13 Crazy Things Home Depot Employees Have Seen

Imagine going to The Home Depot and discovering a customer taking a nap on patio furniture. Or perhaps you see some teenagers stealing items from the store's garden center. These examples are pretty tame compared to what some Home Depot employees have seen! The website reddit and other forums are rife with funny and often unbelievable stories from employees. Here's a look at 13 crazy things Home Depot employees have witnessed.

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forklift
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Hitching a Ride

Many Home Depot employees report seeing people hitching a ride on the store’s order pickers (commonly referred to as forklifts). One employee even watched someone try to hitch a ride on one of the store’s delivery trucks.

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Shed Surprise

One Home Depot employee reports finding two people having a little too much fun in a store shed that was displayed out in the parking lot. The employee writes, “They even lit a candle to set the mood.” Here are 20 weird things you can buy at Home Depot.

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measuring
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One at a Time

A Home Depot reports he had a customer throw a measuring tape at the back of his head when the customer was told he would have to wait as the employee was currently helping another customer. “I told him I was working with someone else but here’s my measuring tape so you can get the dimensions of the toolbox.” So much for trying to help. These are the eight best-value brand hand tools you can find at Home Depot.

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Bathroom Mystery

One Home Depot employee wrote about a horrific scene in the store’s bathroom. “In the stall a pool of blood and splatter all over the toilet paper holder. Mounds of completely soaked toilet paper and more splatter on the door of the stall. Then bloody footprints and huge splatters of blood that got smaller as the footprints faded.” The employee thinks a shoplifter tried to cut open a package or cut off a tag and slashed themselves. Every DIYer should own these safety gear items.

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garden
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Fence Jumper

Just before closing, a Home Depot employee recalled a man who said he “just needed to get something really quick,” so the manager let him in. About 10 minutes later, the man was found in the garden area throwing items to his friends waiting on the other side of the fence. The manager told the man to just come down from the fence, but he instead jumped, broke both his legs and an ambulance was called. Here are 10 modern fence ideas for your backyard.

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Wood Scraps
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Customer Tantrum

Imagine watching a 65-year-old man throw a tantrum in the middle of the store. According to a Home Depot employee, that happened when a man got upset in the lumber department. The man threw his hat at a female associate and ended up rolling around on the floor, “flailing and yelling.” “He walked out without buying anything and was asked to never come back,” the employee wrote. Here’s how to make sense of confusing lumber dimensions.

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Scooter
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Scooter Ramming

“I watched one of our associates get rammed (and knocked over) by a crazy old duffer driving one of those mobility scooters,” one employee reports. The employee said the scooter driver then told the employee he should have gotten out of the way. This is the best time to go to The Home Depot.

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Bathroom
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Bathroom Closed

When restrooms were being renovated at one Home Depot store, a set of temporary restrooms were set up outside. One customer was so upset that an employee reports he decided to relieve himself all over the store floor and down an aisle. Check out these 13 tips for cleaning a bathroom faster and better.

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service desk home depot employee sign in
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Spit

We all have at least one customer service horror story, but imagine getting so upset you decide to spit on the counter. That’s just what happened when one customer became irate at one Home Depot service desk.

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Floor Complaint

Home Depot’s decor isn’t exactly designed for creature comfort. One disgruntled customer complained “we should do something about the hard concrete floors, as they are uncomfortable to walk on,” an employee recalled. Pour the perfect concrete slab with these tips.

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green treated pressure treated wood lumber
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Punishment in the Lumber Aisle?

One Reddit poster reported that they spotted a customer spanking their child in the lumber aisle with … you guessed it — lumber.

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hauling lumber truck
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Load It Up

Another Reddit user recalled an experience where a customer wanted them to load 600 pounds of concrete and 30 sheets of particle board into his van. Only there was a small problem — that’s a lot of weight for any vehicle. The customer drove away with his tires flat as a pancake and his differential scraping the ground, the poster said.

Here are our tips on how to safely haul things so you don’t have your differential scraping the ground.

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contact paper drawer liner
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Think Before Calling

Sometimes it’s a good idea to think before you call someone. That was the case for one Home Depot customer who called Home Depot and threatened to call lawyers because their drawer liners didn’t stick well, a Reddit user wrote. The Home Depot employee said the customer and her husband had spent hours trying to put the drawer liners in. The customer even threatened to call the CEO of Home Depot. Later on, the store got a voice mail asking them to disregard the previous voicemails. Turns out, the caller’s husband forgot to peel the back of the drawer liners.

Find out why a drawer liner is a good idea for your junk drawer.

Rachel Brougham
Rachel Brougham spent years working in newsrooms, for television and newspapers, and has won several awards for her writing. In 2015, she left her full-time job as a newspaper editor to focus on freelance writing and editing. She has been a Family Handyman contributor since 2017.
In 2019, Rachel lived through a major remodeling project on her home, and she uses that experience to inform her Family Handyman content. She's also an avid gardener (both native plants and vegetables), enjoys keeping up with decor trends and spends a lot of time traveling, cooking and hanging out with her family and their giant dog.