn’t. I just moved).
I had a friend in elementary school who had a controlling a**hat of a father who also worked some wacky hours - like had to be at work at 3 am. God bless him for providing for his family, but he forced everyone to adhere to his schedule. He needed to go to bed at 4 pm, so “dinner” was at 2:30, the landline phone was taken off the hook at 3, and everyone was expected to complete their evening baths/teeth brushing, etc and go to bed at 4. No tv, nothing. He expected the house to be quiet.
In addition to these ridiculous rules, he insisted that if his daughter was going to come to my house for a sleepover, then I had to go to their house. Every other sleepover had to be at their house with his ridiculous rules. Every other friend bailed- I think the “no tv” was the dealbreaker. But as young girls, the no giggling probably also played a role. I can still close my eyes and picture that ape of a man losing his s**t and screaming at other people’s children for giggling.
Anyway, I did it. I stuck it out. Because my friend needed somewhere else to go and I could do that for her.
You're a good friend, those nights at yours were probably her only escape so good on you for helping her where you could
Your butt must be in the dinner chair at 6 PM sharp even if dinner is not quite ready. No speaking at the dinner table unless asked a question by an adult. You must eat everything on your plate, and cannot ask for seconds. No leaving the table before the Father (you could hear the capital F) dismisses you.
Coming from a family where dinner was a joyful affair where everybody talked about their day, I was shocked.
That sounds scary, it would make me scared to eat and scared not to eat plus i would get everyone in trouble with my nervous laughing
Idk if it was a rule but we stayed the night at my mom's best friend's house. For breakfast we had cereal. He kids had it with milk, my sibs and I had to eat it with water.
I asked why and she just told me "No you can use water, the milk is for my kids."
I told my mom and she flipped out on her for that bs and never talked to her again.. it was a terrible betrayal especially since my mom did a lot for her.
My mom is the best.
At age 12, I stayed at this girl's house, and she said some s**t before bed like, "Dad keeps an eye out so we're safe."
This didn't bother me til I rolled over at midnight and her dad was in a chair next to the bed we were in, just staring at us. Naturally, I got out of that bed and walked home, ignoring their calls and sprinting when they got in their car to follow me.
I had a friend whose dad was obsessed with the vacuum lines in the house and would vacuum multiple times a day. We weren’t allowed to walk on them because it would mess them up so we had to tip toe around the edges of rooms if we wanted to go anywhere in the house. I witnessed him beating the c**p out of her for “messing up one of the lines” my parents didn’t let me go over after that.
My friends dad was divorced and lived in a big house with his new gf. he made women wear their hair up at dinner. We had to wait for him to sit before we could start eating. We could not leave until he was done. We weren’t allowed to speak unless her dad asked us a question. We got in trouble for playing outside in the yard without permission. As punishment we had to clean his shoes. I said something to my friend like is this how your dad always is? And he heard me and told me if I spoke about him again he would slap me across the face.
Rule: Blankets are only allowed to be used on the bed.
I spent the night there only once because they kept their house freezing cold in the middle of winter and had me sleeping on the couch in the basement. I wore my winter coat to bed and used his coat as a blanket. I was 9 or 10yo and it was f*****g miserable.
Grew up in an old house like that. One open fire was the only heat source in the building and that was hardly ever lit. Ice on the inside of the house and everything. This was in the 70s and 80s but seems like it could've been the dark ages - well, it felt like that with all the power cuts and being isolated in winter lol. At least your experience was just a sleep over 😅
At my childhood best friend's house, I had to wear disposable shoe covers over my shoes or socks and rubber gloves and I wasn't allowed to sit on any of the furniture because her mom didn't want me touching anything. I was the only one who had to do this. Her brother, cousins, or her other friends didn't have to. Just me. I visited her house six times before my mom was like "no, you're not going there to stand around like a statue. B comes here to play or you two don't play at all."
I found out years later, after my friend's mom died, it was because she didn't like white people. I was my friend's only white friend. I also discovered that if she visited my house, she would go home and her mom would scrub her down in the shower.
I'm surprised he went there 6 times and did all that. I don't think I'd come back after the first visit.
Stayed at a friend's house one night and the family communicated exclusively through whispering...not just hushed voices but full on hand to ear. Serious mind f**k.
I’ve neighbors who are virtually silent when home. A typical mom, dad, teen son & older teen daughter. They watch movies/shows, odors or listen to music exclusively through headphones. They never or rarely have shared experiences whilst home because they’re all off quietly doing their own thing, minimizing interaction. The extends to meals, which are taken in each own space. They believe this is the way to respect others in shared spaces. Meanwhile, I come from a large family with a very loud home and anything remotely like their home would be taken as a silent treatment or insult of some sort. There’s a nuance to knowing when & how to interacted and be vocal or make noise. These kids aren’t going to leave the nest with paramount respect for other’ privacy & quietness, but come across as withdrawn & disinterested.
