The Surreptitious Things I Do In Other Folks Homes

[nosey]

I know this may not be right but my OCD kicks in and I can't help myself. LOL
#1 If I use their bathrooms and the toilet tissue doesn't pull away from the wall, I change it. That goes for the paper towels as well.
#2 I do ask if I can pull the labels off of throw pillows and furniture because those labels only pertain to the manufacturer. Folks, you can take them off when you get it home!
#3 Straighten a crooked picture on the wall.
#4 If I'm at my children's homes and the toothpaste tube isn't squeezed from the bottom, I fix that.
#5 If they have furniture, it has to be evenly spaced if it's in front of a wall and if I'm alone, I'll try and move it.
#6 I spent the day alone at my youngest daughter's house and she had several salts and peppers and various spices in her cupboards that were open so I condensed them and threw out the empties. [[That just made sense to me.)

I know I'm wrong and I need help. I guess I am a control freak who is a little OCD! LOL

[Soul Sister]

Nosey,
I think you are pefectly normal! :) You sound like me, I am a bit of a perfectionist, I like my home to be neat and well organized. You can come in my house one day then come back in five years and it will still look the same, clean and everything in it's "right" place, lol.

S.S.
***

[Kamasu_Jr]

I keep my hands to myself. This way I get invited back to peoples' homes. I don't bother their stuff because I don't like people touching my things. I'M tempted to take a peek in the medicine cabinet because it often tells what people are into. But I don't because you can find out things you didn't really want to know.
My dad was really old school and I could not visit my friends at dinner time or on Saturdays [[when most people are busy housecleaning or doing errands). I had to be invited for dinner at a friend's home. I got a serious whupping for begging for something once from a neighbor. I also don't visit a friend's home when his wife is there and he's not. I don't care how well I know her. Now a lot of my friends are OK with this. Rev. Al says it's good home training.
My aunt Francine is very heavy...she quit smoking but she eats A LOT. We had a half bag of potato chips left for the kids. She was babysitting for us and she ate them and then said she didn't. I was so mad because she lied and because she's been warned about her blood pressure and she didn't give my boys any. She will move things at my dad's and he'll COME BEHIND HER and look for something and can't find it, which agitates him because he thinks he's slipping mentally. I've learned to leave his things alone or tell him I've got something.

[Soul Sister]

OH...I never.... touch people's stuff, lol, I'm just anal about "my own" home.

:D,
S.S.
***

[Kamasu_Jr]

OH...I never.... touch people's stuff, lol, I'm just anal about "my own" home.

:D,
S.S.
***
OH, that's cool about wanting your own home to be neat. Coincidently, check this out, my brother's girlfriend's father passed up in Ohio and she went up for the funeral, and went back to the family home where her sisters all live. She didn't go to the funeral, which was this morning because she was busy cleaning up her sisters messy home. They got into a big fight on the day of their dad's funeral because the house was dirty, messy and nasty [[the mom passed before her husband so it's just the sisters). She sent pictures to my brother's cell phone of the mess and he showed them to me. It was horrible. Everyone knows you clean house when someone dies. How you gonna receive visitors if your house is nasty and messy?

[144man]

I know this may not be right but my OCD kicks in and I can't help myself. LOL
#1 If I use their bathrooms and the toilet tissue doesn't pull away from the wall, I change it. That goes for the paper towels as well.


I do that as well. It's illogical having it hang next to the wall unless there are young children in the house, in which case you might not want it too flow too freely in order to encourage them to use less.

I have one friend who insists on hanging it the wrong way round, so if I change it they change it back. So now I still change it round, but change it back myself when I leave the bathroom.

[Soul Sister]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! Kam.

144man, I was wondering who was going to mention the toilet paper being on correctly, lol.


S.S.
***

[soulster]

It isn't my home so I keep my hands off and my mouth shut! These days, people have hidden cameras to monitor what people do. Why risk getting caught?

Kam, I have no problem going to a home with the wife/girlfriend home but the husband/boyfriend isn't. I'm not going to do anything to betray anyone's trust or friendship.

[roger]

It isn't my home so I keep my hands off and my mouth shut! These days, people have hidden cameras to monitor what people do. Why risk getting caught?


You know people who have hidden cameras in their bathrooms to spy on people as they go to the toilet!!?? :D

Am totally with Nosey on the toilet-paper issue .. and I have been known to straighten pictures hanging on peoples walls [[but only if no-one is watching .. never thought of the hidden-camera scenario before!!)

