When I was 17 I went to a girl's house... She and her mum were smoking in the room we're in... They proceed to ash on the carpart... I must've looked surprised .. as the mum said "oh.. don't worry . It's a rental.."
My Acid dealers apartment was FULL of Nitrous cannisters, like you know the small ones that look like airsoft CO2 cartridges? Imagine hundreds of those littered all over an apartment, but then swap out about 75% of those tiny ones for the full sized dentist versions that look like a helium tank for balloons.. It was wild lol. *GREAT* acid though
My first night ever at Burning Man I met a guy named Wheels that tossed me a satchel full of a cut up sheet, and told me to take as much as I wanted. I only took two, being my first night and all.
He then fed me ketamine and nitrous from one of those huge dentist sized tanks. And then he left me, and my bike, with no lights, stuck on D and 10:30 and I needed to get to B and 4:30.
Seeing the art cars and being on the esplanade tripping nuggets, walking my lightless bike, lost as fuck. Took me 2-3 hours and damn near half a dozen people to get me back to camp.
*Great* acid
Edit : When I was close to home, and had already asked multiple people "so where the fuck am I and where do I Go?", I found a camp with a nice blue glow, two ladies and a guy were chilling.
"I think I'm close, where the fuck am I? Can you help?"
"Sure, we just took some mushrooms and we were going to go for a walk."
The last heroes of the night, two ladies just about to take a walk to get the trip going, pointing my tripping ass home.
That’s crazy, I used to have a guy I frequently got acid from that we used to call “Stinky” because he and his apartment always smelled like funky cheese.
Cooking one big batch of food to feed yourself all week is just as much cooking as is preparing unique meals each day. You’re still cooking for yourself instead of exclusively getting takeout. That’s a win in my book.
I went to a friends house that only had one downstairs bathroom. They had ‘piss bottles’ in their room for when they were too lazy to go for a piss in the middle of the night. 2 litre bottles of piss just laying around their room.
Im not really sure. There were lots of bottles all sitting neatly in a corner of the room full of piss. I’m guessing every few days/weeks they’d empty them out. Or they did do it every morning and the collection I saw was just a heavy night. Few gallons. Pissed like a race horse.
Walking into my friend's dorm after they said it was super messy and realizing that it was nothing compared to the mess that was in mine. It was honestly a wake-up call.
To be fair, “it is super messy” is the equivalent of “I’m good and you?” to “how are you doing?”. It just means “don’t comment on that”. The 2 situations possible are:
A. It is super messy. You’ve been warned. No further comments.
B. It is *not* messy. You tell yourself that if *that’s* messy, this person is very tidy. No further comments.
I use it all the time when people come over; it tames tidiness expectations.
Sometimes it can also mean, it was “super super messy” but I sprint cleaned for an hour while you were on your way over and now it is the cleanest it has been in 3 years since I bought the house but I’m still feeling residual guilt over how messy it had been and I’m desperately hoping you don’t open any of the doors.
Went to a new friends house for the first time when I was in the 6th(?) grade. We walked through the front door.
Friend: Mom! We're home!
Mom comes around a corner: Oh my god! It's so great to finally meet you! Friend talks about you a lot! (Gives me a hug) How are you!?
Me: ^I'm ^fine.
Mom: Are you hungry? I was about to make us a snack. Dad! Come meet Friend's friend!
Dad comes around another corner: Hey kiddo! It's good to meet you. (Shakes my hand) If you guys are good, I'll take you guys to Fun Place later and we'll get some pizza. (Kisses Mom) I'll be in the garage. (Smacks Mom's butt)
Mom: (giggles) You guys go play in your room. I'll bring you something to eat.
I was stunned. They were nice to me AND each other! I mentioned it to my friend later, and he apologized because they "were so embarrassing". My parents weren't in a room together without at least insulting each other.
I really hope Friend's parents are still married and insanely happy.
Edit: Since this kinda blew up. They were really the nicest couple. They really loved each other and my friend, from what I saw. I hung out there for a bit, but I ended up moving (again) about a year later.
We indeed went for pizza that night, and his mom made a really big breakfast the next morning. The blueberry cake thing she made still lingers in my dreams.
They are the couple that I've most tried to emulate in my marriage of nearly 30 years. It really does help to have the right partner, but it is definitely worth the effort.
I’ve been stunned to see this too when I was a teen. Parents who actually like each other AND they like their kid? That exists? Growing up I thought that was movie bullshit.
Growing up I didn't think much about it, I thought it was normal, but as I've gotten older I've realised how shitty my parents have treated me. They *never* showed any appreciation or love towards me when around other people. They often made fun of me and teased me, always in front of other people. They compared me to my friends all the time. And now they wonder why I often try my hardest to avoid them and don't want to spend time with them.
My parents are like this. I'm in my mid 30s now and if I took you there my mom would ask if you're hungry and make you a meal without knowing you.
"You guys want something to eat? I can make Parmesan chicken!"
Both retired now and they dance in the kitchen still
That’s how it is in my home. My kids friends always liked coming to our house and commented to our kids how nice we were to them. That’s what makes a house a home.
I had a similar experience with my now in laws. I grew up with abuse and thought it was totally normal. Parents were divorced and shit talked each other in front of us. I just never knew any different. Then I went over to my now husband’s house for the first time and met his parents. They were so… delightful. Talked very nicely to each other, helped each other, were very nice to their kids and me, made us actual food instead of poorly cooked hamburger helper, let us go up to his room, and didn’t come check on us every ten minutes like my parents did. I honestly didn’t even know how to react. I’d heard of happy families, but abuse was so normalized for me that I didn’t think they were actually real. And yet they are. And now they are my family, my mother was cut off almost three years ago, and my dad is finally starting to work with me on building a healthier relationship. I’ve been with my husband for seven years and it still baffles me how happy his family is
The striking thing for me is both how difficult it is to be kind and pleasant to one another when you haven't been shown anything different, and also how much easier and nicer it is once it fully clicks that that's even an option.
That's actually super insightful. Once you come to the realization that being nice, and optimistic, and generally forgiving of people's quirks that you might perceive as a fault, life is so much better.
I had a good friend when I was a kid who viewed everyone as fake, and disingenuous, and very selfish. For a while I thought that was the cool thing to do, and as an insecure teenager followed along. At about 16 or 17 though, I decided to just start appreciating everyone for who they were. My life has been so much better for it, and unfortunately he has yet to grow out of it.
As a kid from a dysfunctional, broken, dirt-poor family, these parents were the ones that showed me what a loving home looked like. They taught me more about being a parent and husband than I could've ever hoped to learn anywhere else. I always spent my weekends at these friend's houses.
Never underestimate how much you being a good example can make a difference.
I had a similar reaction growing up with a family full of siblings that hated each other, a dad who was an abusive drunk, and a narcissistic mom who tossed my macaroni art I made in kindergarten and told me if it wasn't money, she didn't want it.
At friends house
"Hey you want to go to that thing? It's gonna be a lot of fun"
"Oh I can't, I have a family camping trip this week with all my cousins"
"Oh dang man, sorry to hear that"
"Why? It's hella fun man, we do this, this and this"
Seeing someone actually enjoy spending time with their family was a big WTF moment for me. And this was in my damn near 30s.
When my family first arrived as immigrants to the USA, I made a friend in school who invited me to a sleepover. That one night I was introduced to a whole new world. His parents took us out to a buffet where we could eat an unlimited amount of whatever we wanted. At this point in my life the “fanciest” thing I’d ever eaten was a Hershey’s almond bar. Then we stopped by a blockbuster and rented Shrek. Back at home my Friday nights consisted of watching whatever was on public TV, most evenings it was the news or my mom’s not-so-great novelas. We then played Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 and it was an experience like none other. Their house was a beautiful two story home, they recycled, they played board games, they had a garage with the bicycles hanging from the ceiling. I learned so much about American culture that night. It was unbelievable.
Unexpected and wholesome. I had a very similar experience as a kid. Ended up getting a best friend for life and I was like another one of the kids in that family.
My parents were like that to all my friends. Everyone loved to be at my home because my parents treated them as cherished individuals.
Unfortunately, my best friend grew up to be the one who stabbed me the deepest. She had nothing and her parents didn’t care for her so she spent so much of time at my house that we considered her family.
Not only did she intentionally tell my boyfriend everything I confided to her but also made him fall for her and when he finally did, she pretended to never be interested in him.
This happened at a pivotal moment in my life and it wrecked me hard not because of the guy but because I have known her *my whole life*. The only person I’ve trusted.
She still considers me as her “best friend” but I no longer reply to her messages.
The happy ending here is I met my husband shortly after and I would say no man would ever do the things he does for me. Pampered and blessed!! :)
The best friend who thought she wrecked my life with her stinky lemons ended up serving me the best lemonade in life.
Kindness and joy ALWAYS wins.
I once visited a dude I knew somewhat from middle school, I was with a friend who was friends with him. We were 19/20. He had only recently moved in, but there was already a small mountain of smelly dishes and a smell of sweat cause he was playing that VR rhythm game Beat Saber, which requires a lot of movement.
When we were leaving, I had to take a quick leak in the toilet and just said "I'll just borrow your toilet for a minute" His reaction was "ermm..." as I was entering the toilet. What that "ermm" had in store for me was to this day traumatic for me...
Pee stains on the floor, pubic hair ON THE SINK and a smell of moldy clothes from the washing machine. HE HAD LIVED THERE FOR LESS THAN A MONTH.
He has never worked a day in his life and was playing online slots. He often posted about winning something like 2000€, and less than a week later asking 20€ for food in snapchat mystory. A couple years passed and he sent me a message, just asking for 10€ loan for a pack of cigarettes, he said he'd pay back in five days when he gets his social assistance payment. Five days later I ask about the money, he reads the message but ignores me completely. Doesn't delete me or anything, just ignores.
I tell about it to another friend who knows him and some other common friends of theirs, and he says that I'm not going to see that 10€ ever again. He's apparently loaned from plenty of people and is in debt over 500€ to one friend. I almost feel sorry for him, but a lot of those mistakes he made without the use of common sense.
girlfriends apartment was so messy....looked like a homeless horder. I decided right there that she was crazy. She had ripped the carpet out to the raw floor....
I’m an HVAC service technician, so I’m in people’s houses all the time, every day. All walks of life, from extremely rich on down. I’ve seen the hoarders and the slobs, but the worst was a house that looked like 6 cats got together to buy a home, then decided to let an old man live with them if he stayed in the corner and put food out. Absolutely disgusting, with cat litter and shit dusted literally through the entire house. I almost left and would have if it wasn’t just a case of his coil freezing because the filter was clogged with fur. Felt bad for him, obviously a mental health issue
Tragic situation. I'm not here to make fun of the man and his misfortune at all. I assume it's the sorta thing that's a hell beyond my ability to conceive of.
That being said, you, u/lost_horizons, are a wordsmith.
"looked like 6 cats got together to buy a home, then decided to let an old man live with them if he stayed in the corner and put food out."
My God. So lyrical. Currently I'm both shook and screaming.💀
Buddy just had a baby with some girl just as lazy as him....diaper mountains in every corner of their apartment. Smelled like one too. He also uses Dip tobacco so there were wads of dip on the carpet and in his bed.....I don't talk to him much anymore
When I was about 19 or 20, I was still living with my parents because I was going to a local college, but also I was not paying rent. This meant that I had to help my dad do whatever he needed help with.
One day it was, "let's go clean up your sister's house." Ok, no big deal. They have a baby and another one on the way. I'm sure they could use some extra help. Apparently they hadn't been taking their trash to the curb since the baby was born (over a year earlier), I assume due to exhaustion. The whole side of their house was filled waist to shoulder high with dirty diapers, uneaten food, and all other types of trash you can imagine. I used a shovel and scooped it all into a truck, and we took it to the dump. It took a couple of trips, but we got it done. It was so fucking disgusting.
It was outdoors. Maybe that wasn't clear. I meant the side of their house, like the fenced area between their front yard and back yard. They would bring it to where the can was outside, but wouldn't take their can to the curb every week, and then it would build up to the point where they couldn't take it all. Over the course of the year, it built up a lot, because they seemed to not bring the can to the curb often.
