Workers Of Rich Families Share the Strangest Things They’ve Seen

When you think about the lives of the wealthy, you probably picture them as being pretty normal people, who just happen to have a lot of money. Sure, maybe they jet off to the islands every other weekend, or spend hours relaxing on private beaches. But, when they’re not taking advantage of what their money can buy, they just have to be like everyone else, right?

Some most certainly are, but wealth and “normalcy” don’t always go together. Sometimes, the rich might even appear to be “regular Joe’s” when they’re out and about. But who knows what goes on behind closed doors. Here are a few stories from people about the absolute strangest—and, in some cases, completely insane—things they’ve seen while working for rich families…

Don’t Go Into The Basement

I once helped my mother-in-law, who was a maid, with a very large mansion in North Carolina. It was a beautiful house. The architecture was astonishing. The owners traveled the world all the time and were completely loaded. The way that they lived when they were at home, though, was confusing. The kitchen had very old appliances—think 1970s—and the wife’s bathroom had a broken toilet seat that was duct-taped together.

What made it even odder was that we weren’t to go in the basement for any reason. I peeked down there—I couldn’t help myself. There were piles of clothes, three feet deep, in the basement; she took off her clothes, and just threw them down there. There were thousands of pairs of underwear. Turns out she refused to wear the same underwear twice. Judging by the piles, she didn’t wear anything else twice, either. Very weird people. Reddit user: 2greenToes

Just Buy What You Need

I delivered furniture once to a very rich person’s mega-mansion, only to discover that several of the rooms were empty. I didn’t think anything of it at first. I figured that’s why we were there. I mentioned it to a coworker, and he said, “Maybe they’re still working on picking out their furniture.” The owner overheard us and said, “Nah that room is staying empty. I have no use for it. Same with the others, too.”

After that, I couldn’t really wrap my head around a lot of things rich people do. To be rich enough to afford a house like that, and then purposely let parts of your house go completely unused because you don’t care about them. Why even buy a house that big then? That just doesn’t compute. Why not just buy what you need, and use it all? Rich people are weird. Reddit user: DaveDavidsen

In The Name Of Frugality

I know a lady who’s secretly rich. Well, maybe not “secretly;” she’s just very, very discreet about it. She’s one of those that, unless you knew about some of the more obscure high-end brands, you wouldn’t be able to tell. One of the more oddball things she did was wear designer jewelry sets to the gym. I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to get sweat all over the diamonds that I don’t have.

Anyway, her main quirk was that she liked Costa coffee. She’d get one every other day, drink half of it, let it cool, and then put the rest of it in the fridge. The next day she would reheat it, and drink the other half. When she told us about it, naturally we asked her why. She just laughed and said, “I try to be frugal where I can.” Yeah, okay. Reddit user: sambeano

They Forgot To Eat

I used to be a live-in nanny for the CEO of a major investment bank in Berlin, Germany. They were a lovely couple, with a sweet baby girl. They made me feel like part of the family from day one. They paid me well, had a separate car for me, and weren’t concerned with what I did in my spare time. They were very generous, lovely people.

My only gripe was that they had extremely strange eating habits. Some days they’d have three enormous meals, and other days they’d “forget” to eat all day. I was often too shy to speak up and say that I was hungry, so I just sort of starved, or went out and got meals on my own after the little girl was in bed. Reddit user: time_is_galleons

Taking Out The Trash

My sister is a nanny for an NBA player and his wife. The wife called my sister once at 9PM to come to their house for an “urgent” matter. When my sister gets to their house, the wife tells her to take the trash out. That’s it. My sister drove for an hour, in total, to take out someone else’s trash. She has so many ridiculous stories about this family, but that one’s my go-to.

My sister signed an NDA, so I can’t share his name, but let’s just say he’s in his 20s, and he seems like a decent guy. His wife, it sounds like, has let the money go to her head. There are plenty of names I could call her, but who knows what her life is really like? I mean, she felt like she had to call my sister after hours for a comically simple task. Reddit user: WhoReadsfor400

More Than Just Lawyers

My friend works for a tax lawyer for the obscenely wealthy. Their firm is one of those places you go to when you want to take advantage of tax loopholes in other countries—think Panama or Luxembourg. He told me once that one of their clients had an issue, and called the people he always turns to for help. His lawyers. So, I’m thinking, “Okay, they got themselves into some legal trouble. Get ready for a rollercoaster ride.”

