For most of us regular folks, it can be hard to imagine how the 1% lives. Swimming pools of champagne? Flights to other countries whenever they feel like shopping? The possibilities are as endless as their bank accounts.
1. "I was at John Waters's house for his birthday, and he has a room set up as a lifelike recreation of a meth lab (it wasn’t a real meth lab; it’s an art piece). He told me that when Bill Clinton visited him, the Secret Service agents were extremely concerned about the room."
2. "As a kid back in the Mesozoic Era, my best friend and I used to play in a converted racquetball court and lounge under the old West Coast mansion her family had lived in since its construction. The stairs to it were hidden behind a closet off of the abandoned servants' quarters. Halfway down the stairs was a wine cellar (a decoy as the actual wine cellar for the home was under the kitchen). Another staircase behind a rack of dusty bottles led two stories down to our giant play area. The lounge area was also glassed off above it so one could look down into the court like a gallery. It was really neat."
"At the beginning of WWII — before Pearl Harbor — my friend’s WWI vet grandfather had dug out the space over fear of invasion. Her dad made the giant room regulation designed for racquetball years later."
3. "I know someone who's worked for a very rich person, probably worth billions. He had a staff of more than 100 people onsite, including chefs for the staff...all while divorced and living alone. He had a 'trivia staff member,' someone hired to tell him interesting facts and stories daily. That was his only job. If I didn't hear it firsthand, I wouldn't have believed it."
4. "In Naples, Florida, I was at a house with a sensory deprivation room. Flat, black walls with acoustic dampening baffles, and in the middle was a coffin-like bathtub. It had speakers and a flat-screen display in the lid. I heard that the room cost over $100K to build."
5. "One client had a whole separate house on their property just for their dogs. They'd referred to it as a 'dog house,' and I was expecting maybe a little building in the yard where they kept their toys or something. But this was a fully furnished home with king-sized beds and a huge play room on the main floor. They had a full training and feeding staff to care for the dogs and everything. They lived in their own house and would come over to visit. Seemed like a weird dynamic to have with your pets."
6. "I knew someone who didn't like to do laundry, so she just bought new clothes for each of her four kids every week. They were always high-quality or designer clothes. At the time, all her kids were 10–16 years old. What would happen if they liked an item a lot and couldn't find it again? Why not just teach the kids to do their own laundry? Why not hire a housekeeper who can do it? There are so many options, other than spending thousands every month just to avoid laundry."
"Plus, they rarely donated it. Just bagged it up and threw it out. I never could wrap my head around it."
7. "I worked for a very self-centered man back in the '90s. He threw an office Christmas party at his house, and he loved to give tours. He thought his closet was so impressive; it was wide open with lights on and rope barriers in front of the door. Rope barriers. Like a museum."
8. "Buddy of mine has a car elevator. Instead of just building a bigger garage, he stores his cars stacked onto each other, like some kind of Hot Wheels accessory. It's very surreal."
9. "These rich grandparents had a brand-new house built, with a $100,000 splash pad built for their only grandchild, who has never visited them at their new house."
10. "I had a rich neighbor growing up who'd always invite us over for parties and always insisted on giving us gifts and leftovers. They did this with every guest. They also built a separate house to keep their crap in. It was filled with whatever they bought but never used, stuff never even taken out of the packaging. They told my mom to take a box she wanted, and for shits and giggles, she did. It was a knife collection and sharpener set."
11. "One client didn't have a litter box for the cats. I guess their cats didn't like using the boxes in the basement, and they didn't want to put boxes upstairs. So, they put down pond liner and kitty litter across an entire room in the basement and had their housekeeper run a rake through it daily."
12. "They had part of the house permanently decorated for Christmas. It included a fully decorated Christmas tree that was suspended upside down from the ceiling, which was actually pretty awesome."
13. "In my early 20s, I dated a girl whose dad was rich. She brought me to Thanksgiving one year at her family’s 'retreat' in the mountains. While my GF gave me a tour of the place, she showed me her dad’s study/library, which had a trophy case with about 20–30 trophies. Her dad’s name was etched on them, but all of the other details were blacked out/covered up. I was told that under no circumstances was I to ask what the trophies were for, because we weren’t even allowed in there."
14. "A fully functioning barbershop inside the house. Complete with the rotating 'candy cane' outside the entrance. The guy would have his friends come over for a cut."
15. "A very rich person I know does not eat leftover food. They will cook a feast, and afterwards, everything goes straight in the garbage, no matter how much is left over."
16. And finally, "I used to work as an exterminator. One day, I pulled up to a four-story mansion. I spoke with the lady at the door and got started. As I sprayed, I noticed there wasn’t much furniture in the house. I made a game of counting the furniture I could find: Over 50 rooms, and the whole building had 13 pieces of furniture. Pretty odd, but then I went into the very last room, a mud room right by the door I came in through. I stopped as I walked in, completely shocked. A full-size, adult pig stretched from one end of the room to the other."
"I’m talking five to six feet stretched out across the room. Flies buzzed around its head as it stared at me. Suddenly, the lady (who I hadn’t seen since she let me in) said, 'Oh, don’t go in there. She doesn’t like men.' Then, she walked me out, paid me, and went back inside."
What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen at a rich person's house? Share your experience in the comments below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.