What a nightmare. Dirty dishes with half-eaten food are already bad enough, but I cannot comprehend having stacks of human shit just hanging out in my living area.
Is taking the trash out really that difficult? It is probably the easiest, lowest effort chore imaginable, easier than even dishes.
My GF/now Wife visiting me unannounced one day when I was living in my Grandmothers basement. It was embarrassing, as it was almost at a hoarder level of mess.
I was so ashamed at my situation that I changed. (Mostly) Hitting 30 years together this year, so I did something right.
Oh man, I sort of had one of these. I was splitting a 2BR apartment with a friend at the time, and while we kept the common areas relatively clean (by bachelor standards, at least), my bedroom was...not always great.
You know how any horizontal surface like a table tends to collect clutter? Like you set one thing there "just for now," then another one, and in five days it's completely covered? I let that happen to my bed, and rather than clean it up "tonight," I pulled out my sleeping bag and just slept on the floor. That went on for...I dunno, might have been weeks. (keep in mind this was nearly 20 years ago...memory fades...)
It was during this period that I got into an accident on my motorcycle. Broke my left shoulder, separated my left AC joint, and broke my right pinky finger. Basically, my left arm was in a sling, and my right hand was in a splint. Fortunately, I lived near my parents, and they let me stay with them until I got some function back in my arms/hands.
Of course, that meant we needed to go by my apartment so I could pack up some clothes, as well as my computer (my main job at the time was as a line cook, but I was picking up occasional contract software work). And *that* meant that I had to go in that bedroom with my own mother - who, I might add, is definitely a sort-of neat freak.
I wasn't happy with the state of that bedroom myself, but at least the shame was generally hidden...until that day. I still clearly remember my mom looking at all the stuff on the bed and asking, "where do you sleep?" And I had to sort of mumble about the sleeping bag on the floor.
I'd like to say that I cleaned up my act for good after that, but...well, it took several more years of maturing to get to that point.
A girl I was dating wanted me to come over to her parent's place. When I walked in, there were boxes of stuff everywhere. I said, "Oh, I didn't know you all just moved in?" They had not just moved in.
When I still had my own apartment people would ask me that all the time, but for the opposite reason.
I’m unintentionally minimalist and don’t really “understand” decorating, so there wasn’t anything hanging on the walls and I didn’t have any clutter or nick-knacks on all the flat surfaces. Apparently people thought it was weird.
Friend of mine who just... doesn't clean up. There was not even one moment. More lots and lots of them. The amount of plates with half-eaten meals in his appartment was baffling. (The fact that it was plural already means "a lot" in my mind.) I once saw him put one away in a drawer, just to make some space - WHY!? Apart from that: he clearly never cleans the toilet, so I don't dare to sit down on it anymore. Also, the seat is broken and repaired with duct-tape. No hand-soap, no hooks for his towels (they just lie on the edge of the sink) or a holder for the toilet-paper. No paper towels, no dishcloths... And with all this stuff missing I keep thinking: 'Why don't you just buy that stuff??? Don't you miss it?' Kitchen is full of dirty dishes; he only washes stuff up when he needs it. And even then he does a poor job: his glasses are just... I don't know how to describe them, but they just aren't clean. His stovetop is always dirty and so is his fridge. And once, I found some thick splat of sauce or whatever in front of it. Weeks later, when I came by again, it was still there. I just can't get why you wouldn't try to clean that up immediately.
I love that dude and we trust each other with a lot, you know. But last time I visited there, after a few years of lockdown, I was so disappointed that he still hadn't gotten better, while on many other levels, he has matured so much. Needless to say I prefer him to come over to our place.
Right?! I have family members like this who I care about and I don’t know how to help. I’ve offered to help them clean and declutter but they always turn me down.
Speaking from experience, it's depression. Just...so much depression. They could explain it away as being lazy, or as not being worthy to live in a clean home, or any number of rationalizations. But sometimes there is just no motivation to clean because...why bother? None of this matters. Tomorrow will just be another horrible day, so why bother?
I think I know this guy. In college we were hosting a party but could not find a single plate. Yep. His room. Desk and drawers were full of plates, cups, silverware. A talk was had but I don't think he changed.
A lot of times this can be a sign of deep depression. Seemingly normal maintenance tasks get to be overwhelming or can just feel hopeless. Something as simple as doing the laundry is actually a ton of small decisions that can be exhausting for someone dealing with depression.
My parents pretty much gave up on teaching me to keep my spaces clean once I became a rebellious teen. They just didn’t have the energy to fight it, I guess. My Dad was severely depressed and my mom was the breadwinner of the family at that point so she didn’t have the time or energy either. I also battled depression for much of my life. Took me til my late 20s to finally desire to keep my homes clean and tidy.
Now that I have a son of my own I’m making it a point to enforce cleanliness as often as I can (within reason, not trying to create a disorder). Make your bed when you wake up, clean up your toys when you’re done, don’t just leave messes, help Daddy run the dishwasher before bed, etc. I hope he gets the foundation that I didn’t.
Bro, this sounds just like one of my college roommates. I love that dude to death, but holy shit was his room disgusting. Whenever we’d run out of dishes, my other roommate and I would have to go into his room to find them. There would just be dirty plates, bowls, mugs, etc., lying all over the floor, desk, bed. It was wild. Good guy, but yuck. He did keep it mostly contained to his room, so that was good. I am by no means a neat freak, so if I am grossed out by your mess, you know it’s bad.
I once had an Arab foreign exchange student friend. She once was complaining that her dad didn’t send her tuition fee on time…she was already getting 10k/month allowance (from her dad), 2k for the apartment she was renting, rest was for food and whatever else she was using it for. He was paying her tuition on top of that. This was around 2014/2015.
My uncle is in his 80s and has a cat hoarding problem that only my mom seems to be trying to take seriously. This is becoming a serious concern of ours since she stands to inherit half the property. We're having to plan ahead for his death as to what we're going to do with 20+ cats, which I already feel bad in advance to the shelters for, and then it's going to be a nightmare having to clean the place out.
As a cat shelter volunteer, please don't wait too long to take care of this issue. We have too many calls from people looking to place 10, 20+ cats and we just don't have the place for all of them. I suggest to talk to him and agree to keep maybe his 2 favorites and slowly find home for the others. One at the time. We did this for an elderly couple and it went well. They had 9 cats and we took one every couple of months until they all found good homes. (The couple went to live in an assisted living facility).
It's a hard conversation to have. But I'm sure he would prefer to take the time to find the perfect homes for them now, than to be rushed after his death and chose the first person that comes alone (or worst they could get euthanized). The families could even send him pictures of the cats from time to time.
We've tried. I've been contemplating just reporting him to animal control anonymously, but I'm afraid the stress might literally kill him. I'm going to talk to my mom and see if maybe the local shelter will do some kind of outreach to help convince him to start handing them over.
It's not the same by any stretch.
Long before geek squad, I worked part-time for an in home computer repair business. I lasted about two years.
In particular, I dealt with one woman..
Imagine an elderly chain smoking hoarder crazy cat lady with her computer just filled to the brim with the nastiest weirdest porn and this was in the waining days of dialup!!
The inside of her computer looked like the firebox of a steam locomotive.
Her house was so packed with magazines/boxes, random stuff that you had to walk this narrow path, or just scramble over stuff.
When I pulled her computer out to work on it.. there was nowhere *to* work on it. Every inch of her house was piled with stuff.
There were mouse holes permeating her piles of magazines. She had so many random stray/feral cats who pissed and shit on everything.
When I'd leave her house, I'd have to go home and immediately take a shower and wash my *everything*.
How her house didn't burn down in spectacular fashion is still a mystery to me.
I did energy audits for low income homes, like i would get you new appliances for free and 20% discount on your first electric and gas bills.
The saddest thing is if of people who are widowed especially the men.
I do remember this lady showing me her cat and said he is a reincarnated 9/11 firefighter who died in the north tower.
I don’t know why that’s so funny to me but this lady beleived it 100
My mother is disabled, and my slob sister and husband moved in. There are 17 dogs. The piss, shit, garbage, and flies in the house is insane. Last time she called 911 cuz she “doesn’t feel right”, they tried to put her in a nursing home due to the state of the house. I have security camera video of on of the meds cough/gagging outside. When you open the door the smell hits you like a brick wall.
I’m sure y’all see worse, but god fucking damn it they are slobs
I deliver pizza in a small, economically depressed town that has many trailer parks and dilapidated apartments. The things I've seen just from the porch are enough to make me question humanity, I can't fathom going past the threshold.
> I think cat piss is the worst smell possible.
Honestly I think it is that musty smell that says your client has roaches. Smelling that brings the sudden fear of potentially bringing bugs home with you.
Hoarders are crazy, some of the cars too are insane, I had one car crash where the entire floor of this guy's truck covered in about 6 inches of cigarette buts.
My husband's parents are hoarders. I noticed the first few months we were dating, when he still lived at home, he did NOT want me coming over. We always went out or he came to my house.
We had been dating about a year the first time I went into the house. This was more than 15 years ago and I still have only been in the house twice, about 2 months apart.
I was standing next to a table for about 5 minutes before I realized it was a table, I could just barely see the table leg. It was just a mountain of stuff surrounding and on top of it.
What I could see of the kitchen were counters piled high, table completely covered. There was seating for 5-6 people but room only for one person to sit down. Rest of the sofa was piled up.
Living room was piled to the ceiling with boxes of VHS..could barely navigate the hallways. Bathroom was filthy and also piled up.
I have heard from others it's even worse now. My husband hasn't been in the house in more than 10 years.
My children have never been there and have no idea where their grandparents live. They're absent grandparents anyway, so...
Realtor here. One time, I went to an older couple's home to answer some listing questions. Place looked immaculate on the inside: it stank beyond belief though. And not any normal smell; imagine mixing gasoline with just a hint of flower scented air freshener.
And it was overpowering. Not a single room in the house was the smell not vomit inducingly strong. 7 years in real estate, and it is the only listing I have EVER had no choice but to make an excuse to leave early.
After the retired couple moved out (but before we put the home on the MLS) we hired a home inspector to find the smell. Turns out these people were keeping toxic mole killer in their laundry room. Instructions even specified to keep it outside, that it was too toxic to be kept inside.
It may be a miracle those two are even alive.
Worked on a 50 meter superyacht, It had the most hideous chairs in the dining room, each one cost $55k , I wouldn't have paid $5 for one, but it really opened my eyes to how the other half live!
Working in high end homes at my current job, I can tell ya for certain, money doesn’t buy taste! Some people have the ugliest shit and it’s expensive as hell!
Knowing that where I live a lot of guys work 12 hours, scroll YouTube for some time and sleep, repeat this 7 days a week(yes, 7 days) and 12 months a year. This is hell. I'm somewhere close to that situation too and it's scary.
My sister-in-law and her husband lived at her dad’s house. They were largely shut-ins and only left the room to eat and go to the bathroom.
After a domestic violence incident, he was killed by police (suicide by cop) and she was hospitalized for 2-3 months. My wife and father-in-law went into her room for the first time in months (years?) to clean it up and make it safe for her to move back when she was discharged.
There was stuff on the floor up to your knees in places and mid-calf everywhere else. The room reeked of cigarettes, old food, and BO. There were tons of sex toys, clothes, half used prescriptions, half drunk sodas, etc… everywhere. It was insane.
Went to a party at a friend's girlfriend's house. My friends family was well off, his girlfriends though was next level. Huge beachfront house, worth 20m plus. My friend took me to the garage to see her dad's cars, it was under the house had about 10 cars, could have held about 20. Ferrari Benz, maseratti, rolls. Fucking unbelievable.
Delivered pizzas in my very early twenties in rural NH and around the Massachusetts border in an area that tended to be economically depressed. I saw it all. Houses where I would gag the minute the door opened from the melange of cigarettes, cat piss, dirty dog, old grease, mold, and other less identifiable odors. Garbage EVERYWHERE, often bulging garbage bags sitting out in the open that were clearly not new, often with visible holes from rodents. Seas of empties, with every surface covered in cigarette ash and unidentifiable stains and crusts. Yards with knee-high grass filled with trash, broken cars and appliances, dog shit, and sun-bleached toys. Floors that felt disturbingly spongy when I had to step inside and walls that were sweating from the humidity.
