35 Awkward Discoveries Parents Made While Snooping In Their Teen’s Room

Though we should all ideally be allowed the freedom to live our lives without intense scrutiny, we have instead learned to accept the invasion of our privacy from our formative years. Probably because kids will keep the weirdest things as treasures and they have no scruples about storage or the ramifications of keeping something for too long in an exposed condition.

Today we touch on an unhinged collection of memories people were sharing in response to one Redditors question. Scroll below to read all the wildest parenting finds people revealed upon being asked, “Parents who’ve snooped through their teenagers stuff, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve come across?”

#1

Image source: OddLeeEnough, Rebecca Siegel

I don’t snoop but I do clean and organize from time to time. Teen knows this, also knows that unless I find some really illegal s**t I’m not real worried.

Having said that… a suit of armor he had made out of watermelon rinds and forgot to toss out. Whole new ecosystem was growing on it all.

#2

Image source: hellokiri, freepik

Not my kid but my best friend found used period pads under her daughter’s bed. Her daughter had not started her period yet and no sisters, so no clue where she got the pads, but my friend was changing her daughters sheets and >! smelled it. If you have ever had a period, you know. !< My friend threw them all out but never asked her daughter about it. The kid is 22 now and I still randomly remember this from time to time and wonder.

#3

Image source: robo-dragon, Mikhail Nilov

I’m not my parents, but they told me and my sister that the weirdest/funniest thing they ever uncovered were the s****y “adult” comics my sister and I drew for each other when we were young teens. We would take turns drawing a row of panels so we would add onto the story we were building together.

Mostly it was an excuse to say swear words we weren’t allowed to say. The one that forever lives in my head is one my sister drew herself and slipped under my door to share with me while we were supposed to be sleeping. It was a really well-drawn SpongeBob comic that had him going around town and saying “f**k you” to everyone and him waking up the next morning, thinking it was a dream. All the towns people were in his bedroom and told him “f**k you!” as a response, because it wasn’t a dream after all.

Our parents discovered our hoard of comics hidden under my sister’s mattress when they went to replace it. My sister and I were both in tears, thinking we were both going to get in trouble, but our parents were laughing their asses off!

My sister still has those comics somewhere and she recently found them again and we read them all. Our childish humor still mostly holds up! We both still make comics in our spare time so that was the beginning of a side hobby we share.

#4

Image source: 22grey, cottonbro studio

My mom would do this when i was a teenager ….I got a diary and hid it. When she found it and opened all she found was in big writing “THOUGHT YOU FOUND SOMETHING GOOD, HUH?” She laughed about it for the next 20 plus years. I miss her.

#5

Image source: SternFern, Daria Glakteeva

After he moved out I found a huge pencil case with every single pen he had used throughout high school, like 90+ pens, all completely out of ink. I messaged him about it and he’s like “yeah, that’s my pen graveyard” like it was the most normal thing ever. It’s not a home made f**shlight, but it definitely made me pause and wonder what kind of hoarder I had created.

#6

Image source: ghostguessed, Gayatri Malhotra

I went to my 10-year-old daughter’s school for parent-teacher conferences and opened her locker to take a look inside. There wasn’t much in it, but lying in the bottom was a book from our local library about how to plan a wedding. Not a fun one with pictures of wedding dresses and stuff. It was called “Wedding Rites: A Complete Guide to Traditional Vows, Music, Ceremonies, Blessings and Interfaith Services.” I was baffled and her teachers and I had a good laugh about it.

When I got home and asked her about it, she explained she and her bestie were trying to marry their dogs to each other.

#7

Image source: DeadBoneMusic, cottonbro studio

Found a notebook labeled “Top Secret Plans.” Inside was a full blueprint for how they’d fake sick to skip school, complete with fake cough sound effects and backup crying strategy if I didn’t buy it. I was half impressed, half offended.
They even wrote: “Mom might pretend to be mad, but she’ll secretly respect the hustle.”
…They were right.

#8

Image source: Background_actor412, John-Mark Smith

Is it snooping if it was in the laundry basket? And I don’t mean in his pocket. It was a letter that was literally just in between two pieces of clothing. But I found out that the current girlfriend was using emotional manipulation adjustment him. He was 16 or 17 and didn’t want to date her anymore because she was bats**t crazy, among other reasons and she told him she was going to off herself if he broke up with her.

I didn’t say a thing about the letter. I just dropped it beside where the clothes basket sits in his room as if it fell there instead of in the basket. Logically, it likely fell off his dresser. Anyway, my daughter was only a year older than him and I waited till she was home a few days later and we were all in the living room and I brought up an article I had read and showed her. We started talking about it and it was about teenage s*****e. And we were talking about warning signs and what to do and the difference between an actual mental illness like depression and just being sad blah blah blah and that’s when I pointed out that when somebody uses it as a threat they’re trying to control you because they want you to do what they want. Not because they’re actually going to do it! Even if you don’t give in, they’re not going to do it. It’s just a threat!

