Need a hand hold - never again letting my DD have a party again!

I'm sure you'll come to an agreement of how she'll pay for the damage & help fix the house. However, at 26 I think she seriously needs to reflect on the company she keeps. Why did not anybody try to help clear up? Only 20 people you say but a shocking amount of carelessness.
People are taking advantage of your daughter (and you!) with your lovely home, hot tub and outdoor tv. It's sad but you have to make her learn her lesson.
She definitely has to clean all of it up especially the vomit. You have to have serious conversations and stop enabling her. It probably is time to move out and have responsibilities and live in the real world!

Absolutely not! At your DD’s age there’s no excuse for behaving like a 13 year old who’s having her first sniff of alcohol and allowing people she has invited into her (and by extension your) home to be so utterly disrespectful, destructive and downright gross!

She now needs to clean up all of the mess - vomit, rubbish, stained sheets etc. Anything that requires professional cleaning eg sofa cushions she needs to take to the dry cleaners and foot the bill. Then she needs to do all the leg work/admin to find people to quote for and repair/replace the TV, hot tub, kitchen worktop and rehang/replace the damaged doors. It hopefully goes without saying that all the costs associated with this should also be entirely covered by your DD.

You need to very clearly set out your expectations to your DD tonight and agree next steps / the plan for remedying that you are happy with. If she so much as pulls a face at any of what you demand, give her a week’s notice to find somewhere else to live that her ‘friends’ can treat like a doss house!

At 26 she should be old enough to respect your home and make sure her friends do the same. I would make her clear up as much as possible and pay for any damage which cannot be sorted through insurance or by just general cleaning. I also think you should up her rent or at least make sure she is saving for a deposit so she can move out in the next year or two. In the meantime I would be saying she cannot have friends home as they all treat your home like a cesspit. You need to worry less about her social life and more about raising her as a responsible adult who respects others property and is working towards financial independence.

The reason she is like this is bc you enable her, I know that bc you are asking if she should pay, as if that's even a question. She clearly has never had to deal with the consequences of her actions which is why she's 26 and acts like she's 16. If you don't kick her out after making her pay for the damages, you are doing her a disservice.

@MyFairGreenTurtle I remember going to house parties like that when I was 14. I'm astonished that it's a woman in her mid 20s.

Agree - in fact not only should she not be behaving as though nothing has happened but she should be packing her bags and ringing around her party friends to see if someone has a spare room she can rent.

The hot tub control pad, the outside tv, the worktop and carpet stains will tot up easily to over 5 grands worth of damage. Easily!

I would sit down with her and come up with a payment plan so she can reimburse you. Say £300 a month.

I would also increase her rent to at least 75 percent of market value. She’s taking the piss. She won’t move out because she pays a pittance to live in house with hot tubs and outdoor TVs.

I would tell her that at 26, she needs to think about moving out and 2026 will be the year she knuckles down and saves for a deposit with a view to moving out in spring 2027 - because you and your wife are sick to the back teeth of hosting frat parties for 26 year old adults. I would hit the fucking roof to be honest. She’s 26!

Oh and I would also not get her a thing for Christmas. Whatever you have bought her, take it back and put the money towards carpet and upholstery cleaning. Tell her if she behaves like a teenager she can get treated like one. It’s pretty much the week before Christmas and your house resembles student lodging with chunks out of the worktop. Tell her not to buy you and your wife anything and you would prefer the cash to sort some of the damage. I can’t get over the nerve of her.

I went to a house party at a friends that ended up like this when I was 15.
We all spent the entire of the next morning calling glaziers, cleaning carpets and sofas, and putting things as right as we could before our friends parents got back. We at least all atrempted to make things right. We didnt wait for the parents to come back and tell us how to call an emergency glazier. We pooled money for cleaning stuff and scrubbed red wine and sick ourselves. It was a large house too with a party that got out of hand. But this was a bunch of 15 year olds. Not 26 year olds.
She was grounded for a very long time if I remember rightly.
How has your daughter just left it as it was for you to find?
At 26 most people have lived in their own house and understand the value of things. Even at 15 we knew it was not ok and rallied round to help rectify things.
They all came then buggered off and left her to deal with the fall out. Absolutely not good friends either.

Oh God, OP - I really didn’t need to read this tonight!! My son is meant to be having a ‘small gathering’ of friends over to celebrate his 18th next week and I am dreading it - I’m so worried that there will be costly damage done to the house 😩

If she’d hired a venue and trashed it this way, she’d be in a lot of trouble and liable for damage (not you), why shouldn’t this apply in your home? I can’t get my head around a 26yo behaving this way 🤷‍♀️ or was it a typo, you meant 16?

Sorry OP but the more I read the worse it gets.

Shes living at home at 26 and paying almost nothing. She should have thousands and thousands saved by now even if she were working minimum wage job. A fancy consultant job with international clients would pay a lot more than that.

