Ants...
Years ago when I was at uni, I shared a house with five guys and me (lone white female). The kitchen was incredibly filthy as was the entire house, but didn't really bother me. No-one would visit though.
In the kitchen we had a huge ant infestation that no-one could be arsed to deal with, so we collectively came up with a cunning plan....
One pint glass half full of bleach and half full of lemonade was put out daily.
The ants raced to our decoy and died. The rule was that the last person in the house had to empty out the dead ants and refill the glass.
During one of our parties I had to stop a pissed guy drinking the glass. He was a twat who left without paying for the damage to the house we had caused, and my intervention, however humane, would have been better not done.
(bellacat, Sun 28 Mar 2010, 12:46, 4 replies)

I've been living down in Bournemouth for seven years, now.
Unfortunately, that time has been spent as a student. After the first three years my flatmates were no longer students, but the places I've lived in haven't really noticed the difference.

This sorry tale actually hearkens back to my first year of uni, and takes place in the autumn of 2003. Fuck me, I've been in this town too long.

I was living in a uni-let property, a skinny pink monstrosity three floors tall and two rooms wide in both directions. This was actually my second house of the year, the first having been hurriedly vacated when my flatmates turned out to be mentals of the best kind (for reference, lurking somewhere in my profile is the story of a previous flatmate's brother taking a shit on a chair, then in the bin. I'll repost it in replies if required).

The people I lived with there weren't all that bad, and one of them I still actually share a flat with today. Possibly because he's the only one insane enough to still stay in this town, but I digress; they were good people. Well, alright, one was a complete slapper whose idea of safe sex was a pearl necklace, and another was a drug abuser with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder. The girl left and the replacement flatmate that the uni assigned could merit a story in his own right -- but this story is about the guy.

The first, the poor bastard with ADHD. In his calmer moments, he could be a lovely guy. His calmer moments usually involved him having smoked enough to stun a small pony. Whilst not a stranger to said smokeables, I once shared a joint with him and consequently took the best part of fifteen minutes struggling to open a door. He packed away the best part of an ounce a day on such days. One of his more manic days caused "the incident", however.

There was a brief time, I believe, when a legal loophole allowed the sale of magic mushrooms in a certain form. He took full advantage of this and snatched up a rather large amount. His intention had been to sell it on to his friends. Instead, he brewed up the full £30's worth into a rather potent tea. Which he drank in a single mighty draught.

I believe "fucked out of his tiny little mind" is the next accurate phrase to describe him. We put up with a gibbering idiot tearing around the house for approximately five minutes before we forcibly locked him in his room. Unbeknownst to us, we'd locked him in there with a stoner friend of his. The flatmate apparently spent a fair while convinced that there was a Leprechaun talking to him from the foot of his bed.

We ignored his screams (as was normal), and decided that the best course of action was to go to the pub. As we walked down the road away from the house, the flatmate's upper body suddenly protruded from a window. The bathroom window, a window on a different floor to his bedroom. The bathroom in question was one infrequently used by the house, given its location; personally, I was surprised he even knew it existed, given there was a different one immediately near his own room. Momentarily perplexed as to how he'd escaped his room, we stared at him. He stared back, then with his wide eyes threatening to escape his skull, he shouted at us.

"I'VE JUST DONE A MASSIVE SHIT," he informed us, then vanished inside again.

We thought nothing of it, though it was decided that we shouldn't return to the flat until it was dark and all threat of mushroom-man had dissipated into unconsciousness. When we did roll back into the place, all was dark and quiet, and there was no sign of said massive shit.

When we went to move out six or so months later, we found out in the course of cleaning the house down that the "massive shit" he'd done on that fateful day hadn't reached the toilet.

He'd shat in the toilet brush holder.
( gone, Sun 28 Mar 2010, 3:57, 3 replies)

Why is it that
stories that are loveably whacky if you're 19 are evidence of mental illness if you're 39?
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 28 Mar 2010, 3:57, 7 replies)

Morbid fear of stump germs
I know a lady who is a quadruple amputee (technically a congenital quadrimembral phocomeliac). In her late teens, her first long term beau was fellow whose mama did not approve. Every time she visited, after she left, mama had to wash everything the young lady had touched. It's as though she thought stumps are contagious.
(Barticus, Sun 28 Mar 2010, 3:21, 2 replies)

Dammit
you people need to write more.