Roger

[westgrandboulevard]

In walking around someone else's home, garden etc, anyone here tried doing it without actually using the words 'I', 'me', 'my' and 'mine' - ?

Maybe it's just me, but it's really quite difficult LOL

And yes, I'm from the 'picture-straightening' school. I do it with piles of magazines, books. A room can be in need of some cleaning but, if it's tidy, it looks at least 50% better.

I've been known to straighten out racks and shelves in stores, as though I were employed there, and go round replacing items which have fallen on floors.

I keep putting things back. I must be a kleptomaniac in reverse....

[144man]

.

I've been known to straighten out racks and shelves in stores, as though I were employed there, and go round replacing items which have fallen on floors.

I keep putting things back. I must be a kleptomaniac in reverse....

If my cousin decides that she doesn't want something that she's placed in her trolley, she'll just take it out and place it on the nearest shelf, whereas I feel obliged to put things back on the same shelf from which I took them.

[westgrandboulevard]

That's exactly what I do. Upbringing, perhaps? Not returning the item [['correcting' the exercise) seems lazy and inconsiderate behaviour, although your cousin may be lovely in all other ways.

If you look in your supermarket, you'll often see many trollies with assorted items dumped in them, by the checkouts. Those are items rejected by customers as they go through. Someone from staff has to be found, to go all round the place, returning the items to their correct spot. It takes ages.....

And if a fresh item [[say, from the deli) is abandoned elsewhere, it has to be automatically destroyed, for fear of contamination. The bigger the supermarket, the more the waste.

[soulster]

You know people who have hidden cameras in their bathrooms to spy on people as they go to the toilet!!?? :D

Well, in general. You just can't trust anyone in this day and age, if you ever could. Like I said, it ain't my house, and it isn't a family members' house, so I keep my hands off.

[nosey]

OH, that's cool about wanting your own home to be neat. Coincidently, check this out, my brother's girlfriend's father passed up in Ohio and she went up for the funeral, and went back to the family home where her sisters all live. She didn't go to the funeral, which was this morning because she was busy cleaning up her sisters messy home. They got into a big fight on the day of their dad's funeral because the house was dirty, messy and nasty [[the mom passed before her husband so it's just the sisters). She sent pictures to my brother's cell phone of the mess and he showed them to me. It was horrible. Everyone knows you clean house when someone dies. How you gonna receive visitors if your house is nasty and messy?

I went to a repast once and the house was so nasty flies were in the bathroom so I quick ran home to use mine. The food was good though. LOL!

[nosey]

I'm glad to see most folks aren't getting their drawers in a knot over this. I don't steal from folks, I'm just a control freak. Yesterday, I was at the Social Security office and the computer monitor was crooked that you have to use to sign in. As a result of some of the comments, I left it alone. LOL!

[JIVE FIVE Mary G.]

hahahahahahahaha This thread is a scream.

I'm hands off in someone else's home, but am very anal, like Soul Sister, in my own home. I'm one of those people who loves to clean but hates to cook. It's like therapy and I do some of my best thinking while cleaning. Sometimes I put on music to clean by. One of my favorites is a rehearsal CD SpyderTurner sent me. It rocks, so I do. lol I like everything to sparkle, so lots of windex is used in my house. I'm a stickler when it comes to windows. If your windows aren't clean, it makes the rest of the house look dirty IMHO.
I hate plastic outlet and switch covers, so I bought pretty porcelian ones when I renovated this house. I don't have any appliances on my kitchen counters, just pretty polish stoneware pieces and other decorative things. I told you I hate to cook. lol


~~Mary~~

[westgrandboulevard]

Me too, I get my best ideas when I'm doing routine activities like cleaning. Must be something to do with being in abstract mode, and letting the mind go into free fall.

I enjoy cooking, but certainly not the regular routine of it.

If I'm not in the mood for it, my idea of 'dressing for dinner' is checking myself in the mirror when answering the doorbell for the pizza delivery.....

[JIVE FIVE Mary G.]

I think you're right WGB. The mind does go into free fall and creative thinking when we're doing something we enjoy that's routine.

hahahahahahahaha re "dressing for dinner". I never do unless I'm out somewhere. Everything I "cook" comes froma can, frozen package or anything else that's simple. For the first 3 years I lived here, I never used my oven. I windexed it once in a while because dust would get in there, but not food, so no splatters. lol I've always said I'm allergic to stoves.