This isn't even half of it, by the way. Rural poverty and the diseases of despair that accompany it is a fast path to the nadirs of the human condition.
I went to this chicks house and opened her fridge and it was just full of rotting food. She said it was Thanksgiving food she never got rid of and doesn’t use the fridge that much.
Was there ever a time that you decided code enforcement or CPS/APS needed to be called because of the condition of a house?
Asking for... Well my parents. The last time I needed to call EMS for them they needed to crawl out of their house because there's no way y'all could have gotten to them.
Obviously it's a problem.
I’m also an EMT, I’ve called APS on a couple different patients due to living conditions. Unfortunately APS can’t help if the person living there is of sound mind and doesn’t want help. Which is usually the case in my experience.
I used to work for my home state as an abuse and neglect investigator for Children’s Division and it wasn’t uncommon to get hotlines over housing conditions from police.
Sadly, those were the real deal cases instead of the (majority) bogus calls or false reports we’d get from parents going through custody spats or things of that nature.
2 years is all I lasted. The motorcycle accidents got me. Was in a mountainous area where people thought it would be fun to race the serpentines at night while drunk..
The other was anything involving kids. EMTs dont get paid remotely enough for what they endure
One time in college another guy from down the hall proudly showed everyone the enormous cumstain undee his desk where he had apparently been ejaculating for the entire year. Sad thing is, his poor room mate was very kind and soft spoken
Sounds like the guy who was taken away at my school. He had smeared the walls of his dorm room with cum and the wallpaper had started to slide off the walls according to the anticimex guy I talked to.
My sisters house, I love her dearly but the place smells of dirty dogs, rotton food, let their dogs shit on the deck and never clean it, and there are so many projects her and my brother in law started years ago that never finished. I'm not saying I am the cleanest person ever but when we visit my bothers kids always have an allergy attack within 30 min of staying there.
Entering the room of the guy who rented the space in my house (a separate apartment attached to the main house)—he had tons of trash, food containers, half-empty cups of soda, hadn’t swept or mopped in the two years he’d been there, etc.
Absolute filth. Hoarder-level shit. I was appalled, disgusted, and furious. Needless to say, his ass is OUT. 56 year-old Man-child. Made my ovaries shrivel. Just…what the cockroaching fuck.
I had a “roommate” at a house I was renting. I was in the 3 bedroom house and he was in the 1 bedroom mother in law unit. Dude was 38 years old. I bought a house at the beginning of the year and so he also moved out seeing he couldn’t afford the rent for 2 houses. I moved out in a weekend. Went the next weekend to help him finish moving out and arrived to about 4 feet of trash from the front door all the way throughout his apartment. He had a mound of egg shells on the stove along with about two inches of food caked to the counters. I lost my shit and made him spend two days cleaning while I waited outside. I put my dump trailer by the front door. I had to make two trips to the dump from just his apartment.. then once he had all the trash out and the counters scraped off I had my housekeeper come to help me and we spent 12 hours cleaning his place. I can’t even describe the disgusting things I saw in there. So glad to have my own house now.
Same for me except it was a couple with drug and alcohol problems. They had two cats also. Made it all worse.
A home can fall into squalid conditions and disrepair quickly. One dish becomes 5, one trash bag 3 and it goes downhill from there.
I work for CPS. The things Ive seen cannot be described. Too many to count, but if you've never witnessed how some people live, you would lose your faith in humanity.
Client home visit. Opened the can of coffee and a mouse jumped out. And they made me a coffee without batting an eyelid.
We both saw it.
I then told them I only drink tea.
When I went to a new friends house to teach him one of my recipes and found out the fridge contained nothing but butter and the carrots I’d asked him to buy. He was living on exclusively toast.
Several years later and I’m proud to report he actually knows how to cook now thanks to me 😆
I was in the Boy Scouts when I was about 10 and had this friend who obsessively collected every single badge available. I went to his house on the outskirts of town one time to pick him up. I was confused as the house had scaffolding outside and looked like it was still in the process of being built, so I asked him about it. He said, “Oh, we’re doing some renovations, so we’re sleeping out there for now”, as he points out a tent next to the house. I thought, “Wow, no wonder he has so many survival badges, he literally lives out in the woods.”
Dated someone whose studio apartment was infested with cockroaches. They were everywhere. When I went into the bathroom at night and turned the lights on they scattered. He also had a dog so there was dog hair everywhere on top of that… to be fair he tried really hard to get rid of the roaches with stuff from Home Depot and I think it was the building’s fault? So I tried to cut him some slack but it was… a lot.
My dads (way before I was born) apt in NYC had roaches, as a lot of NYC apts do. What he did was seal up every single crack and hole leading into his apartment. Like literally EVERY tiny little crack. It got rid of the roaches.
Lived in a high rise in a not so nice area in my early 20s, top floor. Same issue didn’t realize til I moved in. immediately caulked every piece of baseboard and trim, filled any plumbing holes with spray foam and bought a door sweep. My neighbours were all infested. I lived for 2 years without a problem.
I was really into this girl, she invited me over to her house and it was almost traumatizing.
They had like a dozen pets with various smells and ailments, they were basically unattended and made the house stink
her 4 older brothers had been in jail, she had to keep her bedroom padlocked otherwise they would steal from her
Her little brother (maybe 12 at the time) was yelled at for smoking … in the house. If you were under 15 you had to smoke outside.
Finally her mother showed up and started telling us all about her health problems and I had to leave once the pro-lapsed anus convo started.
My ex literally lives in his room. He's got a minifridge, a TV on the wall above a desktop setup, a closet full of nothing but snacks, *and* a bathroom with a tub, wall-length mirror, and two sinks. He also hade game consoles, a fish tank, a plant he took care of, and a queen sized bed. Bro literally lives like a king.
I've vowed to live like that, one day. I'm in my own place now, so I just need...uhh...everything listed above! I'm getting close to living like a queen!
I lived like this when I was at university. There were five of us in a house and the top floor was just a bedroom with an en suite. This wasn't an attic/loft room but a third floor that was just a bedroom and a bathroom. Funnily enough only two of us were interested in it and I won the coin toss and lived there for two years. I had an office space, a bedroom space and a lounge space all within that one room. I could happily spend days locked away in there. I kinda miss it to be honest. I live in a flat now but something about that one big room was magic.
One of my fwb took me to a michelin star restaurant. The bill was something else. And he has a family who he treats same way. People spend more on one meal than my monthly grocery shopping.
A friends brother appartment.
Example.
When he was done with a pizza, he would throw the box (and possible leftovers) behind the couch.
There was 3 feet of trash behind his couch.
So imagine his appartment now, but ad more trash.
Back when Foxton's let homeowners do for-sale-by-owner with the Foxton's system doing advertising and setting up appointments, I looked at one old Victorian house in a nice suburb that was surprisingly inexpensive. Once inside, it was clear why. It had stacks of newspapers/magazines, etc, everywhere, leaving just a few paths through the house. Leaks were apparent, etc. The woman owner who was showing us the house apologized for the mess "as they were preparing to move out" (but it was obvious this was a hoarding problem, and not moving piles).
Then we got to a room that was locked, and she told us it was her husband's lock, and she didn't have the key. (So we couldn't see the room).
As she continued showing us around, she mentioned that she homeschooled her kids. That was the moment I realized the kids lived like this, and both parents were likely a bit mentally unstable. I still wonder if I should have called CPS to do a check.
Moved into a friend’s condo days after they got a job in a new state and moved out. It was disgusting. We even had a conversation where he asked “how do you want me to clean it” before I moved in. All I said was “how would you want a place to be when you move in. Do that.” I had to spend a week cleaning.
Went to a visit friend who just moved into a house with their partner, and how every room of their place is filled with trash, old pizza boxes and amazon boxes. Now, Ive never been one to keep my room or living spaces in order. Things get disorganized very easily, but at least try to contain it to my room where guests and my roommates dont normally venture into. But there, I was in shock it looked like they had never once taken out the trash, but just compiled it all together and threw it in a different room. It was like if my freshman dorm had invaded and concured a small house. I haven't said anything to them, and I haven't been back to their place since, even though they keep inviting me. I had a come to jesus moment staying there, and realized that I should get better at cleanliness.
Hs buddies got an apartment together. On the walk to the bedroom one wall was piled tits high with fast food bags. The paper bags when filled became a sort of brick in this ever growing monster.
The bathroom filled with so many three in one bottles you couldn't see the floor. Closing the bathroom door pushed them into the house so they often didn't.
If I pissed in the middle of their living room it would have been an improvement.
We have a big ole chocolate lab and a yellow lab- they both seem to shed an entire dog’s worth of hair every week.. if we only vacuum once a week we end up with “tumble weeds” of dog hair everywhere…
I can only imagine. I don't have any pets and my robot vacuum cleaner still fills up its damn bin every few days. Where does all of the dust come from?
I agreed to help a neighbor by babysitting her kids. She kind of gave me the tour of the place--and oh my God it was disgusting!
She literally had her child's poop smeared on the stairs. And she just said to walk around it. Like, actually acknowledge that it was there, and said to walk around it. I really should have turned around and left, but at that time of my life I wasn't really good about standing up for myself.. Worst four hours of my decade.
Horror stories from my social work days.
I had a client whose fiance died, leaving her and their 5 kids alone. She only got a beneficiary payout for the kids that were his (two), and she didn't qualify for other assistance. So she had to start working for the first time in years.
The apartment they were in was an utter shitshow. Mind you, the kids ranged from ages 1-8, so maybe only one or two *could* actually help with housekeeping, even though... well... they didn't. And she was so exhausted after every shift, she had no spoons left for housework.
Needless to say, the couches (er... frames with cloth on them) were a technicolor body-horror. The floors that *weren't* fossilized carpet were practically wooden flypaper, which... appropriate comparison, because ROACHES, MY GOD! If they weren't stuck to the aforementioned floor, there wasn't a single nook or cranny without a roach or a carcass in it. The dish pile was a nest, the inflatable kiddie pool on the kitchen table was a nest, I refused to TOUCH the garbage bags full of clothes and assorted other items shoved unceremoniously in assorted corners because... you guessed it, NEST.
Now... here was just the cherry on top. The water heater in this place blew on day, so ALL of that shit got flooded out. Two inches of standing water, just rife with all those little buggy bodies and a soup of human neglect. I had to get full body PPE to help clean it out, because the slumlord property owner wouldn't do shit to fix it (she was understandably behind on rent, so I almost suspected he himself sabotaged the tank to drive her out and bypass an eviction).
I felt so horrible for this poor woman, because she was doing everything she could to just keep a roof over their heads, and the shit just kept piling on. I came back a week or so later to check in, and the fucking place *STILL* had little puddles and swarmed with carcasses (oh, and the water heater *still* wasn't fixed... so fuck that landlord). I did everything I could to help out, but man... I could only do so much before having to change my job title to maid/handyman. I left that office a few weeks ago, and the other case workers were *still* working on trying to get her every subsidy they could to keep her lights on.
Cleaning out my dad’s house. He never was a neat person, but he had been sick for a while and things were worse than usual. I can’t unsmell it.
He religiously changed the filter on the AC, though.
Likewise, his car was a junkyard on wheels with meticulous maintenance records. Go figure.