I've read this entire thread now, and am going to HAVE to go clean the bathroom, due to having run out of procrastination tools, and to the autosuggestion created by reading this entire qotw.
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Sun 28 Mar 2010, 3:12, Reply)

my bachelor pad in Texas
My roommate and I were both single guys who frequented the nearby beer importer. As you can imagine, after a weekend, a small mountain of empty glass would accumulate. We would routinely let this go for a month or more, then go break them on the spillway.

My roommate could not find an ashtray for his cigarette. Instead of going out on the balcony, or dropping it in the toilet, he grabbed a drinking glass.

Several months later, that drinking glass was nicknamed "Fungus Single-Guyus".

The worst thing was our couch, which I left behind when we both moved out. It had stains from various women we had brought home from bars, various cocktails and beers had been dumped on it, and at one point, I believe my roommate urinated himself whilst sleeping on it.

I really miss that place.

edit: almost forgot the morning I woke up to find a partially dismantled shopping cart (trolley?) in the living room.
(Floz Nietsnezolf doesn't have photoshop, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 23:03, Reply)

housesitting
my uncle and his new wife went on holiday about 20 years ago, leaving me and my older sister to look after their house. i refused to eat or sleep in that house until it had been cleaned. highlights included:
floors coated with hair from the dog that had died six months previously
bedsheets that actually crunched
washing machine detergent drawer welded shut with dirt
floral pattern on the carpet that turned out to be mould
fist-sized hole in the bathroom floor, leading to the kitchen, through which toilet roll tubes were dropped
a yoda lookalike parade of half-rotten apples in the cupboard
a sock stuck to the bedroom wall by its own festering foot juices
underwear that could practically walk and had skidmarks older than me
a kitchen sink with a layer of grease on the water so thick you could actually pick it up in one piece

the worst, however, was the cooker. after 3 hours of cleaning it, which included having to scrape slices of grime and grease off the top, rings and front, i discovered that it had a digital timer. you couldn't see the numbers through the shite. there was about 6 meals worth of food welded to the floor of the oven and the shelves had stalactites of crap hanging off them.
i went home after 2 days, i just couldn't bear it.

the last time i went there was in december, to drop off christmas cards. it was just as bad, if not worse.

i really don't know why he married her.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 22:14, 6 replies)

I'll try to shoehorn this in:
Regarding our previous assistant manager; I shudder to think what his home must have been like, based on his habits at work (Tangential, I know; but it needs to be told, as part of the healing process).

As I recall, he was once walking past the opened door of the occupied break room, paused, raised one leg, farted, listened to the various noises of protest from the gathered staff, then commented "everyone likes the smell of their own brew" before walking off. I think that brazen sensory vandalism* was in lieu of a formal introduction.

The mugs were innocent enough. Every morning, the cleaner had to round up several empty teacups from wherever they'd been abandoned throughout the building, corral them back to the staffroom and clean them (in a place where standing orders are that everyone is meant to clear their own mess). If he'd been in over the weekend, gaps in cleaning-staff coverage could mean a three-day accuumulation; which meant a general shortage of cups for everyone else, unless they chose to spend part of their 10 minute break doing his washing up for him.

But it's another time that really stands out: He was in the Gents, while someone else was in the Ladies. He eventually finishes** and leaves. Second lady, who's clearly in urgent need, decides she'll have to use the gents. She rushs into the freshly-vacated room, but immediately rushes out even faster, slightly pale in the face, declaring unsteadily that she'll just wait.

Well, sometimes you have to see what the fuss is about, don't you? I wish I hadn't. The stink was practically etching the window glass, and to paraphrase Ben Elton, the cubicle appeared to have recently been vacated by the man with a sprinkler attachement on his arse. I don't know what he'd consumed beforehand, but a litre of chilli sauce mixed with picolax seemed a real possibility. I could have understood him having left skidmarks, but this was a full-on crash-landing-and-bursting-into-flames-leaving-no-survivors.