Well, not so much. Want to know what the problem was? He’d just bought a new jet, and realized its entertainment system didn’t have a Blu-ray player. His lawyers were to find someone that could fix it. That day. He had lawyers at three different firms searching for a solution that afternoon. He got a separate bill from each of them. I hope they charged him double. Reddit user: [redacted]

You Can Do Whatever You Want

I briefly worked at a large architecture and design firm. The boss was a Yale-educated guy in his 50s, probably a millionaire in his own right. Every other week or so this one client—an elderly man—would call and say something along the lines of, “I don’t like how my lawn is oriented anymore, could you get down here?” The boss-man would stop what he was doing, and immediately head over with a couple of guys.

He and the old guy would spend all afternoon sitting in lawn chairs, drinking beers, and directing the staff to move things around. “No, move that plant a little to the left. Wait, I liked where it was originally. What do you think?” My boss billed over $1,500 per hour, not including what he charged for the staff. I guess when you have that much money, you can hire whoever you want, to do whatever random tasks. Reddit user: yellow_jelloo

No Drinks Allowed

These people I worked for were goofy. The wife was driving through the home improvement part of the city, and saw a sale on bathtubs. So she popped in and bought three of them. As she was leaving, she saw another tub she liked, and simply had to get that one too. She wasn’t renovating their house at the time.

They also refuse to throw away food. Used by and best before dates are completely ignored. I once found a tin of marinara that was 15 years out of date. They have a holiday home in the South Pacific, and have a housekeeper clean it three times a week, yet they only visit a few times a year. When they’re not visiting, no one lives there.

When the family goes out for dinner, the father will happily pay for the expensive meals, but not the drinks. The kids—all in their teens or older—have to pay him back for the drinks. He will even send reminder messages, and include the amount owed. Yet, when any of the kids offer to pay for the meal, he won’t accept. Reddit user: Pregnancyinsomnia

I’d Do It All Over Again

I was a babysitter for some pretty rich people once upon a time. Their silverware was constantly filthy. It would be caked with what resembled peanut butter and regret. Their children were pleasant, but refused to brush their teeth unless their parents made them. Turns out the parents were pretty “hygiene illiterate.” The kids continued to refuse, until I told them gross stories about gingivitis.

The mom had a small Buddhist altar in the living room, but was also extremely vocal about her faith—which was not Buddhism. I always wondered why she even had it in the first place, if she thought it was sacrilegious. I’d totally do it again if I was given the opportunity, though. It was mostly getting paid to help with homework, and watch Voltron in pillow forts. Reddit user: LittleGravitasIndeed

That’s How Rich People Live

The most bizarre people I worked for were this newly-rich, young family in Vienna. The bedtime routine for the kids—age three and seven—included, basically, a spa treatment for both. I’d never seen that amount of product in a child’s bathroom in my life. The seven-year-old girl had next to no hair on her head, but I was required to slather her in the most expensive adult shampoo, conditioner, hair mask, and hair oil. Every. Single. Night.

They only had one tiny box of toys, and playtime was scheduled for a mere 30 minutes before bed. But only after they’d brushed their teeth. Dinner was normally a bland fish fillet, and a ton of salad. Not a grain of sugar anywhere in the house. Hot cocoa was made with skim milk and pure, high-quality cocoa—no sweetener whatsoever. It tasted awful.

I’ve always thought there was something else going on behind the scenes. You know, something that was just a little more sinister. But, there was never any real evidence to suggest that they were anything other than just some super weird young people who knew very little about kids. Maybe they just thought that’s how rich people were supposed live. Reddit user: bananamedley

Down The Drain

Growing up, my mother would clean houses for wealthy people in the area. One in particular was an elderly widowed woman with large, all white poodles. She insisted that my mother clean them with bleach. She would provide two gallons of bleach each week, so that my mother could give them their “baths.” No idea where this lady got the idea to bleach her dogs, or why it even seemed logical.