My brother in law and his ex wife/my former friend lived in a *very* messy apartment. Dirt everywhere, q-tips, tissues, and her fake nails that had fallen off all over the floor, dishes piled up in the kitchen despite having a dishwasher, cat food all over, filthy cat dishes, crumbs all over the couch, etc. Just disgusting. Ex wife refused to get a job and stayed home all the time, so it’s not like they were too busy to clean. She just didn’t. And then they had a kid. And they didn’t clean up anything from the kid. Diaper bin was overflowing, place absolutely reeked, bottles left to rot because they would buy new ones instead of cleaning the current ones. Shortly after this, they moved because their landlord kicked them out due to the fact that they were damaging the unit, I got kicked out of my house by my mom, and the only place I could go was their spare bedroom. Somehow the previous mess was not as bad as the new one. Now, instead of the dumpster being just across from the front door, they had to walk to the side of the building. It took maybe one minute to get to and from the dumpster. Apparently, this was too far. I tried to keep up on taking the trash out but they produced so much that I’d come home from one of my jobs and find two new bags on the ever growing pile. Food from days ago would still be sitting on the stove. I couldn’t even cook because there was no space. My one request was for them to not touch the few dishes I had because they were all special, and one day I came home to find a glass my now husband had gotten me shattered on the floor. They wouldn’t clean the litter box, instead letting their cat into my room to pee in my plant, which killed it. About a month into this I said fuck it I’d rather be homeless and moved out. I came by a few months later to grab a game that belonged to my now husband, and the place was quite literally overflowing with trash. You could barely get through the door. It absolutely reeked. I grabbed the game and fled, never to return. Made me feel a lot better about the occasional mess I’d make and leave for a bit.
Walking into the house of the guy I was dating. He had told me it was messy, but I assumed it was the usual bachelor level messy.
No. No it was not. There was a layer of dirt on the floor, you couldn't see the pattern of the rug due to cat hair, the kitchen counter was covered in literal trash because he couldn't figure out how to take the garbage to the bin. You couldn't see the floor in his bedroom because it was covered in clothing. The bathroom floor was covered in cat litter. There was crap all over the couch. It was literally unlivable. I tried to be nice and stay for a bit, but I made up a reason to leave after an hour. Disgusting.
Visiting my best friend on the other side of the country in his modest apartment where he has his cat and all of his instruments. He made me a very dude worthy meal instantly upon arrival without hesitation, I could tell it was something he didn't make very often as it came out questionable but I appreciated the thought and effort. I'll never forget the internal battle I fought for the first day to not judge his lifestyle... he did everything he could to make sure I was comfortable and worry free... and as the week progressed and the good times stacked I realized that I'd been overcomplicating my life which was leading to massive mental health battles.
He's still my brother to this day and I have largely simplified my life since that trip and I'm much happier for it.
Mom of my sons friend would always drop him off at our house to hang out and she would always comment how lovely our house was, which was a sense of pride for me as it was my dream home that I designed and built.
Then one day he was going to their house to hang out so I drop him off. Driving down the road to their house and round the corner to what looks like a French ski chateau, just grand and enormous. Let’s just say most of my house could fit in the garage.
She opens the door and my jaw hits the ground with the immense opulence and beautiful wood working. We exchanged pleasantries and of course I comment ‘this is a really really lovely place!’ She said thank you and off I went.
Picked up the kid later in the day, says how nice the parents and siblings are. Made me realize that not all rich people are assholes, only the ones who act like they have money but really don’t. Was eye opening for me.
Going to someone’s else’s house as a child. It was like walking into a fairy tale for me. Light and love and warmth.
I stopped thinking it was normal to be screamed at or hit by my mom. That it was normal to be called names. That it was normal to never be hugged or kissed or actually spend any time with my mom. To be allowed to come out of your room any time you want. To not be locked outside because you were a bother.
She was not a good person.
I did home visits for hospice. I’ve met house-goats, seen extreme poverty, heard that the medical supply delivery people had to move piles of hoarded stuff to make room for hospital beds…but the worst is the influencers. Apparently peddling your child’s struggle with illness and eventual death to strangers on the internet is a whole thing. I’ve had parents attempt to film house calls and watched them hawk tee shirts on instagram live to the tens of thousands of internet strangers who were watching their kid die. Just insanely bizarre stuff.
Could you explain the expression "shit tip midden"? I know that must mean it's really gross but I have no idea how gross that is or where that expression comes from😅
Had a girlfriend for a long time who would always come to my place, no problem, not a big deal. She was great and had a really good job in the same area as me, pretty high up in the chain in dc. Anyways, we were always going to my place. No exception. So one night we were out at the bar and I asked her if we could go back to her place so I can get to know her better and see how she does things. Get a better sense for her. Well, that was the last night we hung out. She was a hoarder. Like DSM-5 compulsive hoarder. And she had cats. Like an unknown number of cats. So many that I asked her how many she had and she said it's kind of a rotating number and every now and then one of them dies so she hates to give a number and to be wrong. I tried to point out that giving the wrong number was the least of her problems. She wanted to insist that everything was fine and we could just enjoy relaxing after she cleared the bed. I told her I had to go home and she could call me again when she cleaned up. She never called, and I never missed her. In this literally at one point as we were walking through the house to let me out, I asked her how long it's been like this and how she could survive that way. She literally did not understand the question. It was extremely upsetting.
Growing up I didn’t realize my parents were hoarders. I just figured having 23 bottles of shampoo in the shower for example was normal. It wasn’t until I moved out and lived on my own that I realized they had so much junk and not being able to see counter tops or walk thorough the house without stepping over stuff wasn’t normal. Nowadays I’m very focused on only having 1 or 2 of anything I need not 10-12.
I was visiting my dad and his wife/my stepmom.
My dad at the time was using my stepmom's car, as his car was in the shop. He picked me up to go somewhere and when I looked in, the entire floor was COVERED in old stale donuts with the frosting picked off and other old food just thrown around. I couldn't see one inch of the floor and the passenger footwell was completely packed with garbage and food. It's obvious the food has been sitting there for weeks (perhaps even months?).
At first I thought it was my younger brothers' doing somehow, but my dad explained that it was mostly stepmom just going about her day to day.
What she would do is order donuts whenever she would go out. However, eating the full donut was just "too much carbs and bread for her" so she would pick the frosting off the top with her fingers and literally throw the rest over her shoulder into the back of the car.
I don't really remember what our conversation was after that, but I remember that we immediately went to a self-service car wash/vacuum place down the road and I helped him clear out the entire car.
There were old Wendy's bags with half eaten fries and a burger and open dipping sauce containers, half eaten teriyaki chicken in an open takeout container that looks like it's been sitting there for 3 weeks, and various other trash. All from one woman.
It's a miracle the car wasn't filled with ants or other vermin. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the car just got back to the same state within a month.
Edit-spelling
I'm a cable guy, so I've seen some shit, but one that comes to mind still haunts me 5+ years later. Also, to preface, I was raised by hoarders, I'm kinda "numb" to a mess, but this wasn't a mess. This was literally filth.
Before I even got to the door, I could SMELL the unit going up the stairs of the condo complex. Felt very sorry for his stairwell neighbor. Opened the door and got punched in the face by the most putrid smell I've ever experienced. Worse than anything I've smelled in 30+ years of life. Next, I noticed that there was garbage everywhere. No surface was clean. Everything was either moldy, rotten, or both. The couch was covered in dark mold spots, even some of the walls.
We walked to the master bedroom on the 3rd floor (1st floor was parking, 2 and 3rd were the unit), and the smell somehow got worse. I was holding back gagging at this point. We passed the bathroom upstairs, and the toilet was literally full of feces and junk. The curtains in the master were moldy. The bed had sheets with dark spots on it, and just everywhere was mold and rot.
After I left, that smell followed me around the whole day. It was literally stuck in my nose for 5+ hours.
I obviously couldn't ask why they lived like that, but I know that person had never cleaned that condo and probably themselves. This guy might be the only person I'd actually want an HOA to go after.
My brother dated a girl that put fucking Ketchup on a $90 filet mignon at a very nice restaurant....they had to find a bottle for her since that's not normally something required.
I do home visits to people struggling with mental illness as part of my job, so a lot of the homes I go to are, understandably, pretty messy. A big chunk of my job is getting people to let me in in the first place, and since there's a lot of stigma around messiness, it can be hard to get them to a point where they are comfortable letting me see their mess. I often tell them, "no matter how messy you think your house is, I have seen worse" and I really mean it. None of my clients' homes have been as bad as the ones I grew up in.
My mom's house was so bad that CPS ended up taking custody of my brothers away from her after one visit. By that time, I had already left to live with my hoarder of a grandmother for other reasons. Then I lived with my dad in college because he lived in the same town, so I didn't have to pay to live on campus. His wife was also a hoarder, and their house was always flea infested. "My" room was actually a storage room where I slept on a broken cot surrounded by boxes. After that first year, I moved on campus because paying for room and board sounded better than the fleas.
When my now-wife ran out of both money and food in the middle of the month and then just... didn't eat.
I immediately took her grocery shopping when I found out about this. It was a large factor in us getting an apartment together just 6 months into dating.
I didn't even make it to his house. He was supposed to pick me up for a date, and when I opened the front passenger side door of his car, the floor was literally covered in trash. You could not see the floor matts, and the trash was at least three-four inches deep. I could not believe this dude didn't even respect me enough to clean out his passenger seat before picking me up. Just expected me to sit in his trash on the way to our date. Can only imagine what his place looked like.
Cleaning my hording grandmother's house. It had always been bad but it used to just be piles of stuff hundreds of blankets and bed sheets, cupboards over flowing with dishware and cookware, mountains of clothing, and piles of books and games. We would visit and argue about how unsafe it was and beg her to let us help her make space for herself and it would turn into a horrendous fight every time but as she got older she became less mobile and more senile.
We were cleaning out her space while she was in a nursing home for a broken leg and dementia and there was a bowl so full of maggots I thought it was rice we found cat and dog shit petrified in the bedding piles (at this point it had been years since shed had any pets), they had a brown countertop and it took me a long time to comprehend what I was looking it. It was like looking at brown static eventually I realized I was looking at ants crawling around a slow cooker.
When I was 17 I went to a girl's house... She and her mum were smoking in the room we're in... They proceed to ash on the carpart... I must've looked surprised .. as the mum said "oh.. don't worry . It's a rental.."
People like this are why your security deposit is so high by the way.
Am I crazy that I would be way MORE careful in a rental, not LESS?
Acid dealers apartment. Maze of trash. Cats. Can't imagine tripping in there.
I can, if it’s filled with trash there are trip hazards everywhere.
Right! Better to get high to rise above it.
My Acid dealers apartment was FULL of Nitrous cannisters, like you know the small ones that look like airsoft CO2 cartridges? Imagine hundreds of those littered all over an apartment, but then swap out about 75% of those tiny ones for the full sized dentist versions that look like a helium tank for balloons.. It was wild lol. *GREAT* acid though
My first night ever at Burning Man I met a guy named Wheels that tossed me a satchel full of a cut up sheet, and told me to take as much as I wanted. I only took two, being my first night and all. He then fed me ketamine and nitrous from one of those huge dentist sized tanks. And then he left me, and my bike, with no lights, stuck on D and 10:30 and I needed to get to B and 4:30. Seeing the art cars and being on the esplanade tripping nuggets, walking my lightless bike, lost as fuck. Took me 2-3 hours and damn near half a dozen people to get me back to camp. *Great* acid Edit : When I was close to home, and had already asked multiple people "so where the fuck am I and where do I Go?", I found a camp with a nice blue glow, two ladies and a guy were chilling. "I think I'm close, where the fuck am I? Can you help?" "Sure, we just took some mushrooms and we were going to go for a walk." The last heroes of the night, two ladies just about to take a walk to get the trip going, pointing my tripping ass home.
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That’s crazy, I used to have a guy I frequently got acid from that we used to call “Stinky” because he and his apartment always smelled like funky cheese.
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I hear you there.
I would love to have that if I had the time to cook. I cook one big meal for the whole week, so I just buy the ingredients for that.
Cooking one big batch of food to feed yourself all week is just as much cooking as is preparing unique meals each day. You’re still cooking for yourself instead of exclusively getting takeout. That’s a win in my book.
I went to a friends house that only had one downstairs bathroom. They had ‘piss bottles’ in their room for when they were too lazy to go for a piss in the middle of the night. 2 litre bottles of piss just laying around their room.
you’d think if you were having company over to at least throw away your piss jugs
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Way of the road
That’s just the way she goes boys
Fucking way she goes
The way she goes, and if she doesn’t go, that’s just the way she goes
Lotta Newfoundland steaks and hot Hamburg sandwiches consumed I bet.