Holding my breath, I flung the window as widely open as possible, hoping to spare my nearby colleagues the full trauma; then 'evacuated' the room and gasped down lungfuls of the relatively unsullied air of the locker room. No-one would have blamed me had I called it in as a CBRN*** incident, and pulled everyone back to safety while letting SCBA-suited**** fire crews hose down the area; but instead I waited for most of the stank to clear, double-gloved up, and reluctantly got to work.

Technically, I could have left it for the better-paid and better-equipped cleaner to address the following morning, but that would mean half the facilities would be offline for the rest of the day; and also by then it would have... set, and been that much harder to remedy. Additionally, I didn't want her mistakenly thinking it was me or one of the other lads who'd done it. To this day, she doesn't know the horror she dodged.

* The lovely phrase "brazen sensory vandalism" has been appropriated from a tale by Rookie.
** But only for a given value of "Finish", apparently.
*** Chemical/Biological/Radiological/Nuclear, aka HazMat.
**** Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, aka Firefighters Mask.
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 21:53, 2 replies)

My Brother.
is a filthy little git. First he lived in the house I live in now with his mates. Fat vikings. One guy was easily 20stone and so was his girlfriend. Beside where his bed had been there was a walrus print of sweat and under the bed a prehistoric flood of coke with a dead mouse embalmed in it. 20 bags of rubbish taken from house, 3 rooms repainted and 20 mice caught. Brother continued to live with me and partner as he built his apartment adjacent to our house. You literally could not see the floor for rubbish for a year.

He now liveas outside in a converted cow shed. Brought the new girlfriend back to the house after a night out. Semi-paralyzed rat crawling feebly in circles courtesy of his cat. Turns to girlfriend, "bedrooms that way, mind the rat".
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Sat 27 Mar 2010, 21:32, Reply)

Those two
that do that clean-up-your-shithole programme, Abi and Wotsit:

I know she's old and a bit chubby but is it just me that thinks the blonde would be a good shag? I'm imagining toys, lubricants, a bit of bondage...

It is just me isn't it?
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 20:39, 7 replies)

The fish box
A few weeks into my current tenancy (September), one of my housemates cooked us all a tasty fish-based dinner, and put the leftovers into a Tupperware box.

This then sat in the fridge for a few weeks, predictably going mouldy.

It was then removed from the fridge, and left on the work surface for a few more weeks.

At this point, we decided to clean the kitchen, but everyone was too repulsed by the box to scrape it out. So it was thrown onto the garage roof, where it remains to this day. I'm really looking forward to the summer when all the (black and lumpy) rainwater will inevitably evaporate, and we can begin the culture of an entire new ecosystem.
(Merrep, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 20:36, Reply)

ever so slightly off topic...
but you can imagine what her HOUSE was like, eh?

My Mum used to work for the med centre attached to a very large RAF station in Oxfordshire...

A WRAF came in one day with lady problems so the Doc liberally applied KY jelly to her nethers so he could have a damn good look. Inconclusive. Come back in a week.

So she did. Doc is greasing up ready for a another good shufty when the bird said "oh you don't need to use any more jelly I am sure there is plenty left from last time"

EEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!
( Sallyrsm, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 20:19, 1 reply)

I'm pretty average.
Our house isn't spotless, but you won't fear for your life if you sit in our lounge for five minutes. Any story from personal experience I have about cleaning is a bit of a yawner.

My friends, however...

One had fairly well off parents who hired a cleaner when he was young. The cleaner quit because the house was never left tidy enough for her. They weren't dirty people... so surely the point was that she would do the cleaning?

Another friend lives in a house with his brother that was vacated by his deceased parents. They weren't brought up as pampered kids - far from it as they know very well how to fend for themselves, but they never clean. One time I visited and noticed a cat had brought in a dead bird. "Oh yeah" said he. It was still there a week later the next time I visited. I haven't been back since but I suspect I know what I'll find - and that was a few months back now.

