‘What’s the oddest hosting behaviour you’ve ever witnessed?’ – 23 homes you’d never want to return to

Being invited to someone’s house is a lovely gesture which should be accepted and enjoyed with enthusiasm… until you get there and something really weird happens.

They’ve been discussing how utterly strange other people can be on the AskUK subreddit after user did_you_aye posted their own experience, which is indeed bizarre:

What’s the oddest hosting behaviour you’ve ever witnessed?

Was staying at a friend’s house and had travelled 2-3 hours from my city to get there. He announced they’d be making a fish dish for dinner.

Then sent me to the Co-op to buy my own fish…

And lots of other people chipped in with the times they had been expecting a pleasant time and ended up feeling highly uncomfortable, like these…

1.

‘Pre-internet – went to a school friend’s house for lunch made by his dad. He’d obviously heard the term cheese cake but had no frame of reference so we got a slice of Victoria sponge with a slab of cheddar in the middle instead of jam.’
–Money-Sherbet-1899

2.

”We’re having a BBQ at ours next weekend, bring anything you like!’

So I showed up with some cans, a few buns and some gourmet supermarket burgers to show willing. Someone is tending the barbecue so I toss them on the pile and start mingling. Half an hour later I get a tap on the shoulder and a ‘The barbecue is free, you can cook yours now if you want’.

Apparently we were all bringing our own food to cook for ourselves?’
–DualWheeled

3.

‘Here’s a reverse one. Had a few people at our place during the day, a tray with teapot, milk, sugar and biscuits was brought out so people could help themselves to tea etc.

One of the guests then decided to eat the whole bowl of sugar, with the teaspoon that was intended to stay in the sugar bowl.’
–joemktom

4.

‘Went to a friend’s birthday, it was a joint party with his cousin born on the same day. The parents cut the cake in half and gave half to each but none for all us other kids. Proper scandal.’
–Tony_Meatballs_00

5.

‘Went on a night out when I was freshly 18 and stayed over at my friends house afterwards.

In the morning we went down for breakfast and her mum offered me toast. I offered to make it myself but she insisted, took some bread out the freezer and then put it in the toaster for less time than you would for a non-frozen slice of bread, so when it came out it was still pretty much frozen.

To make matters worse it was one of my first times drinking and my first ever experience of a hangover which made eating frozen bread 100x worse.’
–tangles3

6.

‘I’m not sure this could be classed as hosting, but, age about 14 I was invited to a friends for tea after school. I hadn’t realised her parents didn’t bother making them meals, they just ate what they wanted from the kitchen. I had a packet of five Club biscuits for tea.’
–SusieC0161

7.

‘When we were teenagers, a group of us were at a friend’s house and ordered a Chinese takeaway (splitting the cost). The friend got out the tiniest bowls I’ve ever seen for us to eat from – weird but ok they had Chinese designs on so it kind of made sense. The problem was we all had a couple of bowlfuls of food each and then she announced she was putting the leftovers away to finish tomorrow.

She was insistent and I think we were all so taken aback that we didn’t do anything and just left, having eaten barely anything. This was like 20 years ago and I’m still bitter that we basically all paid for her to have a bunch of food the next day.’
–LaWraa_with_a_W

8.

‘My friends once invited me to stay with them for a long weekend, I travelled about hours to get there, and they were really looking forward to my cooking (mentioned several times before I’d even left).

But they hadn’t cleaned the kitchen in maybe a months, every utensil was gross, mould on the plates, every surface felt grimy. I stepped in and then stepped back out, told them there was no way I would cook with it in that state. I think they tried a bit of ‘Oh we don’t know how to, will you show us?’, I stayed firm and told them I’d talk them through it but I wasn’t touching it.

I think they were disappointed they couldn’t get me to clean it for them, but they were happy once they’d finished and I made a nice Thai curry. Though I was never invited back!’
–pixelunicorns

9.

‘Going to a friend’s house for dinner and they gave me half a sausage sandwich while they all had sausage and mash. Unsure where the rest of the sandwich went.’
–LJ161

10.

‘I (female) went to a uni friend’s parent’s house for dinner and to stay overnight. First time I’ve met the family (mum, dad, two older brothers and my friend who’s female). Her mum had made lasagne to put in oven later by my friend and me (mum was working night shifts), no issues with this.

Weird part was her brothers and dad came to the table, sat and didn’t move while my friend and I laid the table (plates and cutlery etc) around them, asked what drinks they would like and poured them and served dinner while none of them lifted a finger. No thanks or suggestions of ‘you’re the guest let us do this instead’. Hadn’t encountered this before, as a family we were always taught to serve and look after our guests. Felt weirdly uncomfortable after.’
–Lost_in_Hobbiton

11.

‘A lot of years ago, my (now) ex-husband and I used to have regular dinner parties with two of my colleagues from work and their respective spouses. It was always the full ‘shebang’ – you had to make everything from scratch and there had to be a starter, a main and a dessert. And chocolates to follow with matching wines for each course.

On one particular evening, we were at the house of one of the other couples – let’s call them Ann and Bill. The meal was going well – the wine was flowing. Then Ann started to talk about her latest purchase, without further ado – and shot upstairs to fetch it.

She handed it to ‘Tone’ one of the other guests. He studied it and then it to me. I was equally perplexed. Handed it to the next person along. Asked what it was. ‘It’s my new clitoral stimulator, but it’s not very powerful.’

Then she looked at Tone, ‘You being an engineer, I thought you would be interested’.

Silence.’
–WasabiIcy4482

12.

‘My mother in law invited me and her grandchildren to stay for a week. She picked us up from the airport, we went straight to Sainsbury’s and she sent me in to buy our food for the week.’
–TBeee