People Who Work For Or Interact With The Rich Describe The Weirdest Things They’ve Seen Behind Closed Doors (30 Stories)

My sister is a nanny for an NBA player and his wife. The wife called my sister at 9 PM to come to their house for an "urgent" matter. When my sister gets to their house, the wife tells her take the trash out. That's it. My sister drove an hour round trip to take out the trash.

She has so many ridiculous stories about this family, but that one is my go-to.

Edit: My sister signed an NDA, so I'm pretty sure I have to keep his name under wraps unless I want a shake-down. Let's just say he's in his 20's and he seems like a decent guy. His wife is just an entitled, raging b**tch.

I know a lady who's discreetly rich. One of those that unless you knew the more expensive but quiet brands, you wouldn't be able to place her. She would wear designer jewellery sets to the gym. Anyway, her quirk was she liked Costa coffee, so she'd get one one day, drink half of it, let it cool and then put the rest of it in the fridge, and reheat and drink the other half the next day. When she told us that she does this, and we asked her why, she laughed and said: I'm just frugal.

My dad is an electrician and has worked in some very rich houses. He did a job in one where the couple only drank very posh fresh coffee. Fair enough, who wouldn't? But they had a cleaner who was permitted one cup of coffee each day, but not their coffee. She had her own separate coffee, but it wasn't even a decent, if cheaper, brand. It was the cheapest possible sort to buy, Asda smartprice instant or something. If a person comes to my flat, whether they are a friend or the plumber, they are a guest and they will 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.

I used to be a live- in nanny for the CEO of a major German investment bank in Berlin. They were a lovely couple with a sweet baby girl, and they made me feel like part of the family from day 1. They paid me well, had a separate car for me and weren't concerned by what I did in my spare time. They were very generous, lovely people.

My only gripe is that they had strange eating habits- some days they would have three enormous meals, and other days they would 'forget' to eat all day. I was often too shy to say that i was hungry

I've only babysat one time and it was for a friend of my grandparents. All I really had to do was hang out with their 8 year old grandson for a night. Overall it was a pretty cool night. All we did was play 2K and Madden all night so it wasn't bad.

But anyway, this family wasn't like billionaire wealthy, but wealthy enough to where they left me an envelope with $500 in it and told me whatever I don't spend on food, I can keep. Wealthy enough to have sped off in a Maserati for the dinner they were at. Wealthy enough to have a pool, jacuzzi, and nice BBQ builtin to the backyard out back. You get the idea, they were just an old couple with some money, and they were taking their grandson's parents out to dinner one particular night. Leave me with $500, so I think to myself, I might as well splurge like 30 or 40 bucks on a meal for 2 and pocket the rest. I was like 17 or 18 at the time so I can't say it was a negligible amount of money. Anyway, I take the kid outside to my car across the street, which, at the time, was my older brother's 2005 Toyota Corolla.

He gets in, takes a look around, and goes "Where's the button that moves the roof back?" Sorry kid, no convertible here. He tells me that his parent's only have convertible cars and that he's only been in one other car that isn't a convertible, and that "he isn't my friend anymore."

I thought that was pretty weird. Throughout the night, he did also make some interesting "rich kid" comments, such as asking if we could go to a restaurant that had steak on the menu. He revealed an interesting bit about his parents, saying that they keep talking about bringing him a sister when "the time is right." Apparently the kid asked the dad when the right time was and he said when "mommy stops being afraid."

I then learned that the kid's mom and dad divorced about a year later. Felt bad. He was a cool kid, didn't really have that shi**y spoiled vibe. More like an innocent, curious, steered wrong by his parents vibe.

Worked for a beverage distribution place in a very ritzy resort area for awhile. Guys assistant shows up and says he needs a pallet of Evian for his bosses house. No problem. We load it on 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 unload it. So we start downstacking and carry cases of this s**t 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.

Totally forget how they got their start in life.

I used to work for a guy who ran his businesses into the ground and declared bankruptcy (more than once I believe). He then married rich and his wife paid for him to go to school for a decent certification. He now owns a business that's slowly 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 nonstop about "lazy millennials" who are so "entitled" and "think they deserve free stuff from the government." It bugged me so much to see how he was so dependent on grace and luck that just doesn't exist anymore, but he thought he was so much better than anyone who wanted a leg up.

I was a babysitter for rich people once.

Their silverware was constantly filthy and caked in what resembled peanut butter and regret.

Their children were pleasant, but refused to brush their teeth more often than their hygiene-impaired parents 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 Christianity.

Would repeat the experience. It was mostly getting paid to help with homework and watch Voltron in pillow forts.

Growing up my mother would clean houses for wealthy individuals. There was an elderly widowed woman with large all white poodles. She insisted that my mother clean them with bleach. She would provide 2 gallons of bleach each week.

My mother never did bleach them, she just poured out the bleach in the tub.

My mom first came to germany as an au pair for a family of 5, the mother was a doctor and the dad was an engineer and they had three teenage boys, they were not insanely rich but my mom grew up in a village in rural Thailand so it was definitely a different dimension for her. She got up every day at 5 to make breakfast for the whole family when one morning, the father comes down the stairs butt naked, followed by the mom, fully nude as well, and the kids who were also wearing nothing. They apparently spend a couple of days like this in the summer, imagine how shocked my mom must have been being a little 21 year old asian girl in a foreign country, having to serve a fully naked family...

