"As safe as houses," the British say when they want to describe something completely secure and protected from harm. So it's unsurprising that so many of us see our homes as a place of ease and comfort. After all, nothing beats coming back after a well-deserved vacation or even a long day of work. One step through the front Door, and we instantly feel the familiarity and refuge from the wild outside world.

Unless, of course, something has gone way wrong in our absence. Redditor Cyan26 was curious about precisely such cases when no one was home to prevent these nightmarish disasters and the horror that followed. So the user invited members of the Ask Reddit community to reveal the worst things they’ve ever come home to, and they instantly jumped into the comment section.

From illegal labs to thousands of pets taking control of the house, an avalanche of stories started rolling in. We’ve gathered some of the most captivating responses from the thread to share with you all, so be sure to upvote the most spine-chilling ones and let us know what you think of them right below.

#1

8 billion baby praying mantises in my house. Over the fall, my daughter went out into the woods and collected every praying mantis cocoon she could find and put them in a shoebox in her bedroom. They all hatched in the early spring while we were visiting my parents for the day...

Image credits: damatas

#2

Aged 15; coming home to my dad confronting me about the gay porn he discovered on my phone which I had mistakenly left at home.

Image credits: ERpunk

#3

I go to turn on the light and...nothing. The electricity is off. Go to the electricity box outside and turn it on and go back inside: house has been cleared out of all valuable things. I hear a whirring sound and realise it's the old VCR video tape rewinder rewinding the video tape I put in it in the morning as I left home with my baby son. And then it dawns on me: that tape only takes about 3 minutes to rewind... The burglars must have turned off the electricity seconds after I left home with my baby in the morning. They were watching me leave from inside the garden.....

Image credits: growing_up_slowly

#4

Came home and found my front door wide open, my parents missing, my neighbors on my front lawn (we don't talk to my neighbors) and blood all over our grass and the nearby wall.

Turned out my father, who knows how to do professional landscaping/tree trimming/gardening etc, was trimming the tree in our front yard when a branch broke and he lost his balance. He fell backwards and ended up landing on our neighbor's fence, which is topped by steel spikes. One of the spikes went into his leg, though he apparently didn't even notice or feel it so he pulled himself off the fence without a problem, but when he tried to stand he collapsed onto the lawn. He lost a lot of blood and had to have emergency surgery, but survived. His wound was so bad that when he made it to the hospital, a police officer and doctor confronted him because they figured he had to have been shot and tried to get him to admit it so that they could find the culprit. It was an incredibly scary moment, but that was 17 years ago and he is fine today, though he did end up eventually getting his revenge by chopping that tree down.

EDIT/UPDATE: Since so many people are asking about the fence and its spikes, I thought I'd share a picture, since it's still up and just as rusty as the day of the incident: https://imgur.com/PgusLuR

So yeah, one of those f*****s went into my dad's leg.

Image credits: SR3116

#5

Meth lab bust. I was raised by my grandparents (they were wonderful people who adopted a bunch of sh**ty kids) and they'd let my aunt and her boyfriend move their RV onto the property because they got kicked out of wherever they were staying. The worthless a**holes were trying to cook meth in it and it caught on fire so they ran off and left it there burning. The neighbors called 911 and the fire department got the fire out before it got to the house. It was nice coming home from school to that. It was a huge s**t storm. My grandparents were almost arrested and they almost lost their house and land. Pretty much the only thing that saved them was that the meth lab was in a vehicle registered to the boyfriend. Even though we didn't get into any legal trouble it was still a pain in the a*s because the whole house had to be tested and they had to hire someone to clean up the mess and have the property test clean before we could move back in. And my childhood home is listed as a former meth lab on the National Clandestine Laboratory Register. My grandparents never recovered financially.

Image credits: anon

#6

I was 13 and came home from school. My mother was walking around the house naked and delirious. Randomly picking objects up and dropping them. Calling me by a name that wasn’t mine. I called 911 and a neighbor.

She had a fever of 104. It was bacterial meningitis. She was in a medically induced coma after that, required brain surgery and then months of antibiotics. She had amnesia after that and was never really the same.

Image credits: maikakun

#7

Me and my siblings were sent home early from school to learn from my mom that my dad had committed suicide

Image credits: Silly_Bun

#8

My dad came home to find a wasp in the house. And then another. And then another. He investigated. Heard a buzzing coming from the dining room. An entire nest of wasps had been living in the walls and chewed through the sheetrock (or whatever it is they did) and were now pouring into the house through the hole.