My mother never did bleach them. She bought a proper dog shampoo with her own money, and rarely did more than just brush them and fluff their coats, so it looked like they’d been bathed. There was no way that she was bathing those poor animals more than once a month or so, much less bleaching them. She just poured the bleach down the drain. Reddit user: ousala

We Thought It Was Going In The Kitchen

I worked for a beverage distribution place in a very ritzy resort area for awhile. This one guy’s assistant shows up, and says he needs a pallet of Evian for his boss’s house. No problem. That kind of thing is normal. We got requests like that all the time. So, we load the pallet onto the truck, and drive it up to his house.

After unloading, we ask him where he wants it and he leads us into the garage, and asks if we can help break down the pallet. So, we start down-stacking, and carry cases of the water into what I thought would be the kitchen or pantry. Nope. Straight through the house, to the back deck. He was filling his hot tub with Evian. Reddit user: Odell_Stranglehams

I Never Told Anyone

I regularly babysat a wealthy widow’s two kids. They were seriously sweet little kids, and hanging out with them was always fun. They even liked sharing their newest toys with me. I don’t think anyone in our rather small town realized how loaded she was, though. When I babysat, it was always because she was helicoptering off to the city for a party, a date, or some five-star function in a new outfit.

She paid very well, and always offered me “trinkets.” Things like gold bracelets, that I still couldn’t afford nearly twenty years later. I think she was always trying to give me nice stuff, because I never gossiped about her. Not even to my mother, who was friends with her. I’m pretty sure she was rewarding me for not spilling the beans. Reddit user; MonsieurIncredible

That’s Not How I Spend My Breaks

The family I worked for had a nanny. The youngest daughter once forced her nanny to push her around the entire property, while she emitted a high C note. Seriously. She wasn’t screaming it, either. She was actually singing the note. The property was hundreds of acres, so they were at it for quite a while. I’ve always felt sorry for the nanny.

The breadwinner was the husband, and he was a menace to the trees. He would need to take breaks from work, so he’d grab a pole saw and go to town on random trees. Then he’d get bored, tell me to clear up the mess, and “pretty the trees back up.” This was their weekend home, by the way. They had a mansion in the big city, cottage in cottage country, and this property in farm country. Reddit user: JustHereToConfirmIt

Off Brand Instant Coffee

My dad is an electrician, and has worked in the homes of some very rich people. He did a job in one where the couple only drank very posh fresh coffee. Fair enough, who wouldn’t? They had a cleaner who was permitted one cup of coffee each day, but not their coffee. She had her own separate coffee. It was the cheapest possible coffee you can imagine.

It was some kind of off-brand instant coffee. If a person comes to my flat, whether they’re a friend or the plumber, they’re a guest and they’ll drink whatever tea or coffee I drink, because I see them as equals. My dad has told me that some of the stingiest people he knows are also the wealthiest. Maybe that’s how they stay so wealthy? Reddit user: TheLibrarianOokOok

Protect It At All Costs

Once, when I was a nanny, I was house-sitting while the family was out of the country. The refrigerator in my apartment broke, so I packed up some perishables and brought them to their house to store, until the landlord could fix my fridge. When I brought the food back to my place, I realized I’d accidentally grabbed something that wasn’t mine from the cheese drawer.

It was a mysterious, gallon-sized zip-top bag. Inside was a smaller zip bag. Inside of that smaller bag was a bundle of wax paper, wrapped around a bundle of plastic wrap. Once that was peeled away, I found another bundle of plastic wrap around a wad of tinfoil. Seven layers deep, I found an old lump of fruitcake. I don’t know what they were protecting it from. Reddit user: [redacted]

A Pirate Hoard

I was a live-in groundskeeper for a wealthy eccentric for a while. He had three cars from old movies in his garage. One was even from a Bond film. They were covered in layers of dust and trash. One of them was a convertible, that had the top caved in by trash. Those awesome cars were just totally neglected and forgotten. He also had a freezer full of decades-old frozen food.

