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Someone Wonders “What’s The Worst Thing You’ve Come Home To?” And 30 People Deliver Honest Answers
"As safe as houses," the British say when they want to describe something completely secure and protected from harm. So it's unsurprising that so many of us see our homes as a place of ease and comfort. After all, nothing beats coming back after a well-deserved vacation or even a long day of work. One step through the front door, and we instantly feel the familiarity and refuge from the wild outside world.
Unless, of course, something has gone way wrong in our absence. Redditor Cyan26 was curious about precisely such cases when no one was home to prevent these nightmarish disasters and the horror that followed. So the user invited members of the Ask Reddit community to reveal the worst things they’ve ever come home to, and they instantly jumped into the comment section.
From illegal labs to thousands of pets taking control of the house, an avalanche of stories started rolling in. We’ve gathered some of the most captivating responses from the thread to share with you all, so be sure to upvote the most spine-chilling ones and let us know what you think of them right below.
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#1
I was 13 and came home from school. My mother was walking around the house naked and delirious. Randomly picking objects up and dropping them. Calling me by a name that wasn’t mine. I called 911 and a neighbor.
She had a fever of 104. It was bacterial meningitis. She was in a medically induced coma after that, required brain surgery and then months of antibiotics. She had amnesia after that and was never really the same.
RELATED:
#2
8 billion baby praying mantises in my house. Over the fall, my daughter went out into the woods and collected every praying mantis cocoon she could find and put them in a shoebox in her bedroom. They all hatched in the early spring while we were visiting my parents for the day...
Although many of us believe that these eerie, unexpected, and downright spine-chilling situations only happen on hit TV shows or in movies, more than 16k comments left by Redditors prove they happen in real life too.
Instead of receiving a warm welcome from a loving family member, these homeowners who shared their stories in the thread were greeted by unpleasant and shocking scenarios that went horribly amiss. Well, all kinds of things can occur when we’re away. Our hope of coming back to our sanctuary can be shattered in mere seconds, turning our return into a horror story that only adds more fuel to our nightmares.
Shari Botwin, LCSW and author of Thriving After Trauma: Stories of Living and Healing explained that we all sometimes see life as scary simply because trauma or devastation can hit us hard at any point in our lives. "We cannot prepare for things we have no control over," she told Bored Panda.
#3
Blood. Blood everywhere.
I was working a 12 hour shift at work and had a friend stop by to check on the dog. She immediately called me to tell me the walls were covered in blood, carpet was soaked, splatter everywhere. My dog comes running up and he, too, is covered in blood. He is wagging his tail in pure joy that someone is home, activating the blood sprinkler. He had two deep cuts on his tail from a glass bottle he broke.
I left work immediately to take care of him. Get home and the sprinkler is going off again and on it's highest setting!
I call the vet that is across the street from me and let them know the situation and that we're coming over.
I try wrapping his wounds in towels and tape them so he isn't splattering everything in a five foot radius. Alas, he is such a happy dog and his tail is too strong for my bandage. It slips off in like two tail wags.
We walk to the vet and I'm trying to sign in whole simultaneously hold a towel around my dog so he doesn't make a mess.
The vets clearly didn't believe the severity when I told them the situation, because when they saw the amount of blood going all over their pristine lobby they started panicking and trying to get her mop to clean it up. We waited in the lobby for maybe fifteen minutes. There was a lot to clean.
Cleaning the apartment took me about 8 bottles of peroxide and about 4 hours of cleaning with the help of a few other people. I've never seen that much blood before.
Over a course of a couple months we tried staples, stitches, glue, and a combination of all of them at once. His happy tail was too happy for any of them to work and his wounds wouldn't shut and heal. We ended up having to amputate his tail. Now he is a proud member of the wiggle butt nub club.
Yettichild 2 years ago
The puppy tax is the only tax I'm more than willing to pay. Well, and the kitty tax. Okay, any animal tax.
#4
Me and my siblings were sent home early from school to learn from my mom that my dad [took his own life]
#5
Came home and found my front door wide open, my parents missing, my neighbors on my front lawn (we don't talk to my neighbors) and blood all over our grass and the nearby wall.