Edit to answer a few questions: the dining room was a formal room only used for holidays and dinner parties and since it was summer most entertaining they did was done outside. So no buzzing heard. Also my dad was older and hearing does get less sharp.

Exterminator cleared it out. My dad removed the sheetrock and replaced it and replaced all the vent covers.

They typically had wasp nests hanging from the eaves all the time so seeing wasps outside wouldn’t have been noticed (they even had them in the mailbox).

Image credits: SylkoZakurra

#9

An old dog of mine had become sick after getting ahold of a large batch of double fudge brownies at some point during the day, and by the time I got home, I walked into a house with no less than 25 separate puddles (yes, puddles) of s**t. Poor fella had to eat bland boiled chicken and rice for a week.

Image credits: TrumpHairedHarambe

#10

When I was around 7, I came home from a family weekend away, I walked into my room towards my cove. I had this hanging chain that you put your beanie babies on. As I passed it, it seemed like there was a bunch of dust particles in the air around me.

I started moving my hands in front of my face as if to push the dust particles from blocking my view... that was when I realized.

These were not dust particles, but rather hundreds upon hundreds of tiny baby spiders. While we were gone tons of eggs hatched and I was walking in all of them hanging from the ceiling on web strings.

I immediately ran screaming into the shower and refused to go back in for days after my dad killed them all. That was the end of me having beanie babies, time to grow up.

TL/DR: Hundreds of spiders hatched from eggs, I walked into them all over me.

Edit: For those who asked, this was in Connecticut, feel free to cross that off your travel destinations.

Whether or not the spider laid the eggs on the beanie babies, or they came from within.. I was taking no chances. My dad said that was the epicenter and he could see tons crawling on them as if their "fur" was blowing in the wind.

Image credits: jigglypuffpufff

#11

I had been out of the country for 3 days at a music festival. Came home to my front door crowbarred in, and my entire house trashed. They had taken my TV, DVD’s, laptops, etc.

But the cherry on top of the s**t cake: they emptied my box of sex toys so the forensics team had to dust my dildos for finger prints.

EDIT: forgot the best bit. The only DVD they left untouched (out of a collection of 200+) was a copy of Marley & Me. I truly think it was their final f**k you as they were leaving.

Image credits: bethmaii

#12

One morning when we were leaving for work, my wife noticed that the dog had eaten half a pack of sugarless gum. At the time, we did not know that the sweetener in sugarless gum, xylitol, is dangerous for dogs. We just went to work. We were fortunate in that her health was fine, as xylitol can be deadly. She was OK, but we came home to a ghastly smell in the house. The dog was sitting in 0.5 in. / 1.3 cm deep liquid s**t in her crate. She was coated head to toe in it, and was excited to see us and wagging her tail, sending a spray 4 feet / 120 cm in every direction. It took hours to clean her and the room up, and days to get rid of the smell.

Image credits: jasonthomson

#13

Finding out my father had been diagnosed with cancer.

Image credits: anon

#14

Got off work about 7 am, rounded the corner with my McDonald’s breakfast in hand to see 2 cops standing over a dead body on my welcome Mat.

Image credits: Sjax81

#15

My Brothers (20 and 22) and I (20M) came home from college for winter break. The next day my mom wakes me up asking if I planned on going with the rest of the family to put my childhood dog (13F) down. She had told everyone weeks before that this was going to happen when we got home for break... but forgot to tell me.

Image credits: FreshAnteater6

#16

Once my family returned from dinner out (a few hours at least!) and upon entry back into the house we noticed water leaking from the garage roof. Turns out our top floor toilet tank had cracked and water had been continuously pouring and was cascading down the stairs, through all three floors. A ridiculous amount of damage.

Edit: After reading your comments I can say we are very fortunate we weren’t away longer. And... get those water detection alarms people!!!

Image credits: Whoneedsyou

#17

Came home from visiting my wife's family over Christmas break. She had asked a friend to come by and feed our cats, and the friend agreed. When we got back home, there was no food or water in any of the cat bowls, and one of our cats was sitting in the corner foaming at the mouth. This cat was a terror and never just "sat in the corner" so we knew something was wrong. We took him to the emergency vet where the vet said he was severely dehydrated. Unfortunately he had some sort of brain damage and we had to put him down.

When we confronted the friend she said she went by every day, we have determined that to be a lie.

RIP Ace.

Edit: Wow this blew up.

[here](https://imgur.com/a/GO6idSA) are a couple of pictures of Ace, this was a long time ago so the pictures are kinda hard to find.