I know about this stuff because the garage was where my equipment was stored. I only saw inside the house once—I lived in the groundskeeper’s quarters. Their house was full of all this crystal, pewter, and silver tableware. Random, pricey décor was lying around everywhere. There was easily hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff, just lying around in piles. It was like a pirate hoard.

I’m honestly not sure why he had the house. He didn’t actually live there, and only came by once every three months to pay bills, and take care of a few things in town. Then, he’d just jet back to France, where he and his wife lived. Actually, now that I think of it, I wonder if it was just a house he’d inherited, and didn’t want to deal with it. Reddit user: dis_ABLED

By The Caseload

I’m the former nanny for a very wealthy Silicon Valley family. The mom had recently married her new husband when I was hired. The new husband was an older, wealthy lawyer, and she was in tech consulting. They were always really kind to me, and the kids were good despite having insane privileges. I think she did a great job parenting them, actually.

Honestly, the only weird thing was that the parents were addicted to Five Hour Energy and Coke Zero—I assume because they were total workaholics, and needed the caffeine. I’d get texts at random hours begging me to bring over Coke Zero and Five Hour Energy. I’d purchase multiple cases at a time, and it would all be gone by the end of the week. The kids didn’t touch the stuff, the parents made sure of that, so I know it was all them. Reddit user: thatmodel

Immediately Buy More

I was a nanny for a rich family in Vegas. The amount of food they wasted was crazy. One truly strange thing I remember is the woman buying Monster Energy drinks for her nephew. He only visited them once or twice a year. The garage was stocked with cases of it, though. When it went bad, they threw it out and immediately bought more.

Oh, and there was also the time they had me run around and buy $25 dollar gift certificates for their annual company Christmas party, from 25 different places. In Las Vegas. Two days before Christmas. Vegas is wild at the best of times, but that close to a major holiday? Fun isn’t really the right word to describe it. It was an experience. Reddit user: Pretty_Wonderful

I Have A $200k Credit Limit

I work at a skiing school office at a fancy resort in Colorado. I’ve had guests come in and get a private instructor, just for them, for three weeks straight. Private instructors go for a grand a day, just so you know. The really “fun” ones were the guests who would throw the biggest hissy fit when their credit card declined a $20k charge.

Seems like no big deal, right? But, you try explaining credit card fraud alerts to a petulant man-baby. They just totally lose their minds. “I have a 200k limit, it shouldn’t decline!” No, in theory, it shouldn’t. But, if you normally don’t charge that much in a week and, suddenly, you’ve spent $20k in a day, the credit card companies don’t care who you are. Reddit user: immortalluna

He Threw The Burger Back

I’m an assistant to a rich guy; I help him run his business. Most of the rich people I know are very entitled, and don’t understand the word “no.” I have no idea how some of these people got so rich. I’ve watched my boss have a full-blown temper tantrum because a customer called him 40 minutes before he was leaving on vacation. I mean a complete meltdown.

He ordered a burger one day, and they used a sesame seed bun. He doesn’t like sesame seeds, so he threw the burger at the cook. He always complains about how awful his life is, even though he can buy anything, and go anywhere, he wants. It’s hard to explain until you see it, but money and greed really screws people up. Once he gets back from “summering in LA,” I’m looking for something new. I can’t take it anymore. Reddit user: rbilly0001

The Dragon Lady

During the summer, while I was on vacation from college, I helped my mom at her first landscaping/greenhouse job. We went to this particular lady’s house in the rich part of town. It was this big Antebellum home. She was a realtor. We called her Dragon Lady because a) she looked like a wrinkly old dragon, and b) she hoarded the most ridiculous jewelry, and was always covered in “gems.” Even in her pajamas.

We took a job to fix up her backyard. She was a terrible excuse for a human being. Mean-spirited comments, snide remarks, the works. She always had an inordinate number of young men going in and out of her house the entire time we were there. Quite the variety, too. And, if we ran into one, she always introduced him as her “cousin.” Somehow, I doubt they were related. Reddit user: RunesToMyMemory

He Thought He Was Better Than Everyone Else

I used to work for a guy who ran his businesses into the ground and declared bankruptcy—more than once, I believe. He married rich, and his wife paid for him to go to school for a particular kind of certification. He now owns a business that’s also failing because of how he runs it, but he and his wife still have plenty of family money, and they’re well-respected in the community.

