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

Accidents happen. Yeah I’d be a bit peeved my washer was broken but if friend offered to pay for it to be fixed that would be fine. At the end of the day you were doing him a a favour and hindsight is a wonderful thing, there was no need for him to be so rude when you’ve offered to pay for repairs / fixing it or just go and look at it as chances are it’s just stuck on some setting. In fact that reminds me my mum thought her washer was broken recently and I’d used it last (don’t usually). Think I’d put some weird setting on and we had to press 2 buttons at the same time to release it. She had already ordered a new one when we discovered this.

So your child was running around his house unsupervised, moving things and messing around and for whatever reason the washing machine is broken. You say you accept responsibility but you haven’t in any way - you are blaming it on everything/everyone else - your teen should have been watching, he doesn’t know his own washer, he was having an alcoholic episode, he may have done something, the paper was coming off the wall anyway - literally everything else rather than the obvious (accepting responsibility that) I should have been watching the toddler and she did mess with the machine which is now broken . Slopey shoulders is what my parents would call it but I am surprised at the art form you’ve turned it into.

FWIW she’s not your average toddler and has traits of ADHD. She can be a bit of a whirlwind and has form for similar (but less dangerous) behaviour when visiting relatives so from now on I’ve decided to not take her to other people’s houses unless I know I can watch her constantly. Lots of people have pointed out that a toddler can’t easily break a washing machine and I agree. I’m quite an anxious person and if I thought for one minute that she could have actually broken it then I would have checked it…furthermore it seems to be an electrical fault so how on Earth could she have done that?

However a few posters have picked up on the alcohol factor and I feel that really is the issue here….Especially as he then went and accused us of picking off a flap of peeling paint that was already hanging off 🙄

He was very hot headed about it all and sadly I do think that was the alcohol talking. He won’t take any money yet he won’t let us see if we can help fix it either so it’s an impossible situation.

Someone made a v good suggestion that we get the fault diagnosed and I pay for repair if it was the toddler. TBH I’m tempted to just shove the money for a new one in an envelope, put it through the door and be done with it all but I just don’t have that kind of money to spare unnecessarily right now if it wasn’t us.

Maybe he was just freaking out about us having been in his house. The toddler also found a plastic folder with paperwork in, I have no idea what kind of paperwork (it was kind of see through so I could see something was in there but didn’t know what) but also didn’t know where it had come from. I told her to put it where she found it, but she may have got the wrong place….I did tell him about this and where she’d put it as I felt awkward as if we’d been through their stuff - it could have been letters from his late partner for all I know.

Either way I don’t feel like he trusts us now, washing machine aside, I feel very accused.

YABU. What a crappy way to treat your friend's home.

Parent your children. It isn't cute.

Not surprised he doesn't trust you, finding a folder of documents and telling him you found it, I would feel really, really uneasy about that. How long was she running riot around to do all of this?

FWIW she’s not your average toddler and has traits of ADHD. She can be a bit of a whirlwind and has form for similar (but less dangerous) behaviour when visiting relatives so from now on I’ve decided to not take her to other people’s houses unless I know I can watch her constantly

The mind boggles that you don't already do this, so bloody dangerous you're lucky nothing bad has happened before.

FatJan

“All I can say is I hope you never come to water my plants OP.”

Don’t worry I’m never watering anyone’s plants again that’s for sure 😆

It actually sounds like he did you a bigger favour (allowing you to stay till you got the covid test results) than you did for him(watering the plants). The fact you then allowed your toddler to run riot in his place was just taking the piss.

I still don’t understand why you went over there to water outdoor plants when there was excessive rain and flooding?

Floralcoral that’s very unfair indeed, she’s 2.5 so I’m only just coming to terms with the possibility that my child may have ASD…

A v good friend of mine has a child with autism, I’m sure he’s done a lot of things but never managed to break a washing machine - if anything he’d try to fix things rather than break them. My little one just thought she was being helpful by washing a flip-flop. She wasn’t ripping the house apart.

Why ask if you’re so convinced you weren’t in the wrong 🙄 🙄

ShamelessCurtainTwitcher

I’m sorry, I really don’t understand why you think I was laughing because the washing machine is broken…I was making light of a crappy situation that arose from doing something as innocent as watering plants - would you like me to cry instead?

Shameless I'm guessing you didn't have to worry about your kid wrecking your friends appliances because you don't have any (( friends that is))

What a tedious, odd little person you are.

Oh and ShamelessCurtainTwitcher I do have two teenagers - they are both ace - I’m not entirely sure how that happened as of course I’m such a crappy parent 🤷🏻‍♀️

@JellyJellyTooToo

Floralcoral that’s very unfair indeed, she’s 2.5 so I’m only just coming to terms with the possibility that my child may have ASD…

A v good friend of mine has a child with autism, I’m sure he’s done a lot of things but never managed to break a washing machine - if anything he’d try to fix things rather than break them. My little one just thought she was being helpful by washing a flip-flop. She wasn’t ripping the house apart.

But she also found a box of papers, and you admit yourself you assumed your other child was keeping an eye so aren't sure what she did. I'd be surprised if many people were happy with their 2.5 year old walking around a house that isn't child proofed, potential diagnosis aside.

PlasticEgg I would laugh at that comment but I’m not allowed to 🤭

Oh seriously ShamelessCurtainTwitcher? 🤷🏻‍♀️

OP, YANBU.

You’ve said it could be your fault but you aren’t sure and you’ve offered to pay or to try to resolve. That’s a completely reasonable response to a suboptimal situation.

Paranoid, aggressive, lashing out from a grieving booze hound is horrible to take but if you possibly can, just try to let it roll off you.

How can you moan it wasn’t a child proofed house (why should it be?) when YOU were the one to use the machine last so therefore YOU left the powder in easy reach?

I’ve no idea. But… My toddler did break my washing machine. She liked to stand in front of it pressing the buttons on and off a lot. After a week of this it died. I don’t know exactly why it couldn’t cope with this but I didn’t let her play with it again!

So what I’m saying is you can’t be sure your toddler didn’t break it, and she shouldn’t have been unsupervised with it…