Turned out my father, who knows how to do professional landscaping/tree trimming/gardening etc, was trimming the tree in our front yard when a branch broke and he lost his balance. He fell backwards and ended up landing on our neighbor's fence, which is topped by steel spikes. One of the spikes went into his leg, though he apparently didn't even notice or feel it so he pulled himself off the fence without a problem, but when he tried to stand he collapsed onto the lawn. He lost a lot of blood and had to have emergency surgery, but survived. His wound was so bad that when he made it to the hospital, a police officer and doctor confronted him because they figured he had to have been shot and tried to get him to admit it so that they could find the culprit. It was an incredibly scary moment, but that was 17 years ago and he is fine today, though he did end up eventually getting his revenge by chopping that tree down.
"The best way to prepare for the unknown is to have a list of resources and people we can turn to if something terrible happens. I have worked with clients who have come home to burned down houses, lost family members in plane crashes, or have lost a loved one suddenly," Botwin said, adding that unfortunately, there is no handbook that can equip us to be prepared for awful situations.
#6
I had been out of the country for 3 days at a music festival. Came home to my front door crowbarred in, and my entire house trashed. They had taken my TV, DVD’s, laptops, etc.
But the cherry on top of the s**t cake: they emptied my box of sex toys so the forensics team had to dust my dildos for finger prints.
#7
My 1 year old son's empty room after his mother and I split up. We planned on 50/50 custody but she took everything. I closed the door and didn't open it for the three months that I had to live there. I came from a broken home and promised myself I'd never do that to my child; I'd felt like such a failure.
Edit: I still got to see him regularly. She moved to a different country a year or so after and signed over sole custody to me. It was just rough at first living in a house full of broken dreams.
#8
Came home from visiting my wife's family over Christmas break. She had asked a friend to come by and feed our cats, and the friend agreed. When we got back home, there was no food or water in any of the cat bowls, and one of our cats was sitting in the corner foaming at the mouth. This cat was a terror and never just "sat in the corner" so we knew something was wrong. We took him to the emergency vet where the vet said he was severely dehydrated. Unfortunately he had some sort of brain damage and we had to put him down.
When we confronted the friend she said she went by every day, we have determined that to be a lie.
RIP Ace.
Edit: Wow this blew up.
[here](https://imgur.com/a/GO6idSA) are a couple of pictures of Ace, this was a long time ago so the pictures are kinda hard to find.
My wife and I had actually set out four different water bowls, big ones like you put fruit it, they were all bone dry.
We ended up just cutting off all contact with the girl that did this, my wife was pretty upset about it and I'm not as nice as my wife is, so we just thought it was best to not talk to her anymore. She knows what she did, and hopefully down the road she'll be laying in bed and remember what a terrible person she is.
Ever since then when we go out of town we leave a sink running and the small toilet open. Yeah, we have a tiny toilet in one of our bathrooms for some reason. I actually have a coworker that I trust more than just about anyone else, he comes by and takes pictures of our cats for us. He lives less than two minutes from us and I pay him in BBQ and beer, it's fantastic. As extra insurance my mom pops in every other day just to make sure everything is alright.
We're heading out of town for Christmas again, I think I may do the webcam thing, as I know my wife would freakin' love that.
Thanks for all the replies, it's hard not to tear up reading through them. Hug your kitties.
[here's Zoe](https://imgur.com/a/OxdnPlW) our new kitten we adopted earlier this year. Should cheer you up.
[snoozin'](https://imgur.com/a/UBB3X3c)
Of course, many of us consciously know that life is unpredictable, but that doesn’t mean we automatically glide through our days unaffected by startling changes in life. When we do encounter these unfortunate events ourselves, they often knock us off our feet. According to trauma specialist Botwin, unexpected accidents leave us distraught, devastated, shocked, and in disbelief. Even if the change is positive, we can still have difficulties coping with the whirlwind of emotions these situations cause.
"From the moment the event occurs, we are left feeling uncertain and afraid of what is to come," Botwin told us. "People's mental health quickly deteriorates once they realize what has happened. Feelings of fear, panic and despair often result in clinical depression and anxiety if we do not process or talk about what happened." After all, finding your home damaged or destroyed by a fire or flood is so much more than just losing physical property.