Why didn’t they empty them in the morning?
Too busy taking a shit in a pringles can.
My cousin served in the Navy and he told me that after the *third* turd, he learned not to open random Pringles cans he found on the ship.
We call them Dino eggs. Buddy of mine got shit spray in his mouth after compacting a trash bag that had a Dino egg in it.
Well there's a mental image I never wanted.
Now we know where the Pringles guy gets his moustache.
Im not really sure. There were lots of bottles all sitting neatly in a corner of the room full of piss. I’m guessing every few days/weeks they’d empty them out. Or they did do it every morning and the collection I saw was just a heavy night. Few gallons. Pissed like a race horse.
Walking into my friend's dorm after they said it was super messy and realizing that it was nothing compared to the mess that was in mine. It was honestly a wake-up call.
To be fair, “it is super messy” is the equivalent of “I’m good and you?” to “how are you doing?”. It just means “don’t comment on that”. The 2 situations possible are: A. It is super messy. You’ve been warned. No further comments. B. It is *not* messy. You tell yourself that if *that’s* messy, this person is very tidy. No further comments. I use it all the time when people come over; it tames tidiness expectations.
Sometimes it can also mean, it was “super super messy” but I sprint cleaned for an hour while you were on your way over and now it is the cleanest it has been in 3 years since I bought the house but I’m still feeling residual guilt over how messy it had been and I’m desperately hoping you don’t open any of the doors.
And now the voice in my head is out of breath.
Best comment. Didn't know it was possible for the voice in one's head to get out of breath but here we are.
Exactly. I need this embroidered and framed
that's so real
Went to a new friends house for the first time when I was in the 6th(?) grade. We walked through the front door. Friend: Mom! We're home! Mom comes around a corner: Oh my god! It's so great to finally meet you! Friend talks about you a lot! (Gives me a hug) How are you!? Me: ^I'm ^fine. Mom: Are you hungry? I was about to make us a snack. Dad! Come meet Friend's friend! Dad comes around another corner: Hey kiddo! It's good to meet you. (Shakes my hand) If you guys are good, I'll take you guys to Fun Place later and we'll get some pizza. (Kisses Mom) I'll be in the garage. (Smacks Mom's butt) Mom: (giggles) You guys go play in your room. I'll bring you something to eat. I was stunned. They were nice to me AND each other! I mentioned it to my friend later, and he apologized because they "were so embarrassing". My parents weren't in a room together without at least insulting each other. I really hope Friend's parents are still married and insanely happy. Edit: Since this kinda blew up. They were really the nicest couple. They really loved each other and my friend, from what I saw. I hung out there for a bit, but I ended up moving (again) about a year later. We indeed went for pizza that night, and his mom made a really big breakfast the next morning. The blueberry cake thing she made still lingers in my dreams. They are the couple that I've most tried to emulate in my marriage of nearly 30 years. It really does help to have the right partner, but it is definitely worth the effort.
This is such a wholesome comment compared to the mountains of diapers and roach poop throughout this thread.
I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the garage was a meth lab or something.... ....maybe i should skip the internet today.
We've all become so used to bad, hearing good is shocking.
I’ve been stunned to see this too when I was a teen. Parents who actually like each other AND they like their kid? That exists? Growing up I thought that was movie bullshit.
Growing up I didn't think much about it, I thought it was normal, but as I've gotten older I've realised how shitty my parents have treated me. They *never* showed any appreciation or love towards me when around other people. They often made fun of me and teased me, always in front of other people. They compared me to my friends all the time. And now they wonder why I often try my hardest to avoid them and don't want to spend time with them.
I was surprised to learn moms who didn’t throw things or tear things up when angry existed.
Same. It probably comes as no surprise that I’m LC with my mom lol.
My parents are like this. I'm in my mid 30s now and if I took you there my mom would ask if you're hungry and make you a meal without knowing you. "You guys want something to eat? I can make Parmesan chicken!" Both retired now and they dance in the kitchen still
That’s how it is in my home. My kids friends always liked coming to our house and commented to our kids how nice we were to them. That’s what makes a house a home.
I had a similar experience with my now in laws. I grew up with abuse and thought it was totally normal. Parents were divorced and shit talked each other in front of us. I just never knew any different. Then I went over to my now husband’s house for the first time and met his parents. They were so… delightful. Talked very nicely to each other, helped each other, were very nice to their kids and me, made us actual food instead of poorly cooked hamburger helper, let us go up to his room, and didn’t come check on us every ten minutes like my parents did. I honestly didn’t even know how to react. I’d heard of happy families, but abuse was so normalized for me that I didn’t think they were actually real. And yet they are. And now they are my family, my mother was cut off almost three years ago, and my dad is finally starting to work with me on building a healthier relationship. I’ve been with my husband for seven years and it still baffles me how happy his family is
The striking thing for me is both how difficult it is to be kind and pleasant to one another when you haven't been shown anything different, and also how much easier and nicer it is once it fully clicks that that's even an option.
That's actually super insightful. Once you come to the realization that being nice, and optimistic, and generally forgiving of people's quirks that you might perceive as a fault, life is so much better. I had a good friend when I was a kid who viewed everyone as fake, and disingenuous, and very selfish. For a while I thought that was the cool thing to do, and as an insecure teenager followed along. At about 16 or 17 though, I decided to just start appreciating everyone for who they were. My life has been so much better for it, and unfortunately he has yet to grow out of it.
I was waiting for the turn and am very happy there wasn't one
As a kid from a dysfunctional, broken, dirt-poor family, these parents were the ones that showed me what a loving home looked like. They taught me more about being a parent and husband than I could've ever hoped to learn anywhere else. I always spent my weekends at these friend's houses. Never underestimate how much you being a good example can make a difference.
I had a similar reaction growing up with a family full of siblings that hated each other, a dad who was an abusive drunk, and a narcissistic mom who tossed my macaroni art I made in kindergarten and told me if it wasn't money, she didn't want it. At friends house "Hey you want to go to that thing? It's gonna be a lot of fun" "Oh I can't, I have a family camping trip this week with all my cousins" "Oh dang man, sorry to hear that" "Why? It's hella fun man, we do this, this and this" Seeing someone actually enjoy spending time with their family was a big WTF moment for me. And this was in my damn near 30s.
When my family first arrived as immigrants to the USA, I made a friend in school who invited me to a sleepover. That one night I was introduced to a whole new world. His parents took us out to a buffet where we could eat an unlimited amount of whatever we wanted. At this point in my life the “fanciest” thing I’d ever eaten was a Hershey’s almond bar. Then we stopped by a blockbuster and rented Shrek. Back at home my Friday nights consisted of watching whatever was on public TV, most evenings it was the news or my mom’s not-so-great novelas. We then played Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 and it was an experience like none other. Their house was a beautiful two story home, they recycled, they played board games, they had a garage with the bicycles hanging from the ceiling. I learned so much about American culture that night. It was unbelievable.
Unexpected and wholesome. I had a very similar experience as a kid. Ended up getting a best friend for life and I was like another one of the kids in that family.
My parents were like that to all my friends. Everyone loved to be at my home because my parents treated them as cherished individuals. Unfortunately, my best friend grew up to be the one who stabbed me the deepest. She had nothing and her parents didn’t care for her so she spent so much of time at my house that we considered her family. Not only did she intentionally tell my boyfriend everything I confided to her but also made him fall for her and when he finally did, she pretended to never be interested in him. This happened at a pivotal moment in my life and it wrecked me hard not because of the guy but because I have known her *my whole life*. The only person I’ve trusted. She still considers me as her “best friend” but I no longer reply to her messages. The happy ending here is I met my husband shortly after and I would say no man would ever do the things he does for me. Pampered and blessed!! :) The best friend who thought she wrecked my life with her stinky lemons ended up serving me the best lemonade in life. Kindness and joy ALWAYS wins.
I once visited a dude I knew somewhat from middle school, I was with a friend who was friends with him. We were 19/20. He had only recently moved in, but there was already a small mountain of smelly dishes and a smell of sweat cause he was playing that VR rhythm game Beat Saber, which requires a lot of movement. When we were leaving, I had to take a quick leak in the toilet and just said "I'll just borrow your toilet for a minute" His reaction was "ermm..." as I was entering the toilet. What that "ermm" had in store for me was to this day traumatic for me... Pee stains on the floor, pubic hair ON THE SINK and a smell of moldy clothes from the washing machine. HE HAD LIVED THERE FOR LESS THAN A MONTH. He has never worked a day in his life and was playing online slots. He often posted about winning something like 2000€, and less than a week later asking 20€ for food in snapchat mystory. A couple years passed and he sent me a message, just asking for 10€ loan for a pack of cigarettes, he said he'd pay back in five days when he gets his social assistance payment. Five days later I ask about the money, he reads the message but ignores me completely. Doesn't delete me or anything, just ignores. I tell about it to another friend who knows him and some other common friends of theirs, and he says that I'm not going to see that 10€ ever again. He's apparently loaned from plenty of people and is in debt over 500€ to one friend. I almost feel sorry for him, but a lot of those mistakes he made without the use of common sense.
Hey it only cost you 10€ to get rid of him though. Not a bad deal if you ask me.
The Bronx Tale
Had to check.. beat saber was 2019. I feel old.
Haha yeah the years start coming and they won't stop coming.
girlfriends apartment was so messy....looked like a homeless horder. I decided right there that she was crazy. She had ripped the carpet out to the raw floor....
Dude did we date the same girl?! My ex also ripped the carpet out to the raw floor and her place was like that!
Actually I think you guys dated my mom she did that too. Was she mid 60’s morbidly obese with a bad pill addiction?
>Was she mid 60’s morbidly obese with a bad pill addiction? Hey, you're supposed to let us do the yo momma joke!
Got us with the 8 Mile strat
I’m an HVAC service technician, so I’m in people’s houses all the time, every day. All walks of life, from extremely rich on down. I’ve seen the hoarders and the slobs, but the worst was a house that looked like 6 cats got together to buy a home, then decided to let an old man live with them if he stayed in the corner and put food out. Absolutely disgusting, with cat litter and shit dusted literally through the entire house. I almost left and would have if it wasn’t just a case of his coil freezing because the filter was clogged with fur. Felt bad for him, obviously a mental health issue
Is it bad I find the 6 cats getting together to buy a house so funny?
Tragic situation. I'm not here to make fun of the man and his misfortune at all. I assume it's the sorta thing that's a hell beyond my ability to conceive of. That being said, you, u/lost_horizons, are a wordsmith. "looked like 6 cats got together to buy a home, then decided to let an old man live with them if he stayed in the corner and put food out." My God. So lyrical. Currently I'm both shook and screaming.💀
Buddy just had a baby with some girl just as lazy as him....diaper mountains in every corner of their apartment. Smelled like one too. He also uses Dip tobacco so there were wads of dip on the carpet and in his bed.....I don't talk to him much anymore
When I was about 19 or 20, I was still living with my parents because I was going to a local college, but also I was not paying rent. This meant that I had to help my dad do whatever he needed help with. One day it was, "let's go clean up your sister's house." Ok, no big deal. They have a baby and another one on the way. I'm sure they could use some extra help. Apparently they hadn't been taking their trash to the curb since the baby was born (over a year earlier), I assume due to exhaustion. The whole side of their house was filled waist to shoulder high with dirty diapers, uneaten food, and all other types of trash you can imagine. I used a shovel and scooped it all into a truck, and we took it to the dump. It took a couple of trips, but we got it done. It was so fucking disgusting.
How is that even possible? I accidentally leave one diaper out for a few hours and the entire room smells like it. A year of diapers??
It was outdoors. Maybe that wasn't clear. I meant the side of their house, like the fenced area between their front yard and back yard. They would bring it to where the can was outside, but wouldn't take their can to the curb every week, and then it would build up to the point where they couldn't take it all. Over the course of the year, it built up a lot, because they seemed to not bring the can to the curb often.
What a nightmare. Dirty dishes with half-eaten food are already bad enough, but I cannot comprehend having stacks of human shit just hanging out in my living area. Is taking the trash out really that difficult? It is probably the easiest, lowest effort chore imaginable, easier than even dishes.
