Being a guest in someone's home is a privilege, but that doesn't always make it pleasant.
Whether it's cleanliness, tidiness—yes, those are two different things—vibe, food, pets, or the human inhabitants, there's a lot that can turn a guest off from ever visiting again.
Reddit user Cosplay6718 asked:
"What made you to think 'I'm never visiting again' after being in someone's home?"
How The Other Half Lives
"When I lived in Pakistan, I was in fifth grade, going to an Emirati international school. My best friend was the son of the ambassador of the Emirates (UAE) to Pakistan."
"We bonded over not really fitting in with the other kids in our grade and... RuneScape. Most kids in our school were government brats from Pakistan or ambassador brats from other countries."
"My parents were just regular jo schmo's who were temporarily moving back to Pakistan to just give us a taste of the homeland and needed us to be at a school on par with American education."
"So yeah, I go to this kid's house. Picked up in a big black Escalade. Spend the day at the Emirati Enclave and it was wild. ATVs in the front yard. Crashed one into a car and they were just like 'eh, no problem, just a dent'. Every video game console at the time (360/PS3 era)."
"Then his dad comes home. The ambassador. And this guy was just not happy to see me."
"And apparently, my mom had been calling all day trying to figure out where I was, and they were just hanging up on her."
"His parents just scared the sh*t out of me, and I suddenly became hyper-focused on the fact that I'm part of a minority sect that Emirates and other Arabs of that region of the Middle East are not fond of."
"So yeah, I GTFO'd ASAP. Still loved my friend dearly, but never wanted to go back."
~ FortressOnAHill
*SCREECH*
"There was a woman that I was seeing years ago. She was in between places and living with her pseudo dad."
"Went over to hang out and meet her more or less family, and there is just a massive cage in the living room with a huge blue and gold macaw in it."
"This thing was old, nasty, and f*cking loud. It would just scream bloody murder every couple of minutes."
"I don't know if you've ever heard one in an enclosed space, but their screeching will make your eardrums rattle in your head to the point you can feel them. It just seemed to be screeching as a desperate way to entertain itself."
"So yeah, between the ungodly noise and the sadness of the poor old bird, I never went back there."
~ Psychological-Bear-9
Toxic
"The way my wife's stepdad treats everyone. He used to be a big shot at his work. Now, he's retired and still think he runs everything."
"He's rude and not welcoming at all. We had a big falling out with him awhile back."
"It was inevitable to happen, especially when his rudeness started being directed towards our 2-year-old."
~ caughtinatramp
Not Feline Fine
"There were empty cat food bags all over the floor and at least 15 cats running around the house all over everything. OK friend, we will never be having dinner at your place."
"It gives me a shiver when I think about it, it was so filthy. She asked me to house-sit and stay at her place for a couple of weeks. Um, no."
"You would never know that this chaos existed in her home. When you see her, she's put together. How this is possible I have no idea. It's overflowing litter boxes, ripped drapes, and things getting knocked over."
~ nutsandboltstimestwo
Lord Of The Flies
"I had a very best friend in middle school/junior high my mom disliked, but she was my best friend to the point people thought we were fraternal twins due to our interests, common appearance, and inside jokes."
"I begged for years to be allowed to go to her house, since she had been to mine. It felt like a blessing when my mom finally said yes."
"It's been 20 years and I remember how uncomfortable I felt after getting off the bus. It was the only house with the stairs broken and I had to follow her to get up into the house."
"Her mom was a hoarder, and the air was thick inside. Her dad was laying on the couch, then suddenly sprang up to get up in my face and quizzed me on my fears."
"I remember this viscerally because it haunted my dreams for a while. I said 'spiders' and he screeched that I had evolved from flies, and he had a 'fly person' in his house."
"'People think we evolved from monkeys and apes, but only a few peopleyes, he means what you think he means, I'm not typing out that later rant—do. People like me [gestures to self with thumb] evolve from heartier things, like dogs or cats. That's why I have so many cats!'."
"When his other rant is finished, my friend takes me to her room and we talk about her Star Wars obsession, and she tried to get me into it. I don't remember if it was The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones that was coming out. I'm still not a Star Wars fan."
"In any event, I remember there was a huge fight because I was supposed to sleep over, but the parents couldn't agree on feeding me. So I called home to ask mom if she'd drop off food, and she ended up taking me home."
"I never went back."
~ IAmBabs
Fee For Food/Utilities
"I spent a night at my high school friend's house, and in the morning he asked me for $10 for the bills and the food we ate.
"Mind you, I brought snacks and drinks."
"I never said hello to him again. The worst part is, he is everything but struggling financially."
~ DreamyGirl_X
"People who actually are struggling aren’t the people who nickel and dime their friends."
~ RedPandaMediaGroup
Not Mr. Clean
"He told me to just sort of push the pizza carton with a half-eaten pizza onto the floor to make space for me on the couch. There was trash everywhere and his advise was to just push it to the side with your foot to 'make a path'."
"He was slovenly to a degree I'd never known had I not visited his apartment. Not a hoarder, mind you, guy just didn't really clean. At all."
~ SendMeDudesThough
Bait And Switch
"In elementary, I was invited to a party to, and I'll never forget these words, 'watch Jurassic Park and eat pizza'. I was like you know, dope, sign me up."
"When I went there it was me and like 5 or 6 other kids, I assume lured by the same story I was. Then we watched a religious cartoon about how dinosaurs didn't exist."
"We were given one slice of the cheapest frozen pizza possible—with the cube pepperoni. And then we had a 'discussion' that eventually, somehow, got around to how Pokemon were evil."