He complains, non-stop, about “lazy millennials” who are so “entitled,” and “think they deserve free stuff.” It bothered me so much to see how he was so dependent on the grace of his wife, and the kind of pure luck that just doesn’t exist anymore. He thought he was so much better than anyone else who wanted a leg up in life. Reddit user: [redacted]

It’s Still In His Backyard

My neighbor won the lottery. Nothing huge, but a decent amount. He took the lump sum, and upgraded his little ranch by adding this massive garage, an in-ground pool, and a cabana. He was pretty much of a loner before he won, but afterwards he suddenly had “friends” there all the time. One of the first things he bought, of course, was his dream car: a red Lamborghini.

One day, in the middle of the summer, he was having a party, and his “friends” wanted him to show the car off. So, he started it up, and was revving the engine in the garage, when it caught fire. The fire burned the house to the ground, taking half the money he had in cash—stored in duffel bags—with it.

He didn’t have insurance, and ended up using the rest of the lottery winnings to rebuild the house. Somehow, he managed to push the Lambo out of the garage, but it didn’t do any good. To this day there’s a half-burnt Lamborghini under a big tarp in his backyard, and all that happened over twenty years ago. Reddit user: btao

He’s Not Learning Anything

I worked for this family that regularly bought complicated Lego sets for their five-year-old, and then assembled them for him, because they were too complicated for him to do himself. At first, I thought they were just people who liked Lego, but felt embarrassed that it was for them. But, they did this while the child looked on, and complained they weren’t doing it fast enough. From the looks on their faces, they were afraid of the kid.

Like, dude, he’s not learning anything, except that mommy and daddy were put on the planet to please him. He’s also learning that he shouldn’t have to do anything that’s difficult himself, and that he can make other people do things for him. They also bought him new toys once a week. I don’t understand how you get to the point where you can’t stand up to your own kid. Reddit user: MySecretLair

At Least She Tried

When I was in college, I lived with a girl from an insanely wealthy family. What amazed me the most was how completely clueless she was when it came to cleaning. I mean, she grew up with maids her entire life, and college was the first time she didn’t have someone cleaning up after her, so I figured she might be untidy – but I wasn’t prepared for the truth.

I asked her to clean the kitchen once, and she came home with a box of powdered bleach from the Dollar Store. I found her sprinkling it around the counters, and pushing it around with a wet paper towel. She said that she’d seen me clean like that, so she knew that it had to be the right way to do it. Lord help me, at least she really tried. Reddit user: [redacted]

She’d Call Me From Her Bathroom

I worked for an insanely wealthy woman in New England. She was just as crazy as she was rich. She was pretty old when I worked for her as a personal assistant—my job was mostly researching the location of religious artifacts, including the Shroud of Turin. She was a devout Catholic, and she had a slew of fellow Catholics working for her.

She’d call me first thing every morning from her bathroom, and I’d have to go through every email that she got, including spam. (Yes, she was “using it” during those calls.) She had some sort of skin condition that left her mostly bedridden, and it was so bad that her maid had to change her sheets three times a day.

Her mentally ill daughter still lived with her, as well as her daughter’s boyfriend—also mentally ill—who’d just moved in. He’d managed to trick her into giving him Power of Attorney over her daughter. There were wild rumors among the staff as to why the daughter was mentally ill. Most revolved around the lady having driven her to insanity. Reddit user: [redacted]

It Was Like A Toy Store

I’m a male, and I used to babysit for people on my street when I was a teenager. Male babysitters, I found out, were a hot commodity for parents of male kids, because they would play sports and video games with them. Not that female babysitters couldn’t do those things, but they tended not to. Fair. I don’t see many female babysitters being super-eager to play football in the backyard.

This one family I worked for was rather well off. They had a big house, and two really nice cars. The parents bought these kids every toy that existed. The basement rec room was like a toy store. For real. Half the toys hadn’t even been taken out of the box. On the first day, I discovered the Lego collection. There were so many sets, and none of them had been used.