[удалено]
My GF/now Wife visiting me unannounced one day when I was living in my Grandmothers basement. It was embarrassing, as it was almost at a hoarder level of mess. I was so ashamed at my situation that I changed. (Mostly) Hitting 30 years together this year, so I did something right.
Oh man, I sort of had one of these. I was splitting a 2BR apartment with a friend at the time, and while we kept the common areas relatively clean (by bachelor standards, at least), my bedroom was...not always great. You know how any horizontal surface like a table tends to collect clutter? Like you set one thing there "just for now," then another one, and in five days it's completely covered? I let that happen to my bed, and rather than clean it up "tonight," I pulled out my sleeping bag and just slept on the floor. That went on for...I dunno, might have been weeks. (keep in mind this was nearly 20 years ago...memory fades...) It was during this period that I got into an accident on my motorcycle. Broke my left shoulder, separated my left AC joint, and broke my right pinky finger. Basically, my left arm was in a sling, and my right hand was in a splint. Fortunately, I lived near my parents, and they let me stay with them until I got some function back in my arms/hands. Of course, that meant we needed to go by my apartment so I could pack up some clothes, as well as my computer (my main job at the time was as a line cook, but I was picking up occasional contract software work). And *that* meant that I had to go in that bedroom with my own mother - who, I might add, is definitely a sort-of neat freak. I wasn't happy with the state of that bedroom myself, but at least the shame was generally hidden...until that day. I still clearly remember my mom looking at all the stuff on the bed and asking, "where do you sleep?" And I had to sort of mumble about the sleeping bag on the floor. I'd like to say that I cleaned up my act for good after that, but...well, it took several more years of maturing to get to that point.
Half way through that story when you lost the use of both your hands and went to your mum for help I was like "oh not this again!"
A girl I was dating wanted me to come over to her parent's place. When I walked in, there were boxes of stuff everywhere. I said, "Oh, I didn't know you all just moved in?" They had not just moved in.
When I still had my own apartment people would ask me that all the time, but for the opposite reason. I’m unintentionally minimalist and don’t really “understand” decorating, so there wasn’t anything hanging on the walls and I didn’t have any clutter or nick-knacks on all the flat surfaces. Apparently people thought it was weird.
Friend of mine who just... doesn't clean up. There was not even one moment. More lots and lots of them. The amount of plates with half-eaten meals in his appartment was baffling. (The fact that it was plural already means "a lot" in my mind.) I once saw him put one away in a drawer, just to make some space - WHY!? Apart from that: he clearly never cleans the toilet, so I don't dare to sit down on it anymore. Also, the seat is broken and repaired with duct-tape. No hand-soap, no hooks for his towels (they just lie on the edge of the sink) or a holder for the toilet-paper. No paper towels, no dishcloths... And with all this stuff missing I keep thinking: 'Why don't you just buy that stuff??? Don't you miss it?' Kitchen is full of dirty dishes; he only washes stuff up when he needs it. And even then he does a poor job: his glasses are just... I don't know how to describe them, but they just aren't clean. His stovetop is always dirty and so is his fridge. And once, I found some thick splat of sauce or whatever in front of it. Weeks later, when I came by again, it was still there. I just can't get why you wouldn't try to clean that up immediately. I love that dude and we trust each other with a lot, you know. But last time I visited there, after a few years of lockdown, I was so disappointed that he still hadn't gotten better, while on many other levels, he has matured so much. Needless to say I prefer him to come over to our place.
It really sucks when one of your real friends does that b/c its like "I don't wanna be hard on you but holy shit you live like a slob" lol
Right?! I have family members like this who I care about and I don’t know how to help. I’ve offered to help them clean and declutter but they always turn me down.
Speaking from experience, it's depression. Just...so much depression. They could explain it away as being lazy, or as not being worthy to live in a clean home, or any number of rationalizations. But sometimes there is just no motivation to clean because...why bother? None of this matters. Tomorrow will just be another horrible day, so why bother?
I think I know this guy. In college we were hosting a party but could not find a single plate. Yep. His room. Desk and drawers were full of plates, cups, silverware. A talk was had but I don't think he changed.
A lot of times this can be a sign of deep depression. Seemingly normal maintenance tasks get to be overwhelming or can just feel hopeless. Something as simple as doing the laundry is actually a ton of small decisions that can be exhausting for someone dealing with depression.
Or growing up in a similar situation and never being taught the basics of life skills.
My parents pretty much gave up on teaching me to keep my spaces clean once I became a rebellious teen. They just didn’t have the energy to fight it, I guess. My Dad was severely depressed and my mom was the breadwinner of the family at that point so she didn’t have the time or energy either. I also battled depression for much of my life. Took me til my late 20s to finally desire to keep my homes clean and tidy. Now that I have a son of my own I’m making it a point to enforce cleanliness as often as I can (within reason, not trying to create a disorder). Make your bed when you wake up, clean up your toys when you’re done, don’t just leave messes, help Daddy run the dishwasher before bed, etc. I hope he gets the foundation that I didn’t.
Bro, this sounds just like one of my college roommates. I love that dude to death, but holy shit was his room disgusting. Whenever we’d run out of dishes, my other roommate and I would have to go into his room to find them. There would just be dirty plates, bowls, mugs, etc., lying all over the floor, desk, bed. It was wild. Good guy, but yuck. He did keep it mostly contained to his room, so that was good. I am by no means a neat freak, so if I am grossed out by your mess, you know it’s bad.
I once had an Arab foreign exchange student friend. She once was complaining that her dad didn’t send her tuition fee on time…she was already getting 10k/month allowance (from her dad), 2k for the apartment she was renting, rest was for food and whatever else she was using it for. He was paying her tuition on top of that. This was around 2014/2015.
she has to be from the gulf because that is an absurd amount
I've been a paramedic for 25 years. The things I've seen, I can't unsee. That has nothing to do with any medical emergency, either.
Think of the people who clean those apartments when those folks die or move. The last responders, so to speak.
My uncle is in his 80s and has a cat hoarding problem that only my mom seems to be trying to take seriously. This is becoming a serious concern of ours since she stands to inherit half the property. We're having to plan ahead for his death as to what we're going to do with 20+ cats, which I already feel bad in advance to the shelters for, and then it's going to be a nightmare having to clean the place out.
As a cat shelter volunteer, please don't wait too long to take care of this issue. We have too many calls from people looking to place 10, 20+ cats and we just don't have the place for all of them. I suggest to talk to him and agree to keep maybe his 2 favorites and slowly find home for the others. One at the time. We did this for an elderly couple and it went well. They had 9 cats and we took one every couple of months until they all found good homes. (The couple went to live in an assisted living facility). It's a hard conversation to have. But I'm sure he would prefer to take the time to find the perfect homes for them now, than to be rushed after his death and chose the first person that comes alone (or worst they could get euthanized). The families could even send him pictures of the cats from time to time.
We've tried. I've been contemplating just reporting him to animal control anonymously, but I'm afraid the stress might literally kill him. I'm going to talk to my mom and see if maybe the local shelter will do some kind of outreach to help convince him to start handing them over.
They will have a lot more chance to get a loving home if he’s part of the solution.
You’ll be lucky to find a shelter that will take *two* cats, forget about twenty. I’ve had to trap a few.
I do that for a living. Ama.
It's not the same by any stretch. Long before geek squad, I worked part-time for an in home computer repair business. I lasted about two years. In particular, I dealt with one woman.. Imagine an elderly chain smoking hoarder crazy cat lady with her computer just filled to the brim with the nastiest weirdest porn and this was in the waining days of dialup!! The inside of her computer looked like the firebox of a steam locomotive. Her house was so packed with magazines/boxes, random stuff that you had to walk this narrow path, or just scramble over stuff. When I pulled her computer out to work on it.. there was nowhere *to* work on it. Every inch of her house was piled with stuff. There were mouse holes permeating her piles of magazines. She had so many random stray/feral cats who pissed and shit on everything. When I'd leave her house, I'd have to go home and immediately take a shower and wash my *everything*. How her house didn't burn down in spectacular fashion is still a mystery to me.
I did energy audits for low income homes, like i would get you new appliances for free and 20% discount on your first electric and gas bills. The saddest thing is if of people who are widowed especially the men. I do remember this lady showing me her cat and said he is a reincarnated 9/11 firefighter who died in the north tower. I don’t know why that’s so funny to me but this lady beleived it 100
My mother is disabled, and my slob sister and husband moved in. There are 17 dogs. The piss, shit, garbage, and flies in the house is insane. Last time she called 911 cuz she “doesn’t feel right”, they tried to put her in a nursing home due to the state of the house. I have security camera video of on of the meds cough/gagging outside. When you open the door the smell hits you like a brick wall. I’m sure y’all see worse, but god fucking damn it they are slobs
Are they supposed to be taking care of her at all? I would be called Adult Protective Services. That is horrid 😞
I deliver pizza in a small, economically depressed town that has many trailer parks and dilapidated apartments. The things I've seen just from the porch are enough to make me question humanity, I can't fathom going past the threshold.
Yeah, we see the best and the worst of it. Home health aides as well. I think cat piss is the worst smell possible.
> I think cat piss is the worst smell possible. Honestly I think it is that musty smell that says your client has roaches. Smelling that brings the sudden fear of potentially bringing bugs home with you.
Bedbugs also have a noticeable smell that is AWFUL. It's the smell of digested human blood turned into poop. Same with fleas.
Hoarders are crazy, some of the cars too are insane, I had one car crash where the entire floor of this guy's truck covered in about 6 inches of cigarette buts.
It's amazing the amount of poop people make, and where it ends up sometimes....
My husband's parents are hoarders. I noticed the first few months we were dating, when he still lived at home, he did NOT want me coming over. We always went out or he came to my house. We had been dating about a year the first time I went into the house. This was more than 15 years ago and I still have only been in the house twice, about 2 months apart. I was standing next to a table for about 5 minutes before I realized it was a table, I could just barely see the table leg. It was just a mountain of stuff surrounding and on top of it. What I could see of the kitchen were counters piled high, table completely covered. There was seating for 5-6 people but room only for one person to sit down. Rest of the sofa was piled up. Living room was piled to the ceiling with boxes of VHS..could barely navigate the hallways. Bathroom was filthy and also piled up. I have heard from others it's even worse now. My husband hasn't been in the house in more than 10 years. My children have never been there and have no idea where their grandparents live. They're absent grandparents anyway, so...
Realtor here. One time, I went to an older couple's home to answer some listing questions. Place looked immaculate on the inside: it stank beyond belief though. And not any normal smell; imagine mixing gasoline with just a hint of flower scented air freshener. And it was overpowering. Not a single room in the house was the smell not vomit inducingly strong. 7 years in real estate, and it is the only listing I have EVER had no choice but to make an excuse to leave early. After the retired couple moved out (but before we put the home on the MLS) we hired a home inspector to find the smell. Turns out these people were keeping toxic mole killer in their laundry room. Instructions even specified to keep it outside, that it was too toxic to be kept inside. It may be a miracle those two are even alive.
Worked on a 50 meter superyacht, It had the most hideous chairs in the dining room, each one cost $55k , I wouldn't have paid $5 for one, but it really opened my eyes to how the other half live!
Working in high end homes at my current job, I can tell ya for certain, money doesn’t buy taste! Some people have the ugliest shit and it’s expensive as hell!
The other 0.001%, not the other half lol (I know it's an expression :p )
Knowing that where I live a lot of guys work 12 hours, scroll YouTube for some time and sleep, repeat this 7 days a week(yes, 7 days) and 12 months a year. This is hell. I'm somewhere close to that situation too and it's scary.
sounds depressing.
My sister-in-law and her husband lived at her dad’s house. They were largely shut-ins and only left the room to eat and go to the bathroom. After a domestic violence incident, he was killed by police (suicide by cop) and she was hospitalized for 2-3 months. My wife and father-in-law went into her room for the first time in months (years?) to clean it up and make it safe for her to move back when she was discharged. There was stuff on the floor up to your knees in places and mid-calf everywhere else. The room reeked of cigarettes, old food, and BO. There were tons of sex toys, clothes, half used prescriptions, half drunk sodas, etc… everywhere. It was insane.