#9
My dad came home to find a wasp in the house. And then another. And then another. He investigated. Heard a buzzing coming from the dining room. An entire nest of wasps had been living in the walls and chewed through the sheetrock (or whatever it is they did) and were now pouring into the house through the hole.
Edit to answer a few questions: the dining room was a formal room only used for holidays and dinner parties and since it was summer most entertaining they did was done outside. So no buzzing heard. Also my dad was older and hearing does get less sharp.
Exterminator cleared it out. My dad removed the sheetrock and replaced it and replaced all the vent covers.
They typically had wasp nests hanging from the eaves all the time so seeing wasps outside wouldn’t have been noticed (they even had them in the mailbox).
#10
I go to turn on the light and...nothing. The electricity is off. Go to the electricity box outside and turn it on and go back inside: house has been cleared out of all valuable things. I hear a whirring sound and realise it's the old VCR video tape rewinder rewinding the video tape I put in it in the morning as I left home with my baby son. And then it dawns on me: that tape only takes about 3 minutes to rewind... The burglars must have turned off the electricity seconds after I left home with my baby in the morning. They were watching me leave from inside the garden.....
#11
Meth lab bust. I was raised by my grandparents (they were wonderful people who adopted a bunch of sh**ty kids) and they'd let my aunt and her boyfriend move their RV onto the property because they got kicked out of wherever they were staying. The worthless a**holes were trying to cook meth in it and it caught on fire so they ran off and left it there burning. The neighbors called 911 and the fire department got the fire out before it got to the house. It was nice coming home from school to that. It was a huge s**t storm. My grandparents were almost arrested and they almost lost their house and land. Pretty much the only thing that saved them was that the meth lab was in a vehicle registered to the boyfriend. Even though we didn't get into any legal trouble it was still a pain in the a*s because the whole house had to be tested and they had to hire someone to clean up the mess and have the property test clean before we could move back in. And my childhood home is listed as a former meth lab on the National Clandestine Laboratory Register. My grandparents never recovered financially.
Depending on the severity of the event, our inability to cope with unforeseen circumstances that changed the course of our lives can prevent us from moving forward. In some cases, they can even evoke a sense of fear and anxiety. "I have met several clients who have been afraid to leave their homes after experiencing this kind of trauma," the trauma expert shared a few stories from her own practice.
"Recently, I met one woman who developed claustrophobia after living through a house fire as a teen. At the time of the fire, she did not talk about her feelings, and she told me, 'Everyone in my family just moved on and acted like nothing bad ever happened.' Her sense of security and safety was taken, and the impact of that was never addressed," she revealed.
#12
An old dog of mine had become sick after getting ahold of a large batch of double fudge brownies at some point during the day, and by the time I got home, I walked into a house with no less than 25 separate puddles (yes, puddles) of s**t. Poor fella had to eat bland boiled chicken and rice for a week.
#13
My Brothers (20 and 22) and I (20M) came home from college for winter break. The next day my mom wakes me up asking if I planned on going with the rest of the family to put my childhood dog (13F) down. She had told everyone weeks before that this was going to happen when we got home for break... but forgot to tell me.
#14
Got off work about 7 am, rounded the corner with my McDonald’s breakfast in hand to see 2 cops standing over a dead body on my welcome Mat.
Your Neighborhood Alien 2 years ago
More info from OP: Some crazy dude was going around trying to open peoples doors. Got to the upstairs apartment and when the neighbor answered he tried to force his way in (he had a machete on him). Little struggle ensues and apparently the neighbor keeps a gun next to his door. After he shoved him down the stairs he grabbed it and the crazy dude apparently tried to rush him again so he took a bullet to the abdomen.
Botwin has also met an EMT worker who rescued two men buried in a collapsed basement. He told her, "My life was never the same after that day." Sadly, living through this shocking experience had unfortunate consequences. "He developed PTSD and became an alcoholic," she said. "Every time he saw images of destruction, he was reminded of what he witnessed when he saw two men fighting for their lives under layers of concrete in that basement."
