Earlier today, Reddit user Valkyrie_to_Odin asked the AskReddit community: "What's the worst houseguest experience you've had?"
And the thread soon went viral with thousands of replies, as people shared some of the truly awful experiences they've had with houseguests. Here are some of the top-voted and best comments:
1. "My aunt came to visit for what was supposed to be a week or two and didn’t leave for almost a year when I was a kid. She redecorated my room and even put up pictures of herself."
"Now the running joke in my family is to randomly leave pictures of yourself around the house when we visit people."
2. "He cranked my dad's speakers up to the max and blew them out (they were from the '70s, so impossible to replace or repair). Then he clogged our toilet and grabbed a bunch of my grandma's quilts to sop up the water. He then tried to stop the water by violently shacking the tank, cracking the bowl and dislodging it from its base."
"In a panic, he tried to bolt from the house, his wet feet slipped on the wood floor, and he crashed into a wall, leaving a nice body-sized impression. That's how my brother's friend was barred from the house."
3. "I had ex-friends crash in my spare room for a bit until they got back on their feet. They left the room absolutely nasty, but the worst thing was finding a dried cat turd mashed in the carpet under a bookshelf."
"Thing is, it would've been physically impossible for the cat to get under the shelf to poop there, which means they found a mess from their animal and just put my bookshelf on top of it rather than clean it up."
4. "My uncle was supposed to fly out on a trip, so he was going to stay for a couple days. Instead he went like, 'Fuck this shit' and spent the whole summer with us, LMAO."
5. "Wife's cousin stayed a couple days with us. After he left, I discovered he purchased about $60 worth of porn on DirecTV."
6. "That would be the girl visiting my sister-in-law who decided it would be funny to repeatedly prank call 911. I got a very angry call from the local police station saying we either stopped or they'd be sending a squad car over. Apologized profusely to the officer and thanked him for calling us first. She was not invited back to her house, she was 17 and definitely old enough to know better."
7. "Sister-in-law house sat when we were out of town. There were tons of disrespectful presents left for us — a breadcrumb trail of condom wrappers, which led to an actual used condom — like WTF?"
"But the worst was after cleaning all that up (which was just aggravating and stupid), there was a putrid smell I couldn't put my finger on. Until I finally opened a drawer in the dresser in the guest room and saw she had left a takeout container in there, with half an omelet in it that had gone rancid.
I gotta hope she just had to go quick and forgot all that crap was there when she left. Either way, we took our key back from her."
8. "Instead of asking where the toilet paper is, they let their kid wipe his ass with our guest towels."
9. "My brother-in-law stayed at our house while we were on our honeymoon. He had a girl over that he just met and they had sex in our bed and didn't change the sheets. They drank all of the alcohol in the house, including a special bottle of champagne that had been a wedding gift. What are some people thinking?!"
10. "When our son was born, my mother-in-law came and stayed on our couch for two weeks to 'help.' In the two weeks she was there, she did NOTHING to help. Dishes? Laundry? Feedings? NOTHING. And our poor son had real trouble feeding those first few months. We couldn't get him to eat well, and it didn't help that my MIL was there the whole time, staring at us while the baby didn't eat."
"After two weeks, my father-in-law was going to join us, so my MIL baked a pie. FOR HIM. That's why I always said that if we had another one, I'd be on the doorstep with a shotgun until the baby was 6 months old."
11. "When I moved in my first apartment, my dad's wife stole weed from me the first time she visited. She hasn’t been allowed back since."
12. "I had surgery and was on bedrest for a week. I asked my cousin, who was living with me at the time, to keep an eye on me, as I was on heavy painkillers. I stayed on the couch ['cause it was close to the bathroom] and let her use my bedroom. When I recovered, I found a used weave piled up on clean towels in the bathroom cabinet, a douche nozzle behind my nightstand, trash piled all the way up the wall in the kitchen."
"There were dirty dishes everywhere, a plate of rancid food in the microwave, ketchup and mustard smeared on the floors. And she had stolen a bunch of clothing and CDs, along with one of my iPhone chargers (she had a Windows phone) and she poked a hole in my $2,500 Sleep Number bed. I kicked her ass out immediately."
13. "My ex-wife's friend had her car break down, and our apartment was right on a bus route to her job. She was supposed to stay for just over a week while she got her car fixed. After two months and a lot of warning, we packed her bags for her and put them by the door."
14. "The husband of my friend came over for Xmas since she was out of town. He brought the dog...that had diarrhea. The dog humped our dog for hours until our dog was covered in shit. He also spouted racist crap."
"Had to wash our dog in the kitchen after he left. My friend is divorced now."
15. "I was on my honeymoon with my husband and we let his dad stay at our house, but told him he had to be out by the time we got back. We let him know when we were on our way home and expected him to be gone. We get back, he was gone but had not gotten his stuff out of the house. On top of that, he trashed the place like a group of teenagers, empty pizza boxes and trash laying around."
"He came back and stayed around for a bit and asked me if I was mad at him. Like of course I’m mad!!! What do you expect?"
—u/boots_and_pantss
16. "A guest took a dozen eggs from my pantry and cooked it and served it to her kid after refusing to allow the kid to eat a dish I cooked for them."
17. "I let a now ex-friend stay with me for a while as he was down on his luck. I guess we'd run out of toilet paper, so he used a wash cloth and left it at the side of the toilet. Kicked him out and found out later he walked away with some of my CDs."
"Some mutual friends let him stay — against my advice. They came home one day to find him passed out on the couch with his pants around his ankles. After they kicked him out, they found out he'd racked up $900 in phone sex charges."
18. "In my case, I was a houseguest and the hosts were the worst. I stayed in a home with three other girls while we did work for the church. While it was very generous of the host family to have us...
...they sold Amway and so we had to sit through a sales pitch one night.
We slept in the basement on the floor which was carpeted, but infested with fleas from their numerous dogs. One night, for entertainment, we made balls of dog hair and watched to see how many fleas hopped on it.
When they were finished cooking a meal, they left any leftovers in the pan until the next meal and then they just heated them up. So last night's burger had been sitting on the stove for 24 hours, reheated, and served again. Is that even a thing?!"
You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.