She left uni five years ago ish? Where is all her money? She should be in a position to transfer you thousands upfront and get a loan for the rest.

She cried and that makes it okay? She has destroyed your home. “Help” get a quote? Is she for real?

I dont always like the whole “they’re 18 so they’re on their own” attitudes that you sometimes see but this is way too far the other way.

I don’t think you’re understanding how old she actually is. At 26 it wouldn’t be unusual at all for her to have her own home and children. She should be way beyond the teenage selfish stage.

Can you genuinely imagine yourself causing this amount of damage to another persons home and acting this way?

I am curious if her friends are much younger because I don’t even know where I would find an entire group of 26 year olds who act like this.

I actually think her reaction is way worse than the damage. She should have been mortified at what’s happened. She should be doing nothing but cleaning and ringing around for quotes. Is she genuinely just carrying on as normal? Is the mess all actually still there? She should be crawling around scrubbing the place.

Show her this thread OP. She is acting like a teenager.

Nope.

1. Only children stereotype - yawn.
2. If she is an only child why should the OP feel guilty about that?

OP, this is horrible for you.

I would feel my home had been violated.

Honestly? I’d be telling her she needs to find somewhere else to live.

I haven't read through the whole thread but just wondering if anyone else is shamefully wishing they had gone to a party like this 😁

Not to mention the overall increase in premiums in general for the rest of us. Quite why an Insurance co should pay for deliberately careless / wilful damage I don’t know. And the daughter definitely shouldn’t be allowed to think that you can trash a house and take no responsibility because the insurance pays.

Jesus. Christ.
If this is real, she's an absolute disgrace. She'd be paying every penny of it back and if she didn't cough up she'd be taken to small claims court.
She would also be without a doubt, looking for somewhere else to live. Maybe if she had to pay her own way, she might learn how to take care and pride in herself.
What a selfish spoilt little girl.
You need to find a spine. If I'd have done this at any age. My absolute best bet would have been to change my identity and flee the country cause my parents would have buried me under the patio I think.
But I would never have done this because I have respect for other people's things. I also don't have losers for friends.
Make her pay, get her out. Utterly disgusting. Crocodile tears and offering to help fine one quote? Ridiculous.

You are sounding very naive here OP. Do you really believe that about her job? She needs to arrange for everything to be replaced / fixed and pay for this herself obviously. Then she either moves out or has a lot more respect and pays standard rent / bills. Currently she is taking the poss, and you are allowing it. She’s also on drugs.

My 23-year-old just walked in, so I read her the damage and asked how old she thought the culprit was. She said, "13-17ish or my age and off their faces on coke and molly".

I'm inclined to agree.

Yes! Was thinking the same.

you’re a mug, OP. And she’s a pisstaker. What are you so guilty about that you’ve indulged her to this point? Is she an only child or something?

At 26? That’s insane! She must pay for the damage. Abd she needs to move out.

My DD had a NYE party at 17. We were out til about 1am and walked in to bedlam - people snogging all over, puke in a sink and on the fitted coir mat, total carnage.

However, friends helped clear up, one person stayed on the sofa as she was practically passed out and the next day her an DD cleared up the kitchen while dh and I went out for a fry up.

We replaced the mat but there wasn’t any other permanent damage.

I feel that most 26yos aren't keen to slob around their friends parents houses, leaving takeaway rubbish everywhere and then trashing their parents house?

OP talks as if she's a teenager, but most 26yo are fairly established adults. Even if OP has creates some entitled monster in her DD, I just can't believe all of her friends behave this way too? As a teen if this had happened at a house party there would have been a good few people trying to clean it up, let alone by 26! Surely most 26yos would be horrified at leaving someone else's house in that state?

OP you have enabled her and this is how she pas you.

Her ad hoc job and minimal board she pays means she doesn’t see herself as anything more than a kid playing at being an adult.

In your shoes, I’d be telling her she has to live somewhere else in the new year and I would sort out all the damages and present her with a bill for it all.If she won’t pay, I really think I would take her to the small claims court.

Her disrespect is astonishing and it’s time she grew up.

I would be so, so hurt if one of mine did this, especially at her age. It shows a total lack of respect and consideration for you personally. Yeah, she needs to pay for the damage, but my main concern would be that at 26 years old she is still in “mum is a separate species who can take absolutely anything I do in her stride” mode and has no empathy for you as a fellow human being. She needs jolting out of that mindset and she has a lot of growing up to do. I wouldn’t hold back on how devastating you find this. She needs to see it.

Tell her you are booking into a hotel, or renting airbnb, while she gets all the damage professionally cleaned, replaced, and mended. She will be totally responsible for all your costs, including food, laundry etc.

If she refuses I would speak to the Police. If it is a civil matter take her to Court claiming all the costs.