Finally, a work related one. As anyone who works in IT will know this can be a grotty business at times what with all the dust bunnies, crawling under tables and patch panels in cabinets which haven't been touched in years. Chief amongst these delights is the dirty keyboard. We all know they're not hygienic but we put up with it. Not so a colleague. For years now he brings in a sparkling keyboard each Monday to last him the week. Each Friday he takes it home and sticks it in the dishwasher. Sometimes it survives and sometimes it doesn't. If not he has a £6.99 PC World replacement waiting in the wings.

I daren't tell him about the grime which accumulates inbetween the buttons of the average mouse.
(Captain Skippy pooed in a bag and left it on your doorstep, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 18:54, 2 replies)

I've just come to an arrangement with a friend of mine.
He works, but can't afford to rent anywhere - not even the price of a room (to give you an idea, he makes minimum wage $8.75 - a one bed place is $1000+ and a room is typically $500+) so for a while now he's been living in his van. He's a very clean, tidy and 100% trustworthy person, so the nights I'm staying at my boyfriends, I let him crash at my apartment.

Instead of accepting payment, he cleans for me and changes and washes the bedsheets (I have two sets, so he puts one set on for me to sleep in and the nights he's there he changes out for the other set).

He washed my windows the other night because due to my little cleaning routine there was "nothing for him to clean".
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 18:16, 10 replies)

Passive-Agressive notes
A graduate student friend of mine moved into a house with two friends. They needed a fourth so asked someone who they knew and thought was alright to join them. Unfortunately he had neglected to tell them about his OCD. The first three were all tidy people and pretty clean, and since they were grad students it wasn't as though they were partying constantly. A week after they had moved in, the notes starting appearing.

If washing up was left to dry on the side, a note would appear asking for it to be put away. If the cooker started getting a bit dirty, again a note would appear. If he was confronted he would get shirty, and claim he did all the work, although his 'work' was going and doing everything again because it wasn't done to his standards. He bought two hundred pounds worth of cleaning fluids etc and insisted the flat share the cost (he was told where to stuff that) and the note placing became ever worse. Every thing in the kitchen ended up with a post-it note on it, in tight terse writing. However the absolute limit was when my friend knocked rice on the floor, and since she was entertaining decided to sweep it up later. She dealt with most of it quickly and left a couple of handfuls worth on the floor.

When the night was finished, she remembered to clean it up and went back into the kitchen. And there on the floor were thirty five post-it notes (she counted) each with an arrow pointing to a grain of rice.
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 18:07, 9 replies)

A hamster went missing in our flat two years ago.
We still haven't found it.

I'm convinced my flatmate ate it.
( gone, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 17:47, 4 replies)

yellow
Few years ago, not long after me and my brother moved out for good, my Mum moved into a new house which was a bit smaller and nearer her work.

One of the things she liked about it was the lovely light kitchen. It had a big window looking out over the garden which let in loads of natural light, and the effect was amplified by the yellow colour scheme in the kitchen. All the tiles and the wallpaper, and the ceiling and even the lamp shade were this creamy yellow colour which gave the room a kind of a sunny glow. I even bought her a yellow kettle as a moving in present to match the colour scheme.

So my brother and I were helping her move in and he happened to touch one of the walls. Kind of sticky. Mum hadn't touched the walls before she moved in. A wet sponge was applied and the yellow smeared away to reveal white underneath. I'm guessing it was a mixture of chip fat and nicotine stain but we had to scrub the whole place down, walls, ceiling, the lot. It was completely minging.

Oh yeah and on the stairs the white painted bannister where we thought the white paint had rubbed off to reveal dark wood underneath? That layer of brown filth came off with soap and water too.
(Saltheart, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 17:41, Reply)

nothing of interest...
...my house is fairly average, it gets grotty, I get a cleaning frenzy and the grot builds back up until my tolerance level is breached.

In fact, I'd love to get a cleaner as I hate cleaning, but am always worried they'll nick my stuff or wank in my knicker drawer.
( fluffymitten NAN, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 17:21, 8 replies)

I can has chocolate cake...somwhere in this pile of shit
A few years ago I had the pleasure of surveying a block of flats run by a housing scheme for "recovering" alcoholics. Fin.
(Raging Tranny... Best Before:, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 17:09, Reply)

Just remembered one
My dad is a bit of a tidy freak (though you wouldn't know it to look at his desk) and when we visited one of my aunts in London some years ago, he spotted some rubbish lying on a shelf. From memory, it was two old stamps, an envelope and a bent paperclip. He swept them off the shelf into the bin.

