people who deliver or install things to people 's houses. what kind of odd things have you seen?

I don't any more but I used to.

The one that comes to mind was an elderly lady who got into some kind of finch-type bird (canaries maybe) instead of cats. She had obviously been letting them breed because there was flock of about 40 of them in the house, all flying together from one piece of furniture to the next.

I found it pretty alarming to begin with but after half an hour or so I could appreciate the beauty of it.

Plenty of bird shit in places though.

Weirdest thing I've seen was a house that had no books. It was surreal that there was a TV in each room, even small ones mounted in the bathrooms, but not a single book in the house. Mister was a bus driver, wife was some kind of a school administrator. But not a single written word anywhere under that roof that wasn't on a label. It made me sad for the kids.

Grossest was a guy's computer was misbehaving and I showed up to fix it. Every single icon and image was porn. Every. Single. One. The background was a rotating slideshow of various porn images. The worst part was when I felt the mouse was sticky, I got up to wash my hands and the faux leather chair was sticky too. Everything around the porn computer was sticky. It was honestly too much and I took an early lunch, called my boss that I wasn't feeling well, and explained I wasn't going to work on that computer. My boss was mad at first, came out to finish the job, and then added the guy to the fired customer list. Fuck that house. It also smelled weird. Like off fruit. And I can never forget that call. Nice neighborhood, great house, nice yard - absolutely disgusting person behind it all.

I delivered pizza one summer in college. I was 19. Didn't see anything too weird. Three memories have stuck in my mind.

1. I had to deliver to THAT house. It was at the extreme radius of our delivery area. Picture a scene from a horror movie. I drove out to a rural area, left the road for a dirt road that was essentially their driveway. It was pitch black on a probably two acre, for lack of a better description, junkyard. I get to the house, which is a mobile home. The illuminated window, the only source of light for what seemed like miles. The guy that answered the door was an older angry guy. He wore a black Harley Davidson t- shirt that did not successfully cover his belly. He had some pretty hard core tattoos and a chain holding his wallet to his filthy jeans. Behind him were a couple of dudes that looked just like him, watching TV. One hand was holding the sprung door from slamming shut. The other was restraining the Rottweiler by its choker chain attached to the spiked collar. I'm pretty sure he was doing this to keep the dog from tearing me apart and burying my bones under the rusty truck with the grass growing out of the tires. Over the noise of the TV, the dudes behind him and the barking of the attack dog, he yelled for his "old lady" to get the fucking money to pay for the god damn pizza. I hated going to that house, because they never tipped.

2. In the '80's and '90's there was a place downtown Orlando called Rosie'O Graddys. At its height it occupied a fairly large chunk of the downtown area and had an old time theme. Beautiful model T Fords parked out front for effect. Lots of brass and mahogany inside. The place was expensive. I went there one time with some friends and a drink was $14.00. It was huge and you got to keep the glass but, damn. Could not afford that as a student. Anyway, one day I deliver a pizza to an apartment and it was for one of the waitresses that worked there. I guess she had just gotten off of work because she was still dressed in her costume. It was quite revealing and she wore it well. She turned around to get some money and forever burned the image of those fish net stockings with the line running down the back into my mind. At that moment I was wishing that those porno movies where the pizza guy gets swept up in the story were real. Nope. She did give me a nice tip though. Makes sense since she worked for tips too.

3. I was delivering a pizza to a house in a nice neighborhood. The rain was coming down in biblical proportions. In fact it wasn't falling from the sky. It was being driven sideways. So I'm standing at this guy's front door digging through my change bag trying to find, literally coins, to give him his change. Finally, with my hands full of the empty pizza bag and my change pouch that the wind was trying to rip from my hands, and getting soaked by the horizontal rain, I finally just pulled out a dollar and essentially tipped the customer, just to get back to my car. Sucked.

So nothing too weird, but hey, I figured you were just looking for some stories anyway.