I’m white but I grew up in a black neighborhood.
4-5 of my freinds parents wouldn’t let me use the front door. A couple wouldn’t let me come in their house at all.
My friends grandmother wouldn't let me use her bathroom to change my tampon when I was like 14..I had to walk home leaking
I stayed with my girlfriend's family for a few days one college break. They had a rule at breakfast that you could never have just a single type of breakfast cereal - it always had to be a mix of two different boxes. But not any two - had to be flakes with flakes, or Os with Os. I don't know what Cap'n Crunch matched with. I had toast.
I can see mixing a "sugary" cereal with a "plain" cereal to cut back on sugar intake, but that's the only reason I can come up with.
I wasn’t allowed to throw any “female waste products” in the house, aka I’d have to wrap my tampon or pad and throw it out in the outside trash…I went home.
I was 11 and spent the weekend at a friend's house. Her mom got us (me, my friend, and her 9 yo brother) up super early. After breakfast, she told us we had to go outside, and no matter what, we couldn't come back in until 6 pm. I asked her what we were supposed to do for 12 hours. She said, "Have fun!". She left a pitcher of water and 3 cups on the porch swing and locked us out. Apparently, they were used to being locked out all day every Saturday and Sunday while their mom was in the house alone. I went to her neighbor's house and called my mom to come get me.
Poor kids and very selfish mom, someone should have called cps
Friend’s family had this nice house with a nicely finished walkout basement with a kitchen, main area, bathroom and two bedrooms. It was furnished as if it was an apartment and the entire family including three kids lived down there full time while the four bedroom upstairs was fully furnished and they would only use the main part of the house if they were hosting company. It was bizarre going over there because we’d get in trouble if we tried to play in the big unused part of the house. When I asked him why they all lived in the basement he said his mom doesn’t want to have to clean it all the time so they just didn’t use their big house. It was so weird.
My best friend’s parents used to make all their kids (and kids’ friends) come into their room at 9 pm and kneel at the foot of their bed to read scripture and pray with them, while they laid in bed. So weird looking back on it…my friend is now “living an alternative lifestyle” and has very minimal contact with them.
I bet it was the parents who chose the scriptures they wanted to be read. Many parts of the Christian Bible just don't suit being read by children to adults ...
I wiped my mouth on the provided cloth napkin. I thought they must be very fancy, we used paper napkins at our house. I looked up and they were all staring at me. “Those are *decorative*”. The next morning the mom pulled out her food journal and laid it open so we could see how little she had eaten. We ignored it, so she felt she had to announce it, “I’ve only had an apple and a low-fat string cheese today. [daughter], have you and your friend been pigging out?”. Yet it was cool to let us speculate as to whether the hot tub was safe to enter because her brother liked to watch, and he liked to have relations with the intake valves after he watched. I didn’t stay over again.
Why am I afraid to imagine what the "relations with the intake valves" are?
In second grade, I went to my new friend's house and their whole house was split up by the "inside" half and the "outside" half. Inside = the hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms, and outside = the living room and kitchen areas. The children were supposed to stay "inside" until dinnertime when we could go back "outside" to eat together. It was absolutely wack and I never went there again.
Anyway the dad ended up trying to k*ll his whole family with a flamethrower years later. And their dog had worms.
I slept over and we had to go to bed at 7pm, then in the morning his mother would not let me leave to go back home until I had a shower and dressed in identical clothing to my "Friend"
we then went to McDonalds where his mother left me to figure out my own way home.
My high school best friend’s dad wouldn’t let her or her sisters’ friends in the house if they had “masculine” colored nail polish on. It had to be neutral (white/beige) or feminine (pink/red). No strange colors like green and yellow and absolutely no blue or black.
Well I’m an elder emo millennial and I loved my black nails but I kept nail polish remover in my car so that I could remove it before going in her house. It’s been 20+ years since I’ve seen that family and I still think of them anytime I paint my nails blue or black.
My friends mom would yell at us for swimming because we would make her have to do laundry and was all the towels. She would then tell us we can’t sit inside and play video games all day long. So we would leave and usually go to my house which also had video games and a pool. She would then call my mom and yell at her if we were playing video games or swimming. After like 2 of these calls my mom never would answer her calls.
My husbands mother kept the kitchen locked. You ate the meals she cooked in the dining room and that was what you got. They were very wealthy so it wasn’t a matter of food insecurity. Oh, and they were allowed one soft boiled egg for breakfast on Sunday. He left home at 17.