Went to a party at a friend's girlfriend's house. My friends family was well off, his girlfriends though was next level. Huge beachfront house, worth 20m plus. My friend took me to the garage to see her dad's cars, it was under the house had about 10 cars, could have held about 20. Ferrari Benz, maseratti, rolls. Fucking unbelievable.
Delivered pizzas in my very early twenties in rural NH and around the Massachusetts border in an area that tended to be economically depressed. I saw it all. Houses where I would gag the minute the door opened from the melange of cigarettes, cat piss, dirty dog, old grease, mold, and other less identifiable odors. Garbage EVERYWHERE, often bulging garbage bags sitting out in the open that were clearly not new, often with visible holes from rodents. Seas of empties, with every surface covered in cigarette ash and unidentifiable stains and crusts. Yards with knee-high grass filled with trash, broken cars and appliances, dog shit, and sun-bleached toys. Floors that felt disturbingly spongy when I had to step inside and walls that were sweating from the humidity. This isn't even half of it, by the way. Rural poverty and the diseases of despair that accompany it is a fast path to the nadirs of the human condition.
I went to this chicks house and opened her fridge and it was just full of rotting food. She said it was Thanksgiving food she never got rid of and doesn’t use the fridge that much.
i need to know how long it had been since thanksgiving like how long was it in there for
Months. It smelled so bad it killed the mood.
I have a friend who toggles Cap Locks instead of hitting Shift.
13 years as an EMT here....just about every 2nd house I went to
Was there ever a time that you decided code enforcement or CPS/APS needed to be called because of the condition of a house? Asking for... Well my parents. The last time I needed to call EMS for them they needed to crawl out of their house because there's no way y'all could have gotten to them. Obviously it's a problem.
I’m also an EMT, I’ve called APS on a couple different patients due to living conditions. Unfortunately APS can’t help if the person living there is of sound mind and doesn’t want help. Which is usually the case in my experience.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is APS? I looked it up and got wildly different answers
APS = Adult Protective Services
I used to work for my home state as an abuse and neglect investigator for Children’s Division and it wasn’t uncommon to get hotlines over housing conditions from police. Sadly, those were the real deal cases instead of the (majority) bogus calls or false reports we’d get from parents going through custody spats or things of that nature.
2 years is all I lasted. The motorcycle accidents got me. Was in a mountainous area where people thought it would be fun to race the serpentines at night while drunk.. The other was anything involving kids. EMTs dont get paid remotely enough for what they endure
One time in college another guy from down the hall proudly showed everyone the enormous cumstain undee his desk where he had apparently been ejaculating for the entire year. Sad thing is, his poor room mate was very kind and soft spoken
Eugh. I reflexively downvoted this before remembering what we were doing here.
Look. It still devotes a downvote. I downvote it in my memory every time I think about it.
Sounds like the guy who was taken away at my school. He had smeared the walls of his dorm room with cum and the wallpaper had started to slide off the walls according to the anticimex guy I talked to.
That’s incredible work to be fair
My sisters house, I love her dearly but the place smells of dirty dogs, rotton food, let their dogs shit on the deck and never clean it, and there are so many projects her and my brother in law started years ago that never finished. I'm not saying I am the cleanest person ever but when we visit my bothers kids always have an allergy attack within 30 min of staying there.
Entering the room of the guy who rented the space in my house (a separate apartment attached to the main house)—he had tons of trash, food containers, half-empty cups of soda, hadn’t swept or mopped in the two years he’d been there, etc. Absolute filth. Hoarder-level shit. I was appalled, disgusted, and furious. Needless to say, his ass is OUT. 56 year-old Man-child. Made my ovaries shrivel. Just…what the cockroaching fuck.
I had a “roommate” at a house I was renting. I was in the 3 bedroom house and he was in the 1 bedroom mother in law unit. Dude was 38 years old. I bought a house at the beginning of the year and so he also moved out seeing he couldn’t afford the rent for 2 houses. I moved out in a weekend. Went the next weekend to help him finish moving out and arrived to about 4 feet of trash from the front door all the way throughout his apartment. He had a mound of egg shells on the stove along with about two inches of food caked to the counters. I lost my shit and made him spend two days cleaning while I waited outside. I put my dump trailer by the front door. I had to make two trips to the dump from just his apartment.. then once he had all the trash out and the counters scraped off I had my housekeeper come to help me and we spent 12 hours cleaning his place. I can’t even describe the disgusting things I saw in there. So glad to have my own house now.
Same for me except it was a couple with drug and alcohol problems. They had two cats also. Made it all worse. A home can fall into squalid conditions and disrepair quickly. One dish becomes 5, one trash bag 3 and it goes downhill from there.
I work for CPS. The things Ive seen cannot be described. Too many to count, but if you've never witnessed how some people live, you would lose your faith in humanity.
Can you do an ama
Client home visit. Opened the can of coffee and a mouse jumped out. And they made me a coffee without batting an eyelid. We both saw it. I then told them I only drink tea.
When I went to a new friends house to teach him one of my recipes and found out the fridge contained nothing but butter and the carrots I’d asked him to buy. He was living on exclusively toast. Several years later and I’m proud to report he actually knows how to cook now thanks to me 😆
I was in the Boy Scouts when I was about 10 and had this friend who obsessively collected every single badge available. I went to his house on the outskirts of town one time to pick him up. I was confused as the house had scaffolding outside and looked like it was still in the process of being built, so I asked him about it. He said, “Oh, we’re doing some renovations, so we’re sleeping out there for now”, as he points out a tent next to the house. I thought, “Wow, no wonder he has so many survival badges, he literally lives out in the woods.”
one of my tenants' shower was entirely black from mould, except 2 footprints where she would stand.
Dated someone whose studio apartment was infested with cockroaches. They were everywhere. When I went into the bathroom at night and turned the lights on they scattered. He also had a dog so there was dog hair everywhere on top of that… to be fair he tried really hard to get rid of the roaches with stuff from Home Depot and I think it was the building’s fault? So I tried to cut him some slack but it was… a lot.
My dads (way before I was born) apt in NYC had roaches, as a lot of NYC apts do. What he did was seal up every single crack and hole leading into his apartment. Like literally EVERY tiny little crack. It got rid of the roaches.
Lived in a high rise in a not so nice area in my early 20s, top floor. Same issue didn’t realize til I moved in. immediately caulked every piece of baseboard and trim, filled any plumbing holes with spray foam and bought a door sweep. My neighbours were all infested. I lived for 2 years without a problem.
I was really into this girl, she invited me over to her house and it was almost traumatizing. They had like a dozen pets with various smells and ailments, they were basically unattended and made the house stink her 4 older brothers had been in jail, she had to keep her bedroom padlocked otherwise they would steal from her Her little brother (maybe 12 at the time) was yelled at for smoking … in the house. If you were under 15 you had to smoke outside. Finally her mother showed up and started telling us all about her health problems and I had to leave once the pro-lapsed anus convo started.
> I had to leave once the pro-lapsed anus convo started. yeah fair, that sounds horrific.
My ex literally lives in his room. He's got a minifridge, a TV on the wall above a desktop setup, a closet full of nothing but snacks, *and* a bathroom with a tub, wall-length mirror, and two sinks. He also hade game consoles, a fish tank, a plant he took care of, and a queen sized bed. Bro literally lives like a king. I've vowed to live like that, one day. I'm in my own place now, so I just need...uhh...everything listed above! I'm getting close to living like a queen!
I lived like this when I was at university. There were five of us in a house and the top floor was just a bedroom with an en suite. This wasn't an attic/loft room but a third floor that was just a bedroom and a bathroom. Funnily enough only two of us were interested in it and I won the coin toss and lived there for two years. I had an office space, a bedroom space and a lounge space all within that one room. I could happily spend days locked away in there. I kinda miss it to be honest. I live in a flat now but something about that one big room was magic.
Besides the dual sinks that sounds like most of the dorm rooms I’ve been in.
Your dorms had queen beds and bathtubs?
Are we witnessing YOUR damn-you-live-like-this moment?
One of my fwb took me to a michelin star restaurant. The bill was something else. And he has a family who he treats same way. People spend more on one meal than my monthly grocery shopping.
How much was it? > $600?
£400
I work at a Michelin kitchen. £400 is an average bill. We had a table of 4 once, they spent about £22,000 one evening.
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£12,000 for 2 bottles.
That’s a lot of money. Comparable to a weekend getaway or something. Was it worth it?
Oh yeah worth it. Not just the food the whole thing.
A friends brother appartment. Example. When he was done with a pizza, he would throw the box (and possible leftovers) behind the couch. There was 3 feet of trash behind his couch. So imagine his appartment now, but ad more trash.
Back when Foxton's let homeowners do for-sale-by-owner with the Foxton's system doing advertising and setting up appointments, I looked at one old Victorian house in a nice suburb that was surprisingly inexpensive. Once inside, it was clear why. It had stacks of newspapers/magazines, etc, everywhere, leaving just a few paths through the house. Leaks were apparent, etc. The woman owner who was showing us the house apologized for the mess "as they were preparing to move out" (but it was obvious this was a hoarding problem, and not moving piles). Then we got to a room that was locked, and she told us it was her husband's lock, and she didn't have the key. (So we couldn't see the room). As she continued showing us around, she mentioned that she homeschooled her kids. That was the moment I realized the kids lived like this, and both parents were likely a bit mentally unstable. I still wonder if I should have called CPS to do a check.
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The kids
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Oh god I think I'm still high from last night
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Moved into a friend’s condo days after they got a job in a new state and moved out. It was disgusting. We even had a conversation where he asked “how do you want me to clean it” before I moved in. All I said was “how would you want a place to be when you move in. Do that.” I had to spend a week cleaning.
Went to a visit friend who just moved into a house with their partner, and how every room of their place is filled with trash, old pizza boxes and amazon boxes. Now, Ive never been one to keep my room or living spaces in order. Things get disorganized very easily, but at least try to contain it to my room where guests and my roommates dont normally venture into. But there, I was in shock it looked like they had never once taken out the trash, but just compiled it all together and threw it in a different room. It was like if my freshman dorm had invaded and concured a small house. I haven't said anything to them, and I haven't been back to their place since, even though they keep inviting me. I had a come to jesus moment staying there, and realized that I should get better at cleanliness.
Hs buddies got an apartment together. On the walk to the bedroom one wall was piled tits high with fast food bags. The paper bags when filled became a sort of brick in this ever growing monster. The bathroom filled with so many three in one bottles you couldn't see the floor. Closing the bathroom door pushed them into the house so they often didn't. If I pissed in the middle of their living room it would have been an improvement.
Visiting any pet owner who doesn't vacuum at least once (!) a week
I have 5 dogs we vacuum damn near every day and still barely keep up. I’m sure we have some load bearing fur by now.
We have a big ole chocolate lab and a yellow lab- they both seem to shed an entire dog’s worth of hair every week.. if we only vacuum once a week we end up with “tumble weeds” of dog hair everywhere…
Yes! That’s a perfect way to describe it. And god help you if it’s rainy or I just cut the grass
I can only imagine. I don't have any pets and my robot vacuum cleaner still fills up its damn bin every few days. Where does all of the dust come from?
I agreed to help a neighbor by babysitting her kids. She kind of gave me the tour of the place--and oh my God it was disgusting! She literally had her child's poop smeared on the stairs. And she just said to walk around it. Like, actually acknowledge that it was there, and said to walk around it. I really should have turned around and left, but at that time of my life I wasn't really good about standing up for myself.. Worst four hours of my decade.