When we were in that room again an hour later, my aunt had removed them and put them back on the shelf.
( MatJ LOOK, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 17:01, Reply)

Just remembered this
My husband's son in his early days was one of those 20-somethings who could never stay in one place too long because he spent all his rent money on booze. He and one of his mates decided to team up and share this flat somewhere in Southampton. Of course a moving-in party had to be had. Everyone got so drunk and the place became a sodden mess of beer, piss, and yes, someone had been sick. They could smell it. Son and his Mate started to clean up (I never saw the place) but after going through everything they could still smell sick.

It appears, eventually, that someone had been sick in a cupboard under the stairs. So they went out and bought a piece of Gypsum, cut it to fit under the stairs and nailed the sick in, on the basis they'd never use the cupboard anyway.

The smell went away.

I know what you are thinking - what happened next

Unfortnately they didn't stay in that abode long enough for me to find out.

Christ :-(
( Tiggy the diver, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 15:59, 1 reply)

My folks house is clean but.......
when I was young they had a few cats. As we lived in the country the cats would often catch animals from crows down to shrews.
As is the way with cats they wouldn't just kill them, no they wanted to bring them in the house and show them off, still alive. Often they would end up losing them and then 'hunt the mouse' would ensue.

Anyways, we started to notice a funny smell coming from the fridge. We figured it was inside as the smell got much worse every time the fridge door was opened. The fridge was emptied out and scrubbed down. However the smell got worse.
Eventually the fridge freezer was moved to see if something had died behind it, and this was when we realised what had happened.

Under the fridge was a rat; not just dead, but cooked.

It seems that one of the cats had brought in the rat, which had then escaped.
It had taken refuge under the fridge freezer and, as rats are wont to do, had chewed it's way though a power cable and electrocuted itself.
This cable was somehow connected to the light in the fridge. The teeth of the rat still completed the circuit and everytime the door opened the light came on and the rat heated up!
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sat 27 Mar 2010, 14:39, 4 replies)

as a letting agent, which i was during uni and for a bit afterwards,
you get to see some truly horrendous things. the way some people choose to live is beyond baffling. for sheer simplicity, my favourite was the three brothers in fallowfield who didn't take kindly to being turfed out at the end of their lease because their landlady was moving back in. she rang me in tears the next day. the dirty bastards had all shat on the floor and wiped their arses on the curtains. which is unspeakably vile. but the worst thing was that our inventory checker had put "house clean and tidy throughout"... try explaining that away...

in the days before digital cameras, we would have about 20 films a week to develop. boots must have thought we were seriously dull because there would be about 10 photos of a carpet burn, 5 photos of a cracked worktop, etc. so one day i was in manchester county court doing my first ever residential possession hearing. the tenants were a pair of druggies that made trainspotting look restrained. their flat was so unbelievably foul that we actually had to get environmental health to clear it when they went. i was very nervous as it was my first ever court hearing (and this was back in the days when i was an idealistic english student who was never ever going to sell her soul to the law for filthy cash... sigh...) but all went well.

however, on the way out of the court, i was still a bit shaky with nerves. those county court judges can be total twats sometimes (like the one who announced to me in full hearing of a public possession hearing "miss swipe. stop for the love of everything. YOU are an express train. and neither i, nor i suspect any of this court, am on board." or the one who said, "well that means miss swipe will be working overnight tonight then, doesn't it? a matter of supreme indifference to this court". i could go on. the upshot is, they are often horrible to you!) the most gorgeous guy in manchester held the door open for me as i left the court. he was like my very own mills and boon perfect hero, all stubble and dark hair and piercing blue eyes. our eyes met. he smiled. i swooned. and dropped my file.