#15
Aged 15; coming home to my dad confronting me about the gay [adult movies] he discovered on my phone which I had mistakenly left at home.
#16
Dead bunny parts + my cat & two stranger cats.
Years ago we would camp for weeks at a time, coming come a few times a week to do laundry, feed the cats, etc. Our cats had a doggie/kitty window and could come and go as they pleased. Came home one night to my cat having guests & serving them bunny. It was a fluffy mess.
#17
Coming home just wanting to collapse in bed and cuddle my girlfriend of two years before she had to leave for another 5 days, only to be told that she didn't love me anymore and that she was moving out when I walked in. Devastating.
Debbie Barnes 2 years ago
I've experienced this and it's absolutely heartbreaking, but when I look back, I now realise that it was better to be told then to have him stay with me and live a lie.
If we want to stay grounded in the present and avoid causing a permanent impact on our well-being and mental health after experiencing a traumatic event, there are a few things to consider. "If you walk into your home after a fire, earthquake, or tornado, it is crucial that you ask for help and get support," Botwin suggested.
#18
One morning when we were leaving for work, my wife noticed that the dog had eaten half a pack of sugarless gum. At the time, we did not know that the sweetener in sugarless gum, xylitol, is dangerous for dogs. We just went to work. We were fortunate in that her health was fine, as xylitol can be deadly. She was OK, but we came home to a ghastly smell in the house. The dog was sitting in 0.5 in. / 1.3 cm deep liquid s**t in her crate. She was coated head to toe in it, and was excited to see us and wagging her tail, sending a spray 4 feet / 120 cm in every direction. It took hours to clean her and the room up, and days to get rid of the smell.
#19
My gf and I were having a problem. I told her I needed to take a walk, but I'd be back. I kissed her on the cheek and walked out the door.
I got back and she had cleaned up, packed her things, and left me.
#20
When I was around 7, I came home from a family weekend away, I walked into my room towards my cove. I had this hanging chain that you put your beanie babies on. As I passed it, it seemed like there was a bunch of dust particles in the air around me.
I started moving my hands in front of my face as if to push the dust particles from blocking my view... that was when I realized.
These were not dust particles, but rather hundreds upon hundreds of tiny baby spiders. While we were gone tons of eggs hatched and I was walking in all of them hanging from the ceiling on web strings.
I immediately ran screaming into the shower and refused to go back in for days after my dad killed them all. That was the end of me having beanie babies, time to grow up.
TL/DR: Hundreds of spiders hatched from eggs, I walked into them all over me.
She pointed out that the flight or fight response will set in within seconds of the disaster. "Initially, it is okay to go into crisis mode. It is normal to feel numb and in denial of what you are seeing in those moments. Our brains protect us from digesting the feelings until we are safe and have some type of support."
But once you have gotten people to intervene and manage the crisis, Botwin suggested that you leave the scene and go be with family or loved ones. "Find emergency workers, therapists, or loved ones to begin processing the experience as soon as you are able. Find people who can reassure you that all will be okay, even if it is not okay right now. Remember that no amount of loss or destruction can take away the memories or items that may have been lost. Give yourselves time to work through your grief, anger, and disbelief," she concluded.
#22
My casual boyfriend doing full-demolition on my master bathroom. I had mentioned I would like to remodel it someday...
#23
Kid decided to remove diaper after pooping, then smear the poop everywhere. Wife was covered in it and everyone was screaming. When I walked in, I assumed someone was severely injured.
Edit: This isn't even the most memorable poop story, just the most recent. This one was also one that fell to my lovely wife to deal with.
Let me tell you about the Potsy [passing away]. Back when my kids were maybe ~2 and ~4, they had this cooking pot toy. It would chatter away as you played with it, singing about food and colors. They also had this pop up tent in their play area. Well, somehow, the 2yo pooped in Potsy. It starts singing - "Every food, has a special color..." Well, the 4yo takes Potsy directly to the play kitchen and starts pretending to cook with it. At this point, they're playing quietly so no alarms have been raised.