I asked the boys why they hadn’t played with the Legos, and they said, “We kinda just haven’t gotten around to it yet”. Judging by all the toys around, I could believe that. “Well, we’re going to play the heck out of these Legos today,” I said. We cleared off some space on the coffee table, and opened every box.

We tossed all of the instructions aside, and built the biggest space station that 40 some-odd Lego sets can possibly build. I would even come back sometimes when I wasn’t working elsewhere, just to build more stuff with the boys. They had a ton of fun, as did I, and became “Lego maniacs,” just like me. Reddit user: [redacted]

Handmade In Italy

I’ve been in a couple of really rich people’s houses where they’ve had fires—I work for one of those disaster-recovery companies. One is a semi-famous boxer. He had two world championship belts, both of which he had sitting on his kitchen table. The weird part was, he had pictures of himself hanging all over the house. Not with his kids or his wife in the pictures mind you. They were just of him.

Another couple screamed at their kid because he “allowed” smoke to get into his trombone case. Not sure how he was supposed to prevent that, but whatever. They also lost their minds because the insurance company wouldn’t pay to get them brand new cabinets. I thought it was unfair, too, until they mentioned that they must have them handmade, in Italy. Reddit user: fireinvestigator113

45 Minutes A Day

I was a nanny for a pretty affluent family for a summer and, on the whole, they were really nice people, and great parents. Two things stood out to me, though. On one occasion, they had family friends visiting with their three children, so I worked a full day taking care of the five kids, while the four adults just hung out in the house. They were “working from home,” but really just drinking wine and hanging out.

I understand occasionally having the nanny come while you’re there so you can work, but nannying five children, whose parents were ten feet away, seemed a little absurd to me. The second thing was that they reused Ziploc bags. I probably spent a good 45 minutes a day washing, drying, and organizing their Ziploc bags. They weren’t super environmentally conscious, so I don’t know what the reasoning was. Reddit user: [redacted]

Solid Platinum Reindeer

My husband used to work for a landscaping company. He said that most wealthy people were pretty normal when you actually started talking to them, but he had a few rich clients who were a little “out there.” He would always come home with crazy stories about this one lady, in particular, who was a little more out there than the rest.

For instance: she and her husband paid a pilot, year-round, just to be on standby in case they wanted to fly somewhere. (That sounds like a great job, actually.) Also, they apparently paid Google a fee every year, to keep their property off of Google Maps. And, if I’m remembering correctly, she had two solid platinum reindeer in her collection of Christmas decorations. Reddit user: GabsterWebster

A New Car Fixed The Problem

I used to work security for a high-rise in Uptown Dallas. There was a VIP parking garage underneath the building, and entry required a special gate tag to be in the window of your car. The wife of a guy that owns a large part of a well known home improvement store had it mounted on the bumper of her Bentley. She had the entire bumper repainted to hide the tag.

The tag wasn’t only covered in paint—it’d been placed at the wrong angle. Now, even if it could’ve been read it through the paint, the scanner couldn’t “see” it. She’d wasted thousands. She could’ve just asked, and we’d have told her it wouldn’t work. Of course, she wouldn’t ask personally—it would’ve been her personal assistant. In the end, she bought a whole new car, and stuck the tag in her window. That’s one way to solve the problem. Reddit user: whuebel

Nothing Is Ever Not New

I’m a support worker, and one of the guys I support has very wealthy parents. They want his jeans thrown out once they start to fade, or have any stitching that is ripped. It’s not just limited to jeans, though. Once he got a new couch, because it was starting to look like someone had sat on the old one. Basically, everything he wears and owns is replaced the moment it starts to show signs of wear.

The stuff get donated, which is fantastic, but throwing out jeans because they’re faded and it’s easier to buy a new pair seems crazy. They aren’t cheap jeans, either. Not to mention the furniture. Those are the situations where I really would love to dig around and find out what the deal is, but it’s not my place to ask those kinds of questions. Reddit user: [redacted]

An Object Lesson

I was a custom A/V installer for many years. I once installed 14 televisions in a client’s master bedroom suite—not including the six installed in the bathroom. They were all set to play the mirror image of whatever he was watching on the main TV. He claimed it was because he couldn’t sleep at night. Who knows what the real reason was.

