MoneyMoral Dilemma: Should I make my friend pay for the vase?

mark3e

No worries the insurance covers it

cuprar

No. It's illegal to dock money for this type of problem. Insurance should be in place to cover the damage.

Helen66

Claim on your house insurance. If I was in your friends position, however, I would have offered to clean for a couple of hours for free to compensate you for the trouble.

JayD

A few years ago I had a cleaner who was the mum of my daughter's friend. It helped us both out as I was studying at the time. She broke a Victiorian cake stand of mine that was not only valuable but precious as it had belonged to my mother. She blithely told me that she had broken the cake stand adding 'but it was pretty old any way'.

I did nothing about it at all - I didn't even advise her that it was valuable both in money terms and emotional ones. It was my feeling that, having someone else handle my things at my own bidding was something undertaken at my own risk. Also, anyone could have broken it at any time - including me. It was an accident, not a deliberate act of vandalism.

So I saw no reason to make her feel bad, or upset an otherwise happy relationship over it.

My view is that if the monetary value is so important, then such things should be covered by insurance.

I remember my mum hugging me and saying 'never mind' when I accidentally broke something of hers long ago. I needed those hugs. I was shocked by the breakage. When she hugged me she said , "Don't worry, they are only things ... just things ... they are not really important."

So, I would not ask this friend for the money. I am sure she was already pretty upset about having broken the vase and she certainly could afford to replace it. At the end of the day it is only a vase. Just a thing.