He kept turning his head towards us while we were talking. But I ignored that and acted like I was just talking to her. About 2 weeks later he finally broke up with her for good. She’s still alive and should be about 29 now. So I guess I was right? lol.

#9

Image source: konoha37, MART PRODUCTION

I was the teenager getting snooped on. I had undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time. And I was building a time machine from old PC parts that I got from people’s trash. Thankfully she found it because the way I had designed it, I was going to electrocute myself to send myself back in time. Unfortunately at the time when I found my Time Machine was gone, I thought the government was on to me and basically made myself homeless so they wouldn’t find me. I was 14 or 15 at the time. I’m medicated now and doing much better these days.

#10

Image source: ingracioth, Anastasia Shuraeva

I was like 13, living in a rural area, and my best friend at the time was always up to something. For some reason, we got it in our heads that we could secretly raise chickens in the forest behind my house, so we bought an entire chicken starter kit, complete with feed, lights, a book on how to do it right. We attempted to shoplift a few baby chicks in her sweater from the farm supply store, but got caught on the way out. The plan never materialized because no one would sell us baby chicks.

Later, my mother found the starter stuff in my closet. It was a weird conversation. She was expecting to find d***s. She was mainly mad the store didn’t call her when we got caught attempting to shoplift baby chicks.

#11

Image source: salmontoothpaste, Ketut Subiyanto

When I was a teen, my dad found home made d**dos I made out of pencils taped together, a sock, more tape, and saran wrap. He knew what it was and was mad. I wish he left it alone but he confronted me, and i was adamant it was actually an art project so I painted them and left them on display to dry for weeks to try to prove my point….

#12

Image source: Lentra888, Tim Samuel

Five bottles full of urine. The bathroom is literally right next to his bedroom…..

#13

Image source: Cool-Ad7985, olia danilevich

Not a snoop, but a complete clean of the room after a week of warnings. Found a mini Halloween pumpkin under the bed. This was in April.

#14

Image source: Ordinary_Ice_796, Alin Luna

Found a pile of trimmed pubic hair under my high school son’s bed (though I wasn’t snooping).

I was just like “Well… I guess someone’s been shaving…” and threw it away in the trash and moved on with my day.

Never said anything to him about it.

#15

Image source: duskydaffodil, Sarah Chai

My mom didn’t snoop per se, she was just cleaning my little brother’s closet, donating old clothes and throwing out trash. She found a bag of clothes she thought were dirty from one of his trips to his dad’s house. It was not dirty clothes. It was femme clothes— dresses, stockings, and such. She stuffed them back and never confronted him about it, just told me to get it off her chest.

#16

Image source: gravitydoesntlie, Ellie Burgin

A GIANT bag of googly eyes with a Johnny cash CD (we are Brits living in the US for context). I have found some weird stuff after that kid for many years (legal and illegal) but the googly eyes did it for me.

#17

Image source: Preindustrialcyborg, Nadin Sh

My mother found my collection of 10 compacted balls of cat fur in my drawer once. They shed a lot, so i have a habit of collecting it off brushes and rolling it into compact balls then keeping them for some reason. She threw all the ones she found in the trash, but i had more in a different drawer.

I still have some. One of my cats died so it’s kind of a limited edition cat ball now. I might get a container for them and label it all at some point.

#18

Image source: sticksnstone, Pavel Danilyuk

My son had been sneaking booze in the house and I kept finding empty bottles around. I was in his room and it looked like a half empty bottle of cola with a weird smell like Dr. Pepper. I took a taste to see if it was alcohol in it and realized I had just taken a swig from his spit bottle. 🤢.

#19

Image source: WitchyBroom, Erik Mclean

My mom found w**d in a plastic baggy in my sisters room. Replaced baggy with new baggy of lawn grass.

#20

Image source: berserker_butterfly, Ron Lach

She’d been in trouble at school because after her father left, she found an old MJ vape pen of his and got caught with it. So I went to make sure there wasn’t anything else like that in there and found a love letter from her boyfriend promising to take her to McDonald’s every day and play panic at the disco at their wedding when they got married. It seemed like she was sleeping with this letter under her pillow. I put it right back where I found it.

#21

Image source: Virtual-Web1972, Mikhail Nilov

Not a parent but my mom found my business plan for selling candy at school when I was 14.

#22

Image source: forestfairygremlin, Andrea Piacquadio

When I was 19 I came home from a night out with my girlfriends to my mother, hysterical and crying, dramatically asking “How could you this to me?!” She had found a sandwich bag with an unknown substance in it and somehow came to the conclusion that it was h****n, and I had secretly turned into a d**g a****t.

It was small bacon flavored dog treats for our chihuahua, which I had portioned out so they wouldn’t get stale. Pretty obvious that my mother had no idea what h****n looked like.