His family totally hated him. His wife had her own suite on the opposite side of the mansion. She couldn’t stand the sight of him. The kids were both teenagers, and left the room whenever he came in. He mostly just sat in his master suite smoking, and teasing his employees all day. He was like a walking object lesson in economics. Specifically: that money can’t buy happiness. Reddit user: mikemclovin

$30,000 Every Time

This isn’t my story, but I have a friend who’s an artist that specializes in painting frescos. For those who don’t know, a fresco is paint applied to wet plaster. It’s very delicate and meticulous work that needs to be completed in a timely manner because, once the plaster is dry, you have to remove it all and start from scratch if you have to make changes.

So, this friend was doing a mural in the house of a wealthy couple. The couple didn’t want any of the builders to know who they were, but they would drop in to check on the progress of the house from time to time. Each time they’d visit, they insisted that none of the “help” be in the same room as they were.

So, whenever they came in, my friend would have to stop working, leave the room until they were finished, and then start the fresco over from scratch. This cost $30,000 every time he did it. The couple knew this, but they still insisted on no one knowing who they were. I believe, in the end, the job cost over $200,000. Reddit user: artsyfartsyfool

She Just Doesn’t Care

My sister is married to an anesthesiologist, who makes a ton of money. They recently spent $22,000 on an 8×11 inch painting that looks like a three-year-old painted it. Yet when we visit my sister, she serves us meatballs that she bought at Dollar Tree. She won’t buy liquid hand soap for the guest bathroom. She just puts a few chunks of old bar soap in a bottle, and adds water.

However, they own a million dollar vacation home, and millions worth of art. She couldn’t care less about how the house looks. Nothing in her home is decorated. In fact, the picture frames don’t even have family photos in them—they just have the generic photo that comes with the frame. She buys way too much food and, when it goes bad, returns it to the grocery store to get her money back. So bizarre. We don’t visit much. Reddit user: DareWright

I Found Him In The Parking Lot

Not a domestic worker, but used to do a lot of hospitality work in very high-end hotels. Rich people get up to the weirdest things, especially when they’re not at home. I once served a full three-course meal to two tiny dogs. That was ridiculous, and I was so close to telling them what I thought, but I needed to keep my job. I did get a nice tip out of it, though.

When I was a valet, I frequently picked up guests who were clearly intoxicated. They were always talking smack, and making wild claims. I found one guy in the parking lot, wearing nothing but a pair of boots, holding the keys to his luxury sports car. I discreetly escorted him back up to his room. I even made him hot chocolate before putting him to bed. I saw him the next day, and he couldn’t look me in the eye. Reddit user: SoMuchF0rsubtlety

She’ll Outgrow It In Three Months

I was getting a wealth woman’s daughter dressed for a party, and pulled a beautiful dress out of her closet. The mother saw it and commented, “I know, you tell yourself you’ll never spend $300 on a dress for a five year old, but then you see it in the window of Crew Cuts…” Wait, Crew Cuts has dresses? Apparently, a girl was wearing it on their poster, and she tracked it down.

I have no idea what I said back to her, because $300 was almost half my monthly rent and, unless they’ve won an Oscar or gotten into Harvard at the age of five, no child ever has a use for a $300 dress. They’ll grow out of in three months, and cover it with strawberry yogurt or pasta sauce. But, I’m sure they’d probably just throw it away. No big deal. Reddit user: MySecretLair

The Omen

A friend of mine is a private tutor in Hong Kong. She told me about a Chinese power couple, who lived in a huge penthouse that occupied the top three floors in one of the high-rises. They had an extremely spoiled two-year-old kid. The couple demanded of my friend that the kid should learn math by the age of two.

She had huge problems convincing them that this was, in fact, developmentally impossible. The kid had five nannies, who all took turns caring for him. He was described to me as “Damian from the Omen,” and it was extremely draining to be around him. This was in 2011, so the kid should be about 10 or 11 now. I’m sure he turned out just fine. Reddit user: ColinZealSE