Of course the 4yo then takes the Potsy Pot of Poo Porridge and starts trying to feed it to the 2yo. This is when the drama started, as well as the smearing. Potsy [passed away] that day, well loved and full of shtew. The tent was also a victim, as were some of the pretend veggies and utensils that came with Potsy.
I came home and half of the playroom was gone, and my wife had the thousand yard stare. We've since bought another Potsy, but the legend lives on.
#24
The screams of 5 mice stuck in glue traps.
I was in college and coming home for the winter one year and my mom had a minor mouse infestation. She decided to buy these glue traps to catch them and they were effective, however, unlike regular mouse traps that kill them instantly these just trap them and let them die of exhaustation and/or hunger.
When I got home that day 5 of them had gotten caught in the traps and were screaming their lungs out in desperation. It was such a terrifying symphony of screams and I had absolutely no idea what was going on when I walked through the door and worried that something had happened to my dog Snoopy. He was fine and after I called my mom she explained what was going on and asked me if I could take care of them, which was also a sh**ty thing to come home to.
#25
Maggots in the summer. I was at the cottage for a week and had forgotten to throw out the garbage before leaving.
They were everywhere...everywhere. I’ll never forget that day.
#26
When I was in about sixth grade or so, my family and I adopted a dog--Sally--we had found abandoned with her pups. We found the pups a home and decided to keep Sally, little did we know the mom had separation anxiety.
Before I left for the school bus one morning after my parents had gone to work, I was to put Sally in her kennel, but she absolutely REFUSED to get in. Knowing I was already running late, I just gave up and left.
When I came home that afternoon, it was pure destruction. The blinds had been destroyed, she had scattered all my things on my desk on the floor--including a small fish tank--and the house had a myriad of broken objects throughout. Let's just say my parents weren't too thrilled, but I managed to persuade them to keep her.
To this day she was one of my absolute favorite dogs. Who woulda thought?
Scagsy 2 years ago
We had two Golden Labradors and one day we needed to go out for a couple of hours, leaving the doggos to hold the fort. It would seem that they had a touch of separation anxiety too, as we arrived home to find a three-foot gash chewed out of the wall - but that wasn't the worst of it. My mum had bought my dad a MASSIVE box of chocolate brazil nuts for his upcoming birthday containing probably 30 or 40 chocolates. She had left them on top of the chest freezer thinking they would be safe there, out of reach and double-boxed. They weren't. Our Sam managed to get up there and devour the entire box, and went on to leave little puddles of poop throughout the house. Not only that, but every time he farted, he put a dent in the fridge. We spoke to the vet and they said monitor him and if anything changes to take him in. Fortunately, his cast iron stomach ensured that he didn't suffer any ill effects and went on to live a long and happy life. My dad got socks that year.
#27
I came out from work on a heavy rain day in late autumn to find my new used car flooded. The sun roof didn't seal properly and leaked. A lot. At first I didn't notice because I had parked facing downward on a hill. I started up the car, pulled out, and, upon hitting level ground, a four inch wave of icy cold water sloshed over my feet from under the dash. I couldn't get my head around it, just couldn't grasp what was happening. Stopping in the middle of traffic, I just sat there staring down at the wading pool on the floor of my new used car. After a few moments someone honked, so I drove home.
Yes, I knew I should go directly to the dealership, or a repair shop, or somewhere other than my own garage. But I didn't. I drove across town with water sloshing back and forth around my feet like in a sinking ship. I remember laughing out loud at one point, thinking, "Maybe I can dry it out with the leaf blower."
In the end, I sucked it out with the shop vac and manhandled a full-sized dehumidifier into the backseat, rigged up to extension cords to run all night. I went out every couple of hours to empty it, and the next day I parked it in the sun and left all the windows down.
After a few days it was dry, so I took it in to have the sunroof repaired. To this day I have no idea why I didn't want anyone to know what happened. It's not as if it were my fault or anything. Maybe just that the experience was so weirdly surreal that I couldn't break the spell.
Yettichild 2 years ago
The Jeep is kind of a bad example for this story. Wranglers have floor plugs you can pull to drain water out of the inside. Don't ask me how I know this.