Im an assistant to a rich guy, i help him run his business. Most of the ones i know are very entitled, they dont understand no. I have know idea how some of these people got rich. I watched my boss have a full blown temper tantrum because a customer called him 40 minutes before he was leaving on vacation. Full blown melt down, this guy barely does anything and goes on vacation at least once a month, screws over his customers on a regular basis. We ordered a burger one day and they used a seasame seed bun, he does not like seasame seeds so he threw the burger at the cook and basically lost his s**t. Always complains about how shi**y his life is, even though he buys anything and goes anywere he wants. Its hard to explain until you see it, but money and greed really screws people up, once he gets back from summering in LA, im looking for something new as i just dont care anymore.

The most bizarre was this newly rich young family in Vienna. The bed time routine for the kids (aged 3 and 7) included basically a spa treatment for both. I haven't seen that amount of products in a child's bathroom (they each had their own) in my life. The poor 7 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, hair oil, and some other things I didn't recognise - every night.

They only had one tiny box of toys and time spent playing was set up for 30 minutes after they 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 sweetness to it whatsoever, it tasted awful.

They had time to explain EVERYTHING to me the first time I was there and I received an inch thick file with lists and procedures to follow. What they didn't mention was that the older girl was still wearing diapers at night. It made for a very awkward conversation with the child and I only hope I was sensitive enough to not cause her any future trauma.

Very, VERY weird.

dog walker here. one of my clients only lets her dog drink smart water.

Wasn't really behind closed doors or anything but I delivered furniture to a very rich person's mega-house once only to discover, as we were going from room to room, a few rooms were completely bare and empty. I didn't really register it at first because I figured we would be putting furniture in there with the load we were delivering but that didn't happen and I mentioned to a co-worker how the one room was bigger than my living room and completely bare and he said "maybe they're getting stuff during another round?" and the guy heard and said "nah that room is staying empty - I have no use for it. Same with the others too." I couldn't really wrap my head around a lot of things after that. First off to be rich enough to afford a house like that, then on top of that, purposefully have parts of your house go completely unused because you don't care about them. Like...why even buy a house that big then? Why overdo it and leave some of it unused? Why not just buy what you need and use it all? Rich people are weird.

I nannied for a New York City power couple in 2014. Both were corporate lawyers for national banks. The husband owned more socks than I had ever seen at one time in my life. Drawers upon drawers of them, all navy blue, black, and grey.

I grew up in a middle class family living in of the richest parts of the country, a lot of my friends had incredibly rich parents. What I remember most of all was how weird some of them can be with money, they'd spent big money on some things then turn around to be incredibly frugal on something else.

I knew people that wouldn't think twice about dropping €300k on a new car or putting in a sauna and swimming pool in their basement but who wouldn't allow us more than half a bag of chips between the three of us.

Helped my mother in law who was a maid once with a very large mansion in NC. Beautiful house, amazing architecture. They traveled the world all the time. The kitchen had old old appliances from the 70's, the wife's bathroom had a broken toilet seat that was duct taped together. The wife did not rewear her underwear. We were not to go in the basement. I peaked down there, there were clothes three foot deep in the basement where she took off her clothes and just threw them down there. Thousands of pairs of underwear. Very weird people.

I was a nanny for an affluent family. They had a beautiful home and nice vehicles and the kids all had lots of toys and new clothes but while doing laundry one day I had to take a load of moms cloths out of the dryer and every single pair of her panties had multiple holes in them. Not like gnaw holes lol but worn out most tattered panties I've ever seen holes.

Got curious and looked in her under garment drawer and this was par for the course and not just period panties. She was like a major high up in a huge company and her panties looked worse than I would imagine a homeless person wearing.

The family that regularly bought complicated Lego sets for their five year old, and then assembled them for him because they were too complicated for a five year old, while he looked on and complained they weren't doing it fast enough, still receive periodic installments of my pity and contempt. Like, dude: he's not learning anything except that Mommy and Daddy were put on the planet to please him, and he's not actually learning anything from the toys. They also bought the kid new toys once a week or so. I just...I can't with some parents.

Gosh, where to start?

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. As she was leaving, she saw another tub she liked and simply had to get that one too. She wasn't renovating a house at the time.

They refuse to throw away food. Used by and best before dates are completely ignored, to the point where I found a tin of seafood marinara which 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 3-4 times a year. When they're not visiting, no one lives there.

When the family go out for dinner, the father will happily pay for the expensive meals but not the drinks. The kids (who are all teens or older) have to pay him back for the drinks and he will send reminder messages about the amount. Yet when any of the kids offer to pay for the meal, he won't accept.

The wife is a hoarder and will often take way more samples than any normal person. She always makes sure to take all the shampoo/soap etc from hotel rooms and if she passes the housekeeping trolley, will grab as many as she can from there too. Yet she never uses them. They have a whole bathroom cupboard dedicated to samples.