Close encounters of the gross kind

THEY say cleanliness is next to godliness, but for some people, it’s next to impossible to bring the two concepts together. For some, the lack of cleanliness can be blamed on some emotional struggle, and usually resolves once the issue is dealt with. But what happens when you encounter shockingly gross habits in someone who showed no signs, and seemed not to be the least bit unhinged?

These people share the most shocking and gross things they’ve seen at a partner’s house that made them change their minds about them.

Kerene, 27:

He didn’t even seem dirty —always smelled good, nice white teeth, dressed immaculately, so I had no reservations about going to his house to watch a movie when he invited me, after we’d been seeing each other for a couple months. So imagine my shock when I arrived at the apartment, and he greeted me with, ‘Oh, by the way, I have roaches’. Stupid me went in anyway, and managed to find a space on the carpet in front of the TV to sit. I assured myself that plenty people had roaches, so it was no big deal — until I asked to use the bathroom, and passed by the kitchenette and bedroom to get there. When you say NASTY and hoarder, this man took the cake. There were dirty dishes and black mould in the kitchen, piles of clothes, DVDs, clutter and garbage in the bedroom, and the bathroom looked and smelled like a crack house, with an unflushed toilet, cat litter box overflowing, and the nastiest bathtub. I didn’t even know he had cats, because I couldn’t find them with all the clutter! I just washed my hands, and went back to the living room like I never noticed. I finished the movie huddled in a corner on the carpet, and after I left, I just blocked him and never spoke to him again.

Charissa, 30:

I should probably not blame the guy too much, but it’s an icky story just the same. So a few years back I was seeing this man who had a Shih Tzu dog that he loved to pieces — in fact we met at the vet’s office where we were both getting our animals treated. Anyway, we hit it off, and went out all the time, and I even babysat his dog when he travelled one time. He said the dog was spoiled and had separation anxiety issues, but it certainly didn’t act like that when it was with me. So let me set the scene on this rainy Friday evening, when I dropped him home because his car was being fixed. Drove up to his house in Cooreville, where he said he left the dog inside during the days, because his landlord didn’t allow pets, and he didn’t want the neighbours to report him. So imagine a Cooreville tiny house, in rain, at night… He opened the door and I stepped in behind him and the smell hit me first. Then when he hit the lights I wished he’d kept them off. The dog had been left tied to the grille at the back door, and I guess it was anxious, or was afraid of the thunder, or whatever, but there was dog poop and pee all over the floor, and on the walls, and on the stairs, and on the side of the stove which was next to the grille. And all this dude did was go up and cradle the dog, and tried to comfort it. I just left, because I couldn’t absorb the scene, or the fact that he hugged the dog in that state. That’s why I like cats, because I couldn’t deal with that.

Paul-Andre, 35:

I liked this girl at my office — nice girl, always well put together, speaks well, Christian, you know, wife material. Decent girl, so I put in a word, and we did a few Jesus-sanctioned dates. I knew she wouldn’t go beyond a certain point with intimacy and I was good with that, ’cause I wasn’t looking for any entanglements anyway. We went out a couple times, then one day she asked me to come fix a lighting fixture at her house, as it had been raining and water was coming from the socket. I went and passed by the bathroom to get to the bedroom. I glanced inside and was so turned off. This girl had one of those clothes pin contraptions hung up in the bathroom, with all her underwear there, like my grandma. It was such a turn-off, because I just imagined that she probably had all kinds of feminine hygiene and health issues, because she obviously didn’t believe in sunning her underwear.

Sandrieke, 32:

This is something that happened AFTER I had been dating this man for over a year, and he would spend time at my house, and I never suspected that he was this weird. So he liked farming, right, and he would plant seedlings and leave them all over the place. I’d go visit him and they’d be all over the kitchen and backyard, but it wasn’t really a bother because we always had fresh fruits and vegetables from his agriculture endeavours. I was going to be away for a few months and he was going to keep my car, because his community was safer than mine was. I spent eight weeks away, and when I came back he picked me up at the airport, and drove me to his house. One of the first things I noticed was that my car was dirty, extremely filthy, and the tyres flat. I started to curse him and ask if he couldn’t have washed the car, driven it sometimes to charge the battery, and put air in the tyres in anticipation of my return. That’s until I went closer and realised that there were seedling trays all over my dashboard, back seat, and rear deck, with all kinds of plants sprouting from them. This mad man was using my almost brand new car as a greenhouse! I just took his vehicle and drove home, and the next evening he brought my car to me, washed and vacuumed. I couldn’t deal with him after that though, because you have to be mental to do something like that.