My wife and I had actually set out four different water bowls, big ones like you put fruit it, they were all bone dry.
We ended up just cutting off all contact with the girl that did this, my wife was pretty upset about it and I'm not as nice as my wife is, so we just thought it was best to not talk to her anymore. She knows what she did, and hopefully down the road she'll be laying in bed and remember what a terrible person she is.

Ever since then when we go out of town we leave a sink running and the small toilet open. Yeah, we have a tiny toilet in one of our bathrooms for some reason. I actually have a coworker that I trust more than just about anyone else, he comes by and takes pictures of our cats for us. He lives less than two minutes from us and I pay him in BBQ and beer, it's fantastic. As extra insurance my mom pops in every other day just to make sure everything is alright.

We're heading out of town for Christmas again, I think I may do the webcam thing, as I know my wife would freakin' love that.

Thanks for all the replies, it's hard not to tear up reading through them. Hug your kitties.

[here's Zoe](https://imgur.com/a/OxdnPlW) our new kitten we adopted earlier this year. Should cheer you up.
[snoozin'](https://imgur.com/a/UBB3X3c)

Image credits: anon

#18

Maggots in the summer. I was at the cottage for a week and had forgotten to throw out the garbage before leaving.

They were everywhere...everywhere. I’ll never forget that day.

Image credits: anon

#19

My 1 year old son's empty room after his mother and I split up. We planned on 50/50 custody but she took everything. I closed the door and didn't open it for the three months that I had to live there. I came from a broken home and promised myself I'd never do that to my child; I'd felt like such a failure.

Edit: I still got to see him regularly. She moved to a different country a year or so after and signed over sole custody to me. It was just rough at first living in a house full of broken dreams.

Image credits: lucidxd

#20

My casual boyfriend doing full-demolition on my master bathroom. I had mentioned I would like to remodel it someday...

Image credits: Ruby_Sees_All

#21

Coming home just wanting to collapse in bed and cuddle my girlfriend of two years before she had to leave for another 5 days, only to be told that she didn't love me anymore and that she was moving out when I walked in. Devastating.

Image credits: sux4u

#22

When I was in about sixth grade or so, my family and I adopted a dog--Sally--we had found abandoned with her pups. We found the pups a home and decided to keep Sally, little did we know the mom had separation anxiety.

Before I left for the school bus one morning after my parents had gone to work, I was to put Sally in her kennel, but she absolutely REFUSED to get in. Knowing I was already running late, I just gave up and left.

When I came home that afternoon, it was pure destruction. The blinds had been destroyed, she had scattered all my things on my desk on the floor--including a small fish tank--and the house had a myriad of broken objects throughout. Let's just say my parents weren't too thrilled, but I managed to persuade them to keep her.

To this day she was one of my absolute favorite dogs. Who woulda thought?

Image credits: IamHeretoSayThis

#23

Blood. Blood everywhere. My 700sq/ft apartment looked like a family had been brutally murdered in it.

I was working a 12 hour shift at work and had a friend stop by to check on the dog. She immediately called me to tell me the walls were covered in blood, carpet was soaked, splatter everywhere. My dog comes running up and he, too, is covered in blood. He is wagging his tail in pure joy that someone is home, activating the blood sprinkler. He had two deep cuts on his tail from a glass bottle he broke.
I left work immediately to take care of him. Get home and the sprinkler is going off again and on it's highest setting!
I call the vet that is across the street from me and let them know the situation and that we're coming over.
I try wrapping his wounds in towels and tape them so he isn't splattering everything in a five foot radius. Alas, he is such a happy dog and his tail is too strong for my bandage. It slips off in like two tail wags.
We walk to the vet and I'm trying to sign in whole simultaneously hold a towel around my dog so he doesn't make a mess.
The vets clearly didn't believe the severity when I told them the situation, because when they saw the amount of blood going all over their pristine lobby they started panicking and trying to get her mop to clean it up. We waited in the lobby for maybe fifteen minutes. There was a lot to clean.

Cleaning the apartment took me about 8 bottles of peroxide and about 4 hours of cleaning with the help of a few other people. I've never seen that much blood before.

Over a course of a couple months we tried staples, stitches, glue, and a combination of all of them at once. His happy tail was too happy for any of them to work and his wounds wouldn't shut and heal. We ended up having to amputate his tail. Now he is a proud member of the wiggle butt nub club.