I used to do HVAC work. About twenty years ago, I had to fix something in an attic, and the only entrance to that attic was through a large, messy room that obviously belonged to a teenage boy. At first, it seemed normal. Eventually, though, I realized everything in that boy’s room was kinda outdated. The CDs and magazines lying around had all come out a few years before, for example.

After finishing the job, I asked my boss about it. He told me that the kid had died a few years before from autoerotic asphyxiation (he accidentally strangled himself to death while jerking off), and his mother had found his body. She insisted that his room remain just as it was. She maintained it as some kind of shrine, unmade bed, jeans on the floor and all.

I couldn’t even imagine the emotional toll that must have taken on the family. Every. Single. Day. She refused to let them heal and move on. I only met the mother briefly, before I knew the whole story. I never met the husband or sister. I’m glad. Even if I was bribed to go back in that house, you couldn’t pay me enough to go upstairs. That kid’s room was, without exaggeration, the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.

NSFW INCOMING…

I'm saving this thread to show to my wife later. She was mortified that I let the cable guy into our house with dirty dishes in the sink. And I'm not talking about an overflowing sink. I'm talking about 2-3 plates and maybe a couple of forks.

Not exactly op's scenario but I had a client once who was a landlord. I was delivering some papers for him to sign off on some stuff, and he had me come into his kitchen to go over them. On his dining room table was piles of cash, like a foot tall, at least 200 stacks. Had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. He casually walks past the table and throws a sheet over the money like "nothing to see here." Years later I read he got busted with several hundred pounds of drugs and illegal guns, so guy was into some pretty bad shit.

I once had to fix someone's heater. Went up a stairs around some corners and this apartment was just.. so different from anything I had ever seen before. It was like entering a movie set.

I am talking pink fluffy walls and crystal beads hanging in the doorway. Like just imagine the gayest possible and multiply by 10.

The craziest part was that this is in a tiny village, very conservative and religious even compared to the area it's in. We are talking bible belt in the bible belt kind of territory. We had a freakin polio outbreak! Because vaccine bad. During corona a corona tent was burned down.

This guy just didn't give a fuck and I love him for it.

Not me but an HVAC associate I dealt with. We had a shared customer that was a Masonic Temple. HVAC guy had to tour the building checking steam traps. Caretaker of the place is visibly uncomfortable as he has to unlock a door. Inside is an altar with a skeleton on it

Well, probably not what you're looking for but I used to work yard maintenance for a property management company.

I was sent to rake and tidy up the back yard of some house. In the back, there was an entrance to a root cellar that was separate from the house and had crappy wooden doors covering it. I was told to open it up and sweep the steps leading down to the cellar.

I don't have a problem with dark places, or bugs. But that was the first time I'd seen camel crickets. They were big, hump backed and striped. And there were dozens of them. I dutifully swept the steps, from the dead center of them, my eyes darting around constantly trying to gauge whether or not the weird ass bugs were about to launch themselves onto me. They didn't. They were super chill.

I told my dad about it later and he laughed at me for not knowing what the crickets were because they were so common. I've only seen a few more since then, and they still kinda weird me out.

I have seen just lots of trash, but honestly I'm not one to talk.... I've seen house numbers hidden from view by decorations, often wreaths. Basically: Merry Christmas! Go fuck yourself.

There was one lady that had probably a hundred+ boxes on her front porch, stuff gets ordered & apparently never taken in. Old, molded boxes. You just add to the pile & walk away.

Installing a set of patio doors a decade and a half ago I saw a LARGE indoor grow tent in the client's garage. This was before my state had medical so I didn't bother to ask.

High pressure sodium ballasts and a very redundant air filtration system told me everything I wanted to know.

Some CCTV work: a big fucking mansion with marble/other stone floors and a manicured garden. Also, the whole mansion was fucking spotless, as if it were a museum. The customer lived there alone with their daughter and they, allegedly, did not have any domestic help/gardener.

I once saw a decorative bowl containing five apples!

Numbers. But only about halting half of them.

edit: damn you autocarrot