#28
Got home after work, sat down on my couch. Caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye. Turn towards the love seat and see a squirrel sitting on top of it. Then look behind the love seat and see that my air conditioner side paneling was torn to shreds and all over the floor.
Chased the squirrel out and made better side paneling, but the squirrels never stopped trying to get in. It was horrible hearing them scratching and gnawing. My landlord tried putting up some wire fencing around the window hoping to prevent them from getting in. Instead, they would manage to get in and then forget how to get out. So they would be trapped between the wiring and my A/C, panicking and gnawing and the window sill and and I’d feel bad for them and despise them at the same time. This went on for a long time and I now f*****g hate squirrels and window A/C units.
My friends printed and framed a particularly good photo of one of those squirrels attempting to get in. And bought me a squirrel throw pillow.
#29
My dad had cancer and we were taking care of him for almost a year. I went away to my cousins birthday party for the weekend and came back to him almost dead. I appreciate that my mom didn't want to ruin my weekend but i never would have forgiven myself if i missed his passing.
Sarah Allen 2 years ago (edited)
Have a friend who went off to school about 3 hours away. Her dad was diagnosed with massive cancer throughout his body on a Monday, but knowing my friend would be home that coming weekend, her parents decided to tell her face to face instead. Her dad died that Friday. Her cousin came to pick her up as planned, and they drove home. She was in such a state of shock she didn't believe it was real until she went to see him in the hospital morgue. She was absolutely shattered.
#30
Once my family returned from dinner out (a few hours at least!) and upon entry back into the house we noticed water leaking from the garage roof. Turns out our top floor toilet tank had cracked and water had been continuously pouring and was cascading down the stairs, through all three floors. A ridiculous amount of damage.
What do you think ?
Jose Ortiz 2 years ago (edited)
This just happened 2 weeks ago.. I got home from a night out to find my landlord with self inflicted gun shot wound to the head. I can not get that image out my head. I sobered up almost immediately.. R.I.P Lew
Rosie Hamilton 2 years ago
Oh, that's sad. What a terrible thing to have seen. Would it be wrong to wish you an infinitesimal, very specific bit of amnesia?
Load More Replies...
Wysteria_Rose 2 years ago
Once my husband and I came home with our monthly grocery trip. He went outside to our cooler and I hear him start yelling and cursing. Our cooler had been unplugged and sitting in the NC summer heat for a few days. Meat was so horribly bad, some had even exploded in their packaging. We had to take out bags and bags of rotten, hot meat. Apparently, my husband had unplugged it though I feared for my kids' lives thinking they had done it.
Ginny 2 years ago
Came home to an ambulance outside my house. I panicked thinking something was wrong with my parents. Turns out my drunk crazy cousin tried to stab my mother so my father and brother beat him unconscious and then phoned for an ambulance and police.
LumaStar 2 years ago
Good god, that's absolutely horrible. I hope you are doing well ❤️
Load More Replies... Jose Ortiz 2 years ago (edited)
This just happened 2 weeks ago.. I got home from a night out to find my landlord with self inflicted gun shot wound to the head. I can not get that image out my head. I sobered up almost immediately.. R.I.P Lew
Rosie Hamilton 2 years ago
Oh, that's sad. What a terrible thing to have seen. Would it be wrong to wish you an infinitesimal, very specific bit of amnesia?
Load More Replies... Wysteria_Rose 2 years ago
Once my husband and I came home with our monthly grocery trip. He went outside to our cooler and I hear him start yelling and cursing. Our cooler had been unplugged and sitting in the NC summer heat for a few days. Meat was so horribly bad, some had even exploded in their packaging. We had to take out bags and bags of rotten, hot meat. Apparently, my husband had unplugged it though I feared for my kids' lives thinking they had done it.
Ginny 2 years ago
Came home to an ambulance outside my house. I panicked thinking something was wrong with my parents. Turns out my drunk crazy cousin tried to stab my mother so my father and brother beat him unconscious and then phoned for an ambulance and police.
LumaStar 2 years ago
Good god, that's absolutely horrible. I hope you are doing well ❤️
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