Edit: Sorry friends for forgetting to pay my puppy tax!
A few pictures of probably the most expensive lack of tail and the cute dog it's attached to here
http://imgur.com/gallery/d5QRqRm

#24

Towards the end of 6th grade, I found my mom waiting at the door for me when I got home. She had to explain to me that my grandfather - her father - was going through cardiac arrest and likely wouldn’t make it. He passed a few hours later.

Image credits: Average_Owain

#25

I went on an exchange study trip abroad. The university helped me sublet my student accommodation to [an] exchange student while I was away. Before returning home, I called the department secretary for some study-related stuff, and she quietly asked, "How much have you heard?"

It turned out the student had trashed the apartment, then ran away to another country without a trace. The janitor had to get in there because of the smell to remove some garbage, and of course the rent had not been paid. It was only due to the department secretary putting a lot of pressure on the company that sponsored the student to pay my rent that I was able to keep my place. I still had to spend a week cleaning and had to throw away a lot of stuff.

Image credits: nozendk

#26

My house has been broken into. I got home, and there were two police cars in the driveway. A neighbor reported it. The house was trashed. I have no idea why, I'm not material and don't keep much on hand. The guy got away, and I cleaned up. Not a good day.

Image credits: calcaneus

#27

Got home after work, sat down on my couch. Caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye. Turn towards the love seat and see a squirrel sitting on top of it. Then look behind the love seat and see that my air conditioner side paneling was torn to shreds and all over the floor.

Chased the squirrel out and made better side paneling, but the squirrels never stopped trying to get in. It was horrible hearing them scratching and gnawing. My landlord tried putting up some wire fencing around the window hoping to prevent them from getting in. Instead, they would manage to get in and then forget how to get out. So they would be trapped between the wiring and my A/C, panicking and gnawing and the window sill and and I’d feel bad for them and despise them at the same time. This went on for a long time and I now f*****g hate squirrels and window A/C units.

My friends printed and framed a particularly good photo of one of those squirrels attempting to get in. And bought me a squirrel throw pillow.

#28

Something happened, and the bottom of my fish tank just split/spiderwebbed while I was in class. When I got home, the entire floor was soaking wet and all of my fish were dead. I was so sad :(

#29

Pittsburgh received an ungodly amount of rain this spring/summer. Neighborhoods flooded, houses slid down hills, and the Point went underwater. Needless to say, it was a good year for a new homeowner like myself to discover how water affects a home.

Two months after purchase, I come home from night class (was at work since 4:45 AM) at 9:45 and the house smells and feels damp; I knew something was wrong and my gut was sinking. Let me preface that my basement hates me. So much has happened in that basement over the past two months that opening the door to the basement is enough to trigger a day’s worth of anxiety, let alone having this sinking feeling there may be water down there.

I make it 1/4 down the stairs and immediately I know there’s water down there somewhere. I can smell it. I peer over to the other side and there’s water pouring in from the exterior basement door and the back half of the basement carpet is soaked. Like, it’s black it’s so soaked. Fortunately, the unfinished side has a drain and vinyl flooring, so there was no issue over there, but between the humid, damp, and musty smell of the finished side and all of the house centipedes strewn about the room enjoying the crappy environment, I was feeling downright defeated.

Before I started cleaning, I discovered a large maple leaf clogged the surface of the drain in my the exterior walkway to my basement, and caused the entire walkway to pool up with rainwater. I was up until 1:30 AM that night shop-vac’ing the water out of the carpet. I’m very fortunate the carpet is all-weather, so I could allow it to dry over the next few days. I promptly purchased a dehumidifier and atrium drain the next morning. To this day, I am still paranoid every time I come home.

Side note: I guess I should be happy I had a house to come home to, considering a few slid down the hills.

#30

I came home to an open door because my brother forgot to close it. Nothing had been stolen, luckily because our dog had been on the prowl. Not that she would've done anything to a burglar, though.

#31

Kid decided to remove diaper after pooping, then smear the poop everywhere. Wife was covered in it and everyone was screaming. When I walked in, I assumed someone was severely injured.

Edit: This isn't even the most memorable poop story, just the most recent. This one was also one that fell to my lovely wife to deal with.

Let me tell you about the Potsy [passing away]. Back when my kids were maybe ~2 and ~4, they had this cooking pot toy. It would chatter away as you played with it, singing about food and colors. They also had this pop up tent in their play area. Well, somehow, the 2yo pooped in Potsy. It starts singing - "Every food, has a special color..." Well, the 4yo takes Potsy directly to the play kitchen and starts pretending to cook with it. At this point, they're playing quietly so no alarms have been raised.