"But if they wanted to convert me, preaching the evils of Pokemon was the absolute best way to ensure that I not listen to a word they said."
~ afty
Added To The Pile
"I was doing a massive reduction in my stuff and getting rid of a lot of things. I posted to my friends on Facebook that I had a nice, but well used espresso maker to give away.
"Somebody I’d met at a Unitarian Universalist church Pagan gathering said she’d like the machine, but I needed to drop it off. I get there, the cat pee smell reaches out of the house, I can see one dog climbing on a pile of hoard inside the house, and another is barking at me from the hoarded up enclosed front porch."
"I had planned to chat and get to know her better, but I texted I was leaving it on the stairs and drove away as quickly as possible."
"I grew up in a hoarded home, spent 15 years getting my parents out of that unsafe home, and broke my career and almost my marriage getting rid of their stuff. I can’t be near a hoard anymore."
~ TrustIsOverrated
Not A Cult
"I had a friend in high school and every time I’d go over to his house two missionaries and a church leader would just randomly pop in to say hello and talk about Mormon stuff."
"I was always polite until about the third or fourth time they did it and we started doing 'lessons'. They mentioned the lessons were designed for new believers."
"I asked which one of them was a new believer and they all looked at me... I never went back."
~ Telrom_1
Crystal Palace
"My husband had an old high school friend that was living in the area of Arizona that we were visiting. My husband insisted we stop by for a visit to see his old friend."
"We pulled up and this guy had mannequins all over his yard, and not like in an artsy way either. He also had no furniture inside his house and had a brand new shiny grand piano in the kitchen because the rest of the house was FULL of these giant crystal geodes that were probably worth a fortune and cardboard boxes everywhere."
"His girlfriend offered us mac & cheese off the stove that was probably there for at least a full day. He had these small scars all over his body and pointed out they were from some magical frog ceremony and explained he was a shaman or something like that."
"My husband asked about the mannequins and he said, 'I pretend they are my ex-wife and use them for target practice' and asked my 10.-year-old son if he wanted to shoot at them. This was not in a rural area either with lots of land, this was a regular neighborhood with houses in close proximity."
"He tried to give us a tortoise when we left, and when we declined, he wanted to give us a chicken instead. It was the top strangest experience we'd ever had at someone's house."
~ pdxjen
Jesus Would Forgive You
"It was my own fault."
"I broke a decorative porcelain baby Jesus they had in a Christmas display."
"I left right after and never went back."
~ Outrageous_Mushroom6
Hospitality Fail
"A work friend invited me over to his house to watch a hockey game so I said sure why not. I brought a 6 pick of beers and he said sweet."
"He just put them in his fridge. He proceeded to pour himself scotch but never asked me if I wanted to have a drink."
"Then he pulled out some leftovers and made himself a dish, and again, he never asked me if I was hungry."
"Then I just asked for a beer—that I had bought—and he said, 'I guess, but I was going to save them for another time'."
"I left after the game, and it's been really awkward at work."
~ DreamyGoddess_
Flipping The Switch
"I was a sophomore in high school and staying with my friend for a couple of days because we had just had a bad hurricane and the power in our house was out and my friend had power."
"One night my friend and I decide we’re going to go the movie theater. We couldn’t drive yet so we asked her dad to take us (the theater was 30 mins away)."
"He said yes, but her mother was adamant that my father should come pick us up from the theater after it was over. She was very insistent that she wanted my dad to come get us and felt her husband shouldn’t have to go out twice."
"Fair enough, I thought, so I called my dad and asked him if he could pick us up from the movies and bring us back to my friend’s house after. Sure, he said, and I told my friend’s mom this."
"My friend was a witness to all of this. She seemed pleased that my dad was coming to pick us up."
"After the movies, my dad picks us up and takes us back to my friend’s house. When we walk in, her mother starts asking where her husband is."
"My friend is like, 'I don’t know, we just got back from the movies. What do you mean? The mom starts saying that her husband went out to go get us from the movie theater."
"My friend and I were so puzzled and reminded her that she had wanted my dad to pick us up and told her that he was going to, so he did. She starts flipping out, insisting that that never happened, and screaming at us."
"Actually, she sent her husband out to the movie theater to pick us up, and he was still there waiting for us."
"She was acting scarily insane. My friend was trying to reason with her, but it was getting nowhere. My friend was so embarrassed and felt so bad, but I knew I had to get out of there."
"I immediately called my dad and asked him to turn around and come pick me up. Stayed in my own house for another week without any power after that."
"Better being without power than being around that crazy lady. And I never went over there again."
"To this day, I still don’t get what happened there…"
"It was SO strange. She really went crazy screaming at us, too."
"It was weird, especially because I always thought she seemed normal and nice enough before that, but it was like she totally lost all of her marbles. Truly, I don’t get it at all."
~ silverskynn
Pest Control
"When I was 17, my boyfriend at the time invited me to backyard camp at his friend's house. I knew the friend, he was super chill, so I said yes."
"Got there, some awesome tents were set up in the yard, grill was going, there was a giant cooler of drinks, I brought snacks. Everything was pretty awesome."
"His parents were so nice, his younger siblings came and played games with us, it was great."
"At one point I asked to go to the bathroom, so he showed me inside."
"It was so crawling with roaches, everything looked like it was moving. In my 5 minutes inside, I had to swat them off me every 30 seconds."
"His parents and siblings were just sitting around like nothing was wrong. My skin crawled for the rest of the night."
"Needless to say, I never went back."
~ momonomino
What made you decide to never visit someone again?