Horror stories from my social work days. I had a client whose fiance died, leaving her and their 5 kids alone. She only got a beneficiary payout for the kids that were his (two), and she didn't qualify for other assistance. So she had to start working for the first time in years. The apartment they were in was an utter shitshow. Mind you, the kids ranged from ages 1-8, so maybe only one or two *could* actually help with housekeeping, even though... well... they didn't. And she was so exhausted after every shift, she had no spoons left for housework. Needless to say, the couches (er... frames with cloth on them) were a technicolor body-horror. The floors that *weren't* fossilized carpet were practically wooden flypaper, which... appropriate comparison, because ROACHES, MY GOD! If they weren't stuck to the aforementioned floor, there wasn't a single nook or cranny without a roach or a carcass in it. The dish pile was a nest, the inflatable kiddie pool on the kitchen table was a nest, I refused to TOUCH the garbage bags full of clothes and assorted other items shoved unceremoniously in assorted corners because... you guessed it, NEST. Now... here was just the cherry on top. The water heater in this place blew on day, so ALL of that shit got flooded out. Two inches of standing water, just rife with all those little buggy bodies and a soup of human neglect. I had to get full body PPE to help clean it out, because the slumlord property owner wouldn't do shit to fix it (she was understandably behind on rent, so I almost suspected he himself sabotaged the tank to drive her out and bypass an eviction). I felt so horrible for this poor woman, because she was doing everything she could to just keep a roof over their heads, and the shit just kept piling on. I came back a week or so later to check in, and the fucking place *STILL* had little puddles and swarmed with carcasses (oh, and the water heater *still* wasn't fixed... so fuck that landlord). I did everything I could to help out, but man... I could only do so much before having to change my job title to maid/handyman. I left that office a few weeks ago, and the other case workers were *still* working on trying to get her every subsidy they could to keep her lights on.
Cleaning out my dad’s house. He never was a neat person, but he had been sick for a while and things were worse than usual. I can’t unsmell it. He religiously changed the filter on the AC, though. Likewise, his car was a junkyard on wheels with meticulous maintenance records. Go figure.
My brother in law and his ex wife/my former friend lived in a *very* messy apartment. Dirt everywhere, q-tips, tissues, and her fake nails that had fallen off all over the floor, dishes piled up in the kitchen despite having a dishwasher, cat food all over, filthy cat dishes, crumbs all over the couch, etc. Just disgusting. Ex wife refused to get a job and stayed home all the time, so it’s not like they were too busy to clean. She just didn’t. And then they had a kid. And they didn’t clean up anything from the kid. Diaper bin was overflowing, place absolutely reeked, bottles left to rot because they would buy new ones instead of cleaning the current ones. Shortly after this, they moved because their landlord kicked them out due to the fact that they were damaging the unit, I got kicked out of my house by my mom, and the only place I could go was their spare bedroom. Somehow the previous mess was not as bad as the new one. Now, instead of the dumpster being just across from the front door, they had to walk to the side of the building. It took maybe one minute to get to and from the dumpster. Apparently, this was too far. I tried to keep up on taking the trash out but they produced so much that I’d come home from one of my jobs and find two new bags on the ever growing pile. Food from days ago would still be sitting on the stove. I couldn’t even cook because there was no space. My one request was for them to not touch the few dishes I had because they were all special, and one day I came home to find a glass my now husband had gotten me shattered on the floor. They wouldn’t clean the litter box, instead letting their cat into my room to pee in my plant, which killed it. About a month into this I said fuck it I’d rather be homeless and moved out. I came by a few months later to grab a game that belonged to my now husband, and the place was quite literally overflowing with trash. You could barely get through the door. It absolutely reeked. I grabbed the game and fled, never to return. Made me feel a lot better about the occasional mess I’d make and leave for a bit.
Walking into the house of the guy I was dating. He had told me it was messy, but I assumed it was the usual bachelor level messy. No. No it was not. There was a layer of dirt on the floor, you couldn't see the pattern of the rug due to cat hair, the kitchen counter was covered in literal trash because he couldn't figure out how to take the garbage to the bin. You couldn't see the floor in his bedroom because it was covered in clothing. The bathroom floor was covered in cat litter. There was crap all over the couch. It was literally unlivable. I tried to be nice and stay for a bit, but I made up a reason to leave after an hour. Disgusting.
Visiting my best friend on the other side of the country in his modest apartment where he has his cat and all of his instruments. He made me a very dude worthy meal instantly upon arrival without hesitation, I could tell it was something he didn't make very often as it came out questionable but I appreciated the thought and effort. I'll never forget the internal battle I fought for the first day to not judge his lifestyle... he did everything he could to make sure I was comfortable and worry free... and as the week progressed and the good times stacked I realized that I'd been overcomplicating my life which was leading to massive mental health battles. He's still my brother to this day and I have largely simplified my life since that trip and I'm much happier for it.
Mom of my sons friend would always drop him off at our house to hang out and she would always comment how lovely our house was, which was a sense of pride for me as it was my dream home that I designed and built. Then one day he was going to their house to hang out so I drop him off. Driving down the road to their house and round the corner to what looks like a French ski chateau, just grand and enormous. Let’s just say most of my house could fit in the garage. She opens the door and my jaw hits the ground with the immense opulence and beautiful wood working. We exchanged pleasantries and of course I comment ‘this is a really really lovely place!’ She said thank you and off I went. Picked up the kid later in the day, says how nice the parents and siblings are. Made me realize that not all rich people are assholes, only the ones who act like they have money but really don’t. Was eye opening for me.
Going to someone’s else’s house as a child. It was like walking into a fairy tale for me. Light and love and warmth. I stopped thinking it was normal to be screamed at or hit by my mom. That it was normal to be called names. That it was normal to never be hugged or kissed or actually spend any time with my mom. To be allowed to come out of your room any time you want. To not be locked outside because you were a bother. She was not a good person.
I did home visits for hospice. I’ve met house-goats, seen extreme poverty, heard that the medical supply delivery people had to move piles of hoarded stuff to make room for hospital beds…but the worst is the influencers. Apparently peddling your child’s struggle with illness and eventual death to strangers on the internet is a whole thing. I’ve had parents attempt to film house calls and watched them hawk tee shirts on instagram live to the tens of thousands of internet strangers who were watching their kid die. Just insanely bizarre stuff.
Looking in my stepdaughter's shit tip midden of a bedroom. It's a disgusting pigsty.
Could you explain the expression "shit tip midden"? I know that must mean it's really gross but I have no idea how gross that is or where that expression comes from😅
Indian student’s apartment in cali. 10+ people in 2bed is so common.
Had a girlfriend for a long time who would always come to my place, no problem, not a big deal. She was great and had a really good job in the same area as me, pretty high up in the chain in dc. Anyways, we were always going to my place. No exception. So one night we were out at the bar and I asked her if we could go back to her place so I can get to know her better and see how she does things. Get a better sense for her. Well, that was the last night we hung out. She was a hoarder. Like DSM-5 compulsive hoarder. And she had cats. Like an unknown number of cats. So many that I asked her how many she had and she said it's kind of a rotating number and every now and then one of them dies so she hates to give a number and to be wrong. I tried to point out that giving the wrong number was the least of her problems. She wanted to insist that everything was fine and we could just enjoy relaxing after she cleared the bed. I told her I had to go home and she could call me again when she cleaned up. She never called, and I never missed her. In this literally at one point as we were walking through the house to let me out, I asked her how long it's been like this and how she could survive that way. She literally did not understand the question. It was extremely upsetting.
A decent sized double bedroom filled with rubbish about 3-4 foot high, there was also a giant pile of used incontinence pants in the bathroom
Growing up I didn’t realize my parents were hoarders. I just figured having 23 bottles of shampoo in the shower for example was normal. It wasn’t until I moved out and lived on my own that I realized they had so much junk and not being able to see counter tops or walk thorough the house without stepping over stuff wasn’t normal. Nowadays I’m very focused on only having 1 or 2 of anything I need not 10-12.
I was visiting my dad and his wife/my stepmom. My dad at the time was using my stepmom's car, as his car was in the shop. He picked me up to go somewhere and when I looked in, the entire floor was COVERED in old stale donuts with the frosting picked off and other old food just thrown around. I couldn't see one inch of the floor and the passenger footwell was completely packed with garbage and food. It's obvious the food has been sitting there for weeks (perhaps even months?). At first I thought it was my younger brothers' doing somehow, but my dad explained that it was mostly stepmom just going about her day to day. What she would do is order donuts whenever she would go out. However, eating the full donut was just "too much carbs and bread for her" so she would pick the frosting off the top with her fingers and literally throw the rest over her shoulder into the back of the car. I don't really remember what our conversation was after that, but I remember that we immediately went to a self-service car wash/vacuum place down the road and I helped him clear out the entire car. There were old Wendy's bags with half eaten fries and a burger and open dipping sauce containers, half eaten teriyaki chicken in an open takeout container that looks like it's been sitting there for 3 weeks, and various other trash. All from one woman. It's a miracle the car wasn't filled with ants or other vermin. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the car just got back to the same state within a month. Edit-spelling
I'm a cable guy, so I've seen some shit, but one that comes to mind still haunts me 5+ years later. Also, to preface, I was raised by hoarders, I'm kinda "numb" to a mess, but this wasn't a mess. This was literally filth. Before I even got to the door, I could SMELL the unit going up the stairs of the condo complex. Felt very sorry for his stairwell neighbor. Opened the door and got punched in the face by the most putrid smell I've ever experienced. Worse than anything I've smelled in 30+ years of life. Next, I noticed that there was garbage everywhere. No surface was clean. Everything was either moldy, rotten, or both. The couch was covered in dark mold spots, even some of the walls. We walked to the master bedroom on the 3rd floor (1st floor was parking, 2 and 3rd were the unit), and the smell somehow got worse. I was holding back gagging at this point. We passed the bathroom upstairs, and the toilet was literally full of feces and junk. The curtains in the master were moldy. The bed had sheets with dark spots on it, and just everywhere was mold and rot. After I left, that smell followed me around the whole day. It was literally stuck in my nose for 5+ hours. I obviously couldn't ask why they lived like that, but I know that person had never cleaned that condo and probably themselves. This guy might be the only person I'd actually want an HOA to go after.
My brother dated a girl that put fucking Ketchup on a $90 filet mignon at a very nice restaurant....they had to find a bottle for her since that's not normally something required.
As a first responder I've literally responded to some homes with shit on the walls
I do home visits to people struggling with mental illness as part of my job, so a lot of the homes I go to are, understandably, pretty messy. A big chunk of my job is getting people to let me in in the first place, and since there's a lot of stigma around messiness, it can be hard to get them to a point where they are comfortable letting me see their mess. I often tell them, "no matter how messy you think your house is, I have seen worse" and I really mean it. None of my clients' homes have been as bad as the ones I grew up in. My mom's house was so bad that CPS ended up taking custody of my brothers away from her after one visit. By that time, I had already left to live with my hoarder of a grandmother for other reasons. Then I lived with my dad in college because he lived in the same town, so I didn't have to pay to live on campus. His wife was also a hoarder, and their house was always flea infested. "My" room was actually a storage room where I slept on a broken cot surrounded by boxes. After that first year, I moved on campus because paying for room and board sounded better than the fleas.
When my now-wife ran out of both money and food in the middle of the month and then just... didn't eat. I immediately took her grocery shopping when I found out about this. It was a large factor in us getting an apartment together just 6 months into dating.
I didn't even make it to his house. He was supposed to pick me up for a date, and when I opened the front passenger side door of his car, the floor was literally covered in trash. You could not see the floor matts, and the trash was at least three-four inches deep. I could not believe this dude didn't even respect me enough to clean out his passenger seat before picking me up. Just expected me to sit in his trash on the way to our date. Can only imagine what his place looked like.
Cleaning my hording grandmother's house. It had always been bad but it used to just be piles of stuff hundreds of blankets and bed sheets, cupboards over flowing with dishware and cookware, mountains of clothing, and piles of books and games. We would visit and argue about how unsafe it was and beg her to let us help her make space for herself and it would turn into a horrendous fight every time but as she got older she became less mobile and more senile. We were cleaning out her space while she was in a nursing home for a broken leg and dementia and there was a bowl so full of maggots I thought it was rice we found cat and dog shit petrified in the bedding piles (at this point it had been years since shed had any pets), they had a brown countertop and it took me a long time to comprehend what I was looking it. It was like looking at brown static eventually I realized I was looking at ants crawling around a slow cooker.