A friends mum did not like when a wall power socket was turned on at the switch but with nothing plugged in. According to her, it would leak electricity onto the floor.
This rule was enforced for their children but not their children’s friends- whenever they used the bathroom their mother made them specify if it was “tinkle” or “kerplunk”.
We were all around 10 years old, not toddlers that needed bathroom supervision. I was always embarrassed for them.
The neighbor lady would take care of me as a kid when I'd get back from school and my parents were at work. She wouldn't let me turn on the t.v because I would "waste it" and I couldn't sit on her couches even though they were wrapped in plastic. I was on the floor once with my back against the couch and she scolded me. F*****g witch. I don't know why my mom was friends with her. If I'm ever mad at my mom I call her by that woman's name.
At a friends house, I was asked to pay for dinner. I thought it was a joke, but they legitimately asked me to bring money next time if I expected to eat. They said it didn’t have to be the exact amount.
Same family, asked me to bring my own sheets blankets and pillowcases because they thought it was more sanitary than me using theirs. They were especially worried about pillowcases.
Be clear, these were nice people.
My best friend in school lived with her mom (after her parents divorced) in a massive three story home. My friend had the entire third floor as her bedroom and after 9 pm until mid-morning, we weren’t allowed down on the first floor unless it was an emergency and we could only go to the second floor to use the bathroom. As a kid, it was weird. As an adult, we alllll know why the single mom wanted us to stay upstairs lol.
MIL, def not a friend.
Breakfast is a full meal, and everyone eats together and at the same time. It’s 8:30 am.
Lunch is at 1:00 pm, another full meal.
Snack is at 4 pm, always includes alcohol.
Dinner is at 7 pm, another full meal.
At each meal they say grace.
MIL goes to bed as soon as she finishes eating dinner, and someone else is to clean up.
A full meal means meat, and three side dishes. One is always fruit. If any food is leftover from the previous meal, it is served at the next meal the same day, along with all the food that’s freshly prepared.
If you’re not hungry when she declares it’s food time, you have to eat anyway. And if you are hungry when she hasn’t declared it to be a meal time, you aren’t allowed to eat.
That's a lot of food to eat in a day. I guess it depends on how much food is at a "full meal".
"Nobody feel up my wife."
They had a plaster casting of his wife's stomach and (large) breasts from her pregnancy on display in the living room.
I have a feeling this rule was made because some "kid/s" thought it was funny and the dad had enough of that bs. The OP of this one may not know why the rule was made, but it's just as likely that there's a valid reason for it.
Children could only drink warm kool-aid or water. You couldn't put it in the fridge. You couldn't use ice cubes. It had to be room temperature.
Any child that came over had an assigned solo cup with their name in permanent marker. You had to wash and reuse the same solo cup, over and over. .
I am totally okay with the cups. It is nice to find your own cup everytime.
Note: this post originally had 50 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
My bff and I met at 15. I became part of their family. For many years I wasn't allowed past the living room. After about 10 yrs or so nobody really stopped me. Come to find out my bff was ashamed of his house. He had a tiny little room that was more like large closet. I asked finally if the reason why I wasn't allowed past the living room was because he was embarrassed because my house was bigger. He said yes. I told him that there was more love in his small house then there was in my larger house. And it was the truth and he knew it. There's still a lot of love in that house. More than there has ever truly been in my parents house. 50 yrs later and we're still bffs and Im considered one of the kids.
I will say, as a parent of teenagers, just because someone's house is nice doesn't mean that they have a ton of money for things like snacks to feed all their kids' friends anytime they want. Feeding a group of teenagers daily is a great way to miss a mortgage payment, and being house-poor is definitely a thing. Sometimes as kids we think people have a bunch of money because of things we associate with being rich, but they might not actually be rich or maybe they have a ton of debt or something.
My bff and I met at 15. I became part of their family. For many years I wasn't allowed past the living room. After about 10 yrs or so nobody really stopped me. Come to find out my bff was ashamed of his house. He had a tiny little room that was more like large closet. I asked finally if the reason why I wasn't allowed past the living room was because he was embarrassed because my house was bigger. He said yes. I told him that there was more love in his small house then there was in my larger house. And it was the truth and he knew it. There's still a lot of love in that house. More than there has ever truly been in my parents house. 50 yrs later and we're still bffs and Im considered one of the kids.
I will say, as a parent of teenagers, just because someone's house is nice doesn't mean that they have a ton of money for things like snacks to feed all their kids' friends anytime they want. Feeding a group of teenagers daily is a great way to miss a mortgage payment, and being house-poor is definitely a thing. Sometimes as kids we think people have a bunch of money because of things we associate with being rich, but they might not actually be rich or maybe they have a ton of debt or something.