"oh, allow me," he said, dropping chivalrously to his knees. and picking up my scattered photos. glancing idly at them as he picked them up. and finding himself staring right at the business end of a toilet that was actually hairy with sticky pubes and glistening with a mountain of effluent that rose way above the seat height. the shower photo was almost worse. prince charming practically threw the file back in my face and shot through the courtroom doors like the greasiest of greasy weasels. never saw that one again!

we also had a complete stoner who banned us from carrying out viewings at his flat, despite having been given the relevant 24 hours' contractual notice. he rang me and said, "you can't come in. i am out, but i have barricaded the front door. so you can cancel those people." "oh," i said politely. "mind my asking how you got out?" "yeah," he replied, "i just went out the back door." when the viewing staff got in (through the back door, naturally), he was growing marijuana in the lounge, and clearly had never ever washed up a single thing in his entire 12 month tenancy. there was also a shit encrusted vibrator lying in the kitchen sink.

i do miss that job sometimes!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 14:37, 1 reply)

How clean is everyone elses house?
My house? Well, I live with my parents still... but I have two rooms - my bedroom complete with ensuite & another room for my PC, basses, amps, whatever. I've spent ages last night cleaning, and still have more to do.... My carpet is made entirely of clothes, I have empty wrappers everywhere, enough dust for a mong to write their name in, had up to 20+ glasses before, various plates with pizza remenants on, the works... At one point I could barely see my desk for rubbish.

But what do I do for a living?

Cleaning.

So my excuse is I don't take my work home with me... After spending all day cleaning & tidying everyone elses houses, I don't really fancy doing more when I get home.

So call me a hypocrite :) But in the past 6 years or so I've been cleaning for, I've seen the following...

1) Shit stained y-fronts in an office block: I worked for two years cleaning an office over the road. Occasionally I'd get stuck with doing the toilets, and that included a disabled toilet that had a shower cubicle in it. I was greeted one evening by some manky y-fronts, complete with brown stain. Lovely... I just left it there, no way was I touching that.

After leaving that job, I started working for our family cleaning company cleaning houses. Yay.

2) The Chinese: Still quite possibly the worst places I've ever had to clean. There's a chinese company with an office 2 minutes away from us, and they rent a load of flats in town near the train station for employees they bring over from China to stay in.

It started off not toooo bad... There wouldn't normally be people there, so we could get on & do everything, listen to the radio, have a laugh. The first couple of flats hadn't been cleaned very well for a while, but nothing we couldn't handle. There'd be a two/three bed flat, with only two rooms being used.

Then we got onto the three beds, with a matress in the living room as there was so many of them living in these tiny places... The shower doors were sheet white from limescale, toilets had brown limescale all down them, the cooker was just one big black burnt on grubby mess, carpets had burn marks on them on top of various stains, kids had drawn on the walls... Absolutley filthy. Not far from needing Kim & Saggy to go round there. It'd take 3 - 4 of us about 6 hours to do.

Oh, and Coca-Cola doesn't work on cleaning toilets. Yup, the usual bleach & harpic wasn't working at getting the bogs up, so I gave it a go.

3) Cleaning up before the cleaners arrive: I don't know why, but people do it. They pay for us to come in and clean, but when we get there, they've left the hoover out from the night before. And a fair few do this too, I really don't get it.

We clean for our family doctor, who had their house built for them. They've got an Aga cooker, which is encased in a brick surrounding. I brushed along the inside of the brickwork with a long duster, and it left a load of crap on top of the aga. I carried on, as I was cleaning the kitchen later. My sister & I were there all day cleaning, so we nipped for some lunch - when I came back, all the crap ontop of the aga had gone. My doctor saw it, thought she'd made the mess and cleaned it up. Madness...

4) Don't touch anything...: We had one customer who cancelled us for a while, as they weren't going to be at home much. When they called us back, I went with my sis to talk to her about what she wanted doing. She didn't want us touching the towels in her bathroom, as it freaks her out, the thought of someone else touching them, even though she knows our hands are probably cleaner than hers. She doesn't want us moving things around or organising things - she likes the house to be lived in, not a show house. Fair enough... She said she didn't mind about the office being cleaned, only if we get time... Didn't mind about the 2nd living room being cleaned, and in the main living room to leave the piano, leaving just a table & mantlepiece. What did she want us to do then?!?!