#23

Image source: Evieveevee, Anna Tarazevich

I found a rolling machine in my teenage son’s bedroom. I was horrified. He was only 13. I couldn’t find any trace of weed in the machine and it looked clean. Took a photo and sent it to my husband. He wrote back it was a magic trick used to make bank notes disappear 😂.

#24

Image source: That_Effective_5535, RDNE Stock project

I was in my 12 year old daughter’s room and saw a small box with the lid off, so I went over to take a look. It was like something from a b grade horror movie, so much to take in. First off I couldn’t work out what it was but realised it was the head of a bird still with feathers and eyes sunken plus the bonus of the stench of rotting. She had it sitting on tissue, so obviously put some effort into the heads comfort. Next to that was a miniature bible and a cross she made of wood. The whole thing was like a weird shrine thing. I eventually found out what this all meant, she found the bird head outside, felt sorry for it and had made an open burial or something for it. She loves animals but still..

#25

Image source: ARboredgamer, Nancy Hughes

Food that had formed new life by the time I found it.

#26

Image source: OrchidFlow26, Kampus Production

So, there were a few instances where I had to go into my stepsons room to look for something. He came into my life when he was 11 so this was maybe 12 or 13. Found a box of women’s underwear all stretched out, including one of mine. I put it back and told his Dad. It started when he was 7 his Dad said, but he was an a*****e narcissist that I divorced a few years ago, so who knows. So, I had the pleasure of finding that box a few times over the years. The last time he was prob 17 and about to or had graduated. I got home from work and found my bureau had been sooo obviously rifled thru. I was so mad and felt so violated. Also, very angry. He wasn’t home yet so I was like, ok, let’s see how he likes it. Oh, the s**t I found. 4 or 5 big d**dos, lots of stretched out underwear, women’s clothes, tampons. The list goes on. I had a talk with him about how violated I felt and how when his guy friends catch him stealing their gf’s thong life is gonna be different. No matter how caring, loving, and nice you are you are always gonna be the guy that steals panties. I told him I couldn’t make him stop and as long as he’s not hurting anyone I don’t care. What a feeling a helplessness.

#27

Image source: Shrifter, Immo Wegmann

I loved sugar as a kid and I had a big zip lock bag full of powder sugar, also near it a spoon that for some reason I was melting chocolate on because I thought it looked cool, I was 12, mom thought I was doing d***s.

#28

Image source: Riyeko, Jonnas Duarte

My oldest is 20 now, but back when he was 17 his friends kept hanging out until the early hours of the morning and he would come in *exhausted*.

Like drop his s**t on the floor and pass out for 12hrs on the couch exhausted.

So, curious, I went into his room and looked around.

Right in the middle of the room was a damned traffic cone. One of the huge triangle ones.

I was like, wtf?! Asked him about it and he said it was going to apart of his Halloween costume. Low and behold he was a massive traffic cone for Halloween and came home at a decent time.

I have weird kids… But I’m proud of them.

#29

Image source: MsPennyP, Mikhail Nilov

“Science” experiments. Like the insides of stress balls emptied out. Hair gel mixed with glue. Glue mixed with stress balls goop. Pencil with layers of glue like it was dipped. Glued fuzzy sticks- “art” apparently.

Other teen just has empty snack wrappers stuff behind their bed. Thankfully he does put his used Kleenex in the trash can.

#30

Image source: Analyst_Cold, cottonbro studio

My mom found super dirty notes my boyfriend wrote me in high school (early ‘90s). She went ballistic when I got home from school because she thought we were having s*x. Not that it would have been a huge deal. We were 16. But we hadn’t done anything. He was just writing erotic fantasy starring me. Lol.

#31

Image source: wimwood, Nipun Haldar

When my oldest daughter moved out, she thought she took her whole knife collection with her. Wrong. We found seven more knives over the course of the next year as we slowly cleaned the room out. Knives that she didn’t even remember she had. It wasn’t Creepy like something is wrong with her, it was just like how in the world do you amass this many collectible knives by the age of 18?

Doing laundry and finding a pile of the nastiest crustiest stiffest most use up men’s socks one could ever encounter. Those socks held an entire planet wide generation of semen. I said it was the last time I would EVER do our son’s laundry as he was 15 and more than old enough to do his own. Only became more disturbing when I realized that was my very adult mid-30s brother’s laundry, left over from when his washer had been broken and he was washing at our house.

For my youngest, worst thing we’ve found is a fart bag where she and her bestie were trying to save up farts. They had one at besties house too — her mom made them throw it out saying it was “unsanitary.” I just howled and left it alone. A fart bag. Hilarious, why didn’t I ever try that as a kid!

#32

Image source: SideBackground6932, Eli Duke

A rusted train nail. Not snooping. She folded it up in a sweatshirt to keep it safe and I was putting away laundry. She thought it was an artifact. Couldn’t believe something could be that rusty without being 100 years old.