Toddler accused of breaking friend’s washing machine

[JellyJellyTooToo]

I’ll try to keep this as brief as poss but sorry if it’s a bit long….

Was watering a friends flowers while they were away. In the one occasion I took my toddler with me she ran a bit riot and while I was busy watering the plants in the garden she managed to move a few bits around in the house etc.

She wasn’t inside on her own, an older dc was with her but had an operation a few weeks ago and I hadn’t realised she’d sat on the sofa and stopped watching what little one was doing. She really should have told me she wasn’t watching her but didn’t 😒.

Toddler managed to put a flip flop into the washing machine and sprinkle it with washing powder. She may have fiddled with the buttons but certainly didn’t switch it on. Drum was open. I removed the flip flop but just left powder in the machine for them to use when they got back (but forgot to mention it). I didn’t for one minute think she’d broken it.

Yesterday, I received an irate phone call asking what the hell we’d done to the washing machine - I explained about the flip flop. Apparently it wasn’t working at all, no power, lights etc. He slammed the phone down on me.

For background said “friend” is the partner of a dear friend of mine who sadly died. He is an alcoholic and always has been for as long as I’ve known him. I remember my late friend saying how he’d get in funny moods etc but I’ve never seen this side of him before, he’s always been pretty chilled-out around me.

As little one had fiddled with the machine, offered to pay for repair/replacement straight as it could have been her. He won’t take any money. But has obviously gone round the house and checked everything and is now accusing us of peeling a flap of paint off of the door (which was coming off anyway)

However I can’t help thinking that he’s just got into a tizzy and taken it out on me, all this stuff about missed flights and family issues came out and he was very stressed.

He won’t let us go round to look at the machine for ourselves. Apparently his dd has to quarantine

I know it was definitely working before as I used it myself when we stayed there for one night after being in hospital. He said there were no lights on, but when I used it I actually thought that it could be broken as no lights came on until I pressed start. So I can see how it would be easy to think it was broken.

He’s pulled it out, changed the fuse, checked the filter etc. He also hoovered the powder out for some reason.

I can’t help but think that he’s seen the powder in the drum, panicked, fiddled with the machine without checking the manual and settings and then possibly done something to it himself. Or maybe it was always working but he hadn’t changed the setting back or something and he just freaked out.

Our toddler fiddles with out washing machine etc all the time (as well as other things) and has never managed to cause an electrical fault in anything. I just don’t understand how she could possibly have broken it 🤷🏻‍♀️

So…
IABU she broke the machine
Or
IANBU it was some kind of alcoholic episode

[ravenmum]

his DD significantly damaged something in my house when she was small and I said nothing because she was a child
Thing is, though, OP, he only has your word that it was your daughter doing any of this, and not you using his home as a laundrette and rifling through his things while he was away. Remember that when he brought it up, you demonstrated that you are far more familiar with his washing machine than he is himself:

There is a child lock, I asked him about that, he didn’t know how to use it. Also an eco function I think that switches lights off. He didn’t seem to know much about the different functions…
To be honest, part of my "investment" in this thread comes from the fact that it is quite funny imagining the scenario of you seeing it one way and him potentially having a totally different idea of what might have been going on behind his back - sorry 😬 but it has great potential for a comedy scriptwriter, you reeling off how his machine works to him while at the same time claiming not to have touched it.

[JellyJellyTooToo]

ravenmum again reading between the lines which does nothing but derail the thread. It was my teen dd that mentioned the possibility of an eco function and child lock - something only confirmed when I googled a pic of the machine. I think I did press that one once myself when I was trying to get it to start.

I’ve not been “rifling through his things” and neither would I want to either. It would take a very strange person indeed to do anything like that - or a toddler!

[tofutti]

YANBU. Time to end the friendship, you are not his whipping bag.

[ravenmum]

OP, you're not getting my point. I'm not saying you rifled through his things and then started a thread about how you definitely didn't rifle through his things, just for the fun of it. I'm saying that he has no way of knowing what you did, as he wasn't there, and pointing out how it might look from his point of view. Your apparent detailed knowledge about his washing machine being one such example.
Do you see how he might have got the wrong end of the stick? You asked outsiders for their POV and that's what you got. A different POV. Like his POV.

[Hesma]

I’m just confused as to why anyone was in the house while you were watering flowers 🤷‍♀️

[HeyDemonsItsYaGirl]

Because the OP took the absolute piss and has no respect for other people.

[ohthatbloodycat]

Sorry, but YABU. Your toddler sounds like she'd run amok in restaurants, shops etc and needs careful supervision!

[tofutti]

@ravenmum

OP, you're not getting my point. I'm not saying you rifled through his things and then started a thread about how you definitely didn't rifle through his things, just for the fun of it. I'm saying that he has no way of knowing what you did, as he wasn't there, and pointing out how it might look from his point of view. Your apparent detailed knowledge about his washing machine being one such example.
Do you see how he might have got the wrong end of the stick? You asked outsiders for their POV and that's what you got. A different POV. Like his POV.

This is bonkers. If you give people a key to your home, you have to live with the uncertainly that they have 'rifled' through your things, unless you install CCTV. That doesn't mean OP actually rifled through his things. It's almost as if you are blaming OP for him needing his flowers watered.

And OP says she did use the washing machine, so of course she knows how to work it.

[Trampolean]

Most people: yes it seems unreasonable to let your toddler run around someone else's house and rifle through their stuff.

OP: but...but....

I never understand why people start threads if they then don't take on board what people say and just keep arguing that they're right.

[ravenmum]

@tofutti
This is bonkers. If you give people a key to your home, you have to live with the uncertainly that they have 'rifled' through your things
The guy knows that someone did go through his things. He just doesn't know who.
OP has described how her toddler "moved a few bits around in the house etc." and "found a plastic folder with paperwork in" and she "felt awkward as if we’d been through their stuff - it could have been letters from his late partner".
I'm pointing out how that might appear to her late friend's husband.
Clearly a complicated concept, though.

[tofutti]

@ravenmum well OP says the toddler moved the folder. She didn't 'rifle' through the folder.

if the friend thinks OP moved his things around him, that's on him for giving the key to someone he doesn't trust. Do you get it or too complicated for you?

[ravenmum]

Clearly far, far too complicated for me. And maybe just as complicated for the "friend" that OP has told everyone was having an alcoholic episode.