~~Mary~~

[Kamasu_Jr]

I went to a repast once and the house was so nasty flies were in the bathroom so I quick ran home to use mine. The food was good though. LOL!
LOL Nosey. I bet they had fried chicken and ham. Why do we always bring that? Nobody ever brings spaghetti and meatballs or roast beef, just chicken. I don't like using the restroom at my job at the radio station. I have gone home to use my own bathroom. My brother lives near a mall and he has gone to the mall to use the bathroom there when guests have used his.

[soulster]

But, if it's my office space. or i'll be using someone else space for a period of time, I will adjust everything to my liking. If I use a left-handed person's computer, i'll just try my best to use it that way. If they say it's cool, i'll switch the mouse over to right-handed side. Otherwise, I just control my own world.

[Jerry Oz]

There is some thick crazy in some of these posts, y'all. Not all, but some... Anyway, Soulster, somehow my mouse on my work computer is on the right hand side and the mouse on my home computer is on the left. I can't use the mouse at work with my left hand and I have difficulty using the home computer's mouse with my right hand. And I was calling somebody else crazy... LOL.

[Methuselah2]

l don't have OCD . . .

but I really think it should be 'CDO' so it's 'strict alphabetical'.

[Soul Sister]

Loooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!


S.s.
***

[Kamasu_Jr]

Now when I was younger and I'd go into a record store to browse, I would put the CDs and records in their proper place whenever I found them out of order.

[splanky]

This is a funny thread, for real...Nosey, the only thing I can agree on doing is straightening the
crooked pictures. I always look around the room to see if there other signs of some drama
that may have occurred that caused them to become that way. Other than that I leave everything else alone. Some people like their messes and toilet paper hung differently or
seven salt shakers. When I was a young man I used to make extra cash babysitting so I
often in other people's homes and never messed with their stuff with one exception. When
one kid I sat went to bed I used to peek through his father's men's magazines he kept under
a stack of books in the living room. Finding them was an accident. Looking through them was
a joy. Like getting paid TWICE!:)...

[westgrandboulevard]

Right until the end, my late Mum was always very houseproud.

She would make no comment when visiting my home but, each time she left, I would find her initials 'MRI' in the dust, and in a different place from the previous visit.

On the day of her funeral, I paused by the coffin in the churchyard, before her body was finally laid to rest. It seemed a day for smiling with thanks, rather than just tears.

Something made me turn and place myself between the coffin and the others congregated there. I spontaneously picked up some loose earth, and gently scattered it along the wood, before inserting my own initials.

As I did that, a shaft of light came through a cloud, directly onto my head and the wood of the coffin.

A coincidence surely, but with it came a smile..........:)

[Methuselah2]

WGB - That's a wonderful re-tellng of a wonderful story. Just beautiful, especially when you added your initials. Thank you so much for sharing it.

[Methuselah2]

Splanky - I enjoyed your story very much, too. A real hoot! Finding those magazines was always a 'Eureka!' moment.

[JIVE FIVE Mary G.]

Right until the end, my late Mum was always very houseproud.

She would make no comment when visiting my home but, each time she left, I would find her initials 'MRI' in the dust, and in a different place from the previous visit.

On the day of her funeral, I paused by the coffin in the churchyard, before her body was finally laid to rest. It seemed a day for smiling with thanks, rather than just tears.

Something made me turn and place myself between the coffin and the others congregated there. I spontaneously picked up some loose earth, and gently scattered it along the wood, before inserting my own initials.

As I did that, a shaft of light came through a cloud, directly onto my head and the wood of the coffin.

A coincidence surely, but with it came a smile..........:)


I LOVE your story, WGB. It's touching and beautiful, but it made me smile as well.

It remided me of something my Father used to do. My Mother was not a domestic goddess and never claimed to be. Sometimes the dust on furniture could build up to such an extent, my Father would write SH@#T on top of the TV set with his fingers to get her attention. Whenever that happened she would pull out the dust cloth. lol

@ Splanky & Methuselah2~~~hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!! !

~~Mary~~

[nosey]

l don't have OCD . . .

but I really think it should be 'CDO' so it's 'strict alphabetical'.

Good one Methuselah

[nosey]

Remember when people used to write on dirty cars "wash me"?

[westgrandboulevard]

..or, 'also available in white'.....:)

[splanky]

Remember when people used to write on dirty cars "wash me"?

Nosey, here in New York that never stopped. And as old as it is it's still funny every time...

[Soul Sister]

No co-incidence, westgradboulevard. Poiniant story, thanks for sharing.


S.S.
***

[soulster]

Now when I was younger and I'd go into a record store to browse, I would put the CDs and records in their proper place whenever I found them out of order.
That, I do! I still do it today!