5) Eaten something dodgy?: Went to one house, the guy was in. I went up to clean the bathroom, and my sister was on the landing talking to him. I lifted the toilet seat up, and was greeted by a brown mess - he'd clearly had the shits, and forgotten to flush. As my sister was standing outside the door, I had no choice but to flush it, open the window, then try and find something else to do for 5 minutes while the smell went. The worrying thing is, I don't remember there being any toilet paper down there with it....

6) The only time I've said no: I don't mind messy houses, dirt, whatever. It's better than trying to clean a clean house, you feel like you've done something when you walk out the door. But there was one house: Mould all up the bathroom tiles, cobwebs going from the kitchen sink to the cupboards, thick dust that you could probably have lost something in, loads of stuff everywhere, and it absolutley stank of damp or something. The only time I've said I'm not cleaning. How anyone could live like that... I don't know.

7) The toy: One customer wanted us to move their bed out & hoover underneath/behind it. Fine. One visit, I grabbed the bed at the bottom, but instead of getting hold of the frame, I grabbed the drawer, and was greeted by one fucking gigantic plastic rabbit.

There's probably loads I could write about people & their houses, but I think that's getting a bit long already...
(smazio, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 14:26, 1 reply)

gross
when i was a student i had a fairly student-esque gathering at my abode, it took me an entire fortnight to discover the shit in a pint glass in my kitchen cupboard.
(McCrack, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 13:28, Reply)

I used to share a home with some Jews
They were very untidy, used to leave their shoes and spectacles lying on the floor in big piles.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 13:16, 7 replies)

So as a young teenage boy, I wouldn't allow anyone in my room.
My cupboard started to smell a bit weird. A bit ... like ... sickly ... weird.

I tried to ignore it, but after a couple of weeks had to investigate and found that the cat had left a dead mole in the bottom which was wriggling with maggots and the reek of death.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 11:58, Reply)

Post its
A friend of mine was watching her neighbours dog while they went away. She had known them for years. I'd met them a few times and they seemed alright.
So the day after they'd left my friend goes over to feed the dog and was a little surprised at what she saw.
Post it notes. Everywhere, stuck to the doors, cabinets and walls.

"TAKE SHOES OFF"
was written on the door to the living room
"DON'T PUT ANYTHING HERE"
written on several post it notes stuck to the table, fire place and cabinets.
"PUT TISSUE UNDER STUFF ON HERE INCL: LETTERS"
was stuck to the kitchen unit... so even putting a letter on the unit could leave a mark?
"NO DRINKING"
stuck on the cupboard that contained wine.
"PICK UP DOG POO"
stuck to the back door
"OPEN"
stuck to the window.
"HOOVER CARPET"
stuck to another door

And my part in this story?
My friend had to ask me to come over because their dog had fleas and she didn't know what to do.
If you're going to go to all that effort at least make sure your dog is not infested
(FootOfTim, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 11:24, 3 replies)

Astou
Living in Africa meant my standard of living was far far higher there than it ever could be here. A few hundred quid a month means you have a lot more than most, not oil revenue thieving private jet rich but certainly very comfortable. So we get a maid who stays with us and goes home at weekends. Astou was her name and she was an angel. I have never lived anywhere so clean as she made it. The floor was swept and mopped every morning. The washing up was done after each meal and the entire house was spotless.
One night I got up to have a piss and when I got back she had changed the sheets.
(Wagane, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 11:23, Reply)

Vaguely related
As a kid I used to go fishing with my Dad every Sunday, until I started growing pubes and finding other more exciting things to do.

One Saturday, my Dad mentioned going fishing the next day as usual and was about to get the gear out of the shed. I showed my lack of interest and he realised that as I didn't want to go, and he didn't want to go alone, the Dad/Son fishing relationship was over.

Fast forward to around 8 years later - and my Mum is nagging my Dad to clear out the shed. I help out and take out the dusty old cobwebby fishing gear.

I notice the litre icecream tub we used to keep maggots in was not empty.

Curiousity got the better of me and I opened it - to be met with the sight of thousands of mummified flies, all packed in there in a solid mass like an enormous eccles cake from hell.
( Michael Ellis contributes nothing, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 10:59, 4 replies)