Of course the 4yo then takes the Potsy Pot of Poo Porridge and starts trying to feed it to the 2yo. This is when the drama started, as well as the smearing. Potsy [passed away] that day, well loved and full of shtew. The tent was also a victim, as were some of the pretend veggies and utensils that came with Potsy.

I came home and half of the playroom was gone, and my wife had the thousand yard stare. We've since bought another Potsy, but the legend lives on.

Image credits: swampjedi

#32

When I was in college, I went away for a weekend to come home to find that my roommate had attempted to hang a tv on the wall. Guess the first time didn't work because there was a massive hole right next to a tv on the wall.

#33

Dead bunny parts + my cat & two stranger cats.


Years ago we would camp for weeks at a time, coming come a few times a week to do laundry, feed the cats, etc. Our cats had a doggie/kitty window and could come and go as they pleased. Came home one night to my cat having guests & serving them bunny. It was a fluffy mess.

#34

The screams of 5 mice stuck in glue traps.

I was in college and coming home for the winter one year and my mom had a minor mouse infestation. She decided to buy these glue traps to catch them and they were effective, however, unlike regular mouse traps that kill them instantly these just trap them and let them die of exhaustation and/or hunger.

When I got home that day 5 of them had gotten caught in the traps and were screaming their lungs out in desperation. It was such a terrifying symphony of screams and I had absolutely no idea what was going on when I walked through the door and worried that something had happened to my dog Snoopy. He was fine and after I called my mom she explained what was going on and asked me if I could take care of them, which was also a sh**ty thing to come home to.

#35

A robbery

It was during a summer heat wave with high heat and humidity. I came home to an apartment where several things felt off. I took a p**s, removed my tie and sweat drenched dress shirt before noticing a wide open window. I proceeded to take an inventory and called the police. Thankfully I had renters insurance and they missed my laptop.

#36

A dead rat on my living room floor with its heart ripped out. *Sigh*....cats...

#37

My gf and I were having a problem. I told her I needed to take a walk, but I'd be back. I kissed her on the cheek and walked out the door.

I got back and she had cleaned up, packed her things, and left me.

#38

My dad had cancer and we were taking care of him for almost a year. I went away to my cousins birthday party for the weekend and came back to him almost dead. I appreciate that my mom didn't want to ruin my weekend but i never would have forgiven myself if i missed his passing.

#39

Dog had had surgery on both paws. Husband decided after a few days that he trusted him without the cone of shame. Arrived home to find bits of white cotton scattered down the hall. Followed them to find the living room floor covered in blood and the dog in his bed with a paw swollen to twice its usual size after he'd shredded the bandages and ripped out his stitches. Worst treasure hunt ever.

Image credits: PinkPrimate

#40

I think it would be coming home after working from 8am - 11pm in college. Walking in completely exhausted from the weekend and hoping to crash before your 8am class, only to find that there is a massive party going on in your house. Also, when you finally get to your room there are strangers in your room smoking.

Image credits: Economy_Cactus

#41

I came out from work on a heavy rain day in late autumn to find my new used car flooded. The sun roof didn't seal properly and leaked. A lot. At first I didn't notice because I had parked facing downward on a hill. I started up the car, pulled out, and, upon hitting level ground, a four inch wave of icy cold water sloshed over my feet from under the dash. I couldn't get my head around it, just couldn't grasp what was happening. Stopping in the middle of traffic, I just sat there staring down at the wading pool on the floor of my new used car. After a few moments someone honked, so I drove home.

Yes, I knew I should go directly to the dealership, or a repair shop, or somewhere other than my own garage. But I didn't. I drove across town with water sloshing back and forth around my feet like in a sinking ship. I remember laughing out loud at one point, thinking, "Maybe I can dry it out with the leaf blower."

In the end, I sucked it out with the shop vac and manhandled a full-sized dehumidifier into the backseat, rigged up to extension cords to run all night. I went out every couple of hours to empty it, and the next day I parked it in the sun and left all the windows down.

After a few days it was dry, so I took it in to have the sunroof repaired. To this day I have no idea why I didn't want anyone to know what happened. It's not as if it were my fault or anything. Maybe just that the experience was so weirdly surreal that I couldn't break the spell.

Image credits: SuzQP

#42

Thousands of ladybugs that hatched, were swarming around and on the white siding of the house. And then I went inside and a couple hundred were hanging out in my livingroom on the ceiling.

Image credits: andotis0105