Should I have paid to get friends car cleaned?

[fantaorangeee]

Ok, so I don't personally think this was a big deal but that might be because I don't drive and my partner has an older car just to ferry the kids around. Interested to hear other people's thoughts nonetheless.

I made plans with a close friend last night to stay over at her house and have a night in. I went for a walk along the beach/dip in the sea beforehand and she picked me up afterwards as it was only down the road from where she lives. I jumped in the car and without thinking, I put my blanket/towel/bag on the back seats of the car. It's not a new car but it's new to her as she bought it around 3 weeks ago I think. It is quite an expensive car and has clearly been well looked after so I felt awful, as all my belongings were covered in sand. I hadn't realised what I'd done until I pulled everything out and the seats/floor were covered in the stuff.

I did apologise and offered to clean up but she said it was fine, although it clearly wasn't as when I came out of the shower she was outside cleaning the car. This was at 10pm. I told her I would have done it but she said no and told me she wouldn't be long. She must have been out there for around 20 minutes. She came in and said she'd have to take the car to be cleaned as it had all got into the seams of the seats and she couldn't get to it with a cloth. In all fairness she does live in a flat and has to park down the road so can't exactly get the hoover out. I told her I'd help her today but again she said no. She has suffered with ocd and anxiety since a young age and I noticed last night that she was extremely agitated, restless etc, presumably because of the car. She's like this with her house too.

She barely spoke a word to me last night and this morning was up walking around the house really early. I woke up around 9am and straight away she was asking me what time I wanted to be dropped off at home. I think she was rushing me to get out so she could take the car to be cleaned. Again, I apologised and offered to help clean up but she said it would need to be professionally valeted. I haven't heard from her since and it all feels very awkward. I spoke with my partner about it and he said maybe I should have offered to pay for it to be cleaned but I'm not working at the moment and I presume it would have cost around £40-£50 to be cleaned (it's quite a big car).

I understand it must have been frustrating for her and I'm usually a very clean, tidy person but it was an accident and I did apologise and offered to clean it up. Surely I don't deserve the silent treatment over this? And would you fall out with a friend over something like this?

AIBU?

My cars spotless, I vacuum/clean inside every other week and get it valeted every month or so with a full on £150 valet every 3-4 months.

I still wouldn't care about sand. Its sand, literally the driest lightest substance ever. A decent fart could probably blow it out of ops mates car crevices!

To be honest you sound very dismissive of your friend.

Bottom line is for her it was a big deal. She stresses about her house and her car.
You totally messed up her car (you say your stuff was 'covered in sand' but you hadn't noticed ?) and it clearly upset her.

You mention a silent treatment but left her only this morning- is she even giving you the silent treatment or has she been busy today?
Your whole post is totally flippant- you didn't think it was a big deal and now claim she's ignoring you.
Wonder what her side of the story is.

She lives in a flat and cannot park next to her home, certainly not close enough to plug in a hoover.

Op should never have swam in sea then expected a lift

walk on beach - fine, you’re not gonna get that Sandy. You’re not a kid rolling about making sand castles.

swim in sea - not fine. Op was always going a mess with sea water and sand.

i wonder if OP’s mate knew she was going for a swim in sea rather than just a walk on beach when she offered lift??

It’s sand and not dogshit!

@fantaorangeee Your attitude isn’t great.

This isn’t about your friend having OCD, but about how you put your own needs before hers.

You don’t drive so it appears that you use your friend for lifts. How much petrol money do you give her every time she drives you somewhere? What relevance does you not working have on meeting your responsibilities towards others?

Unless you live in squalor, can you really not see this is the equivalent of someone dropping their sandy crap on your living room sofa instead of in a designated place (the car boot) and then not giving a stuff?

You alone caused the problem by your lack of consideration towards your friend, so it’s your responsibility to fix it.

I’m not remotely a neat freak, but I’d be hugely pissed off if anyone got sand on my car seats or carpets. If we take the dog to the beach, I put the rubber mat down plus some vet bed that can be washed afterwards.

If she’s giving you the silent treatment, I wonder how many other times she’s ended up feeling used by you??

This is a no brainer.

Send her £40 and a note apologising for the trouble you caused by your thoughtlessness.

Did you get sand all over her bathroom too?

It doesn't need to be professionally valeted at all. She just needs to use the garage hoover for a few pounds. Her OCD is taking over her life.

Yes, I also wondered whether the friend knew OP would be swimming and agree that this was the real mistake here. I absolutely adore sea swimming, it is in my top three greatest pleasures in life, but it's not an activity I'd do before going to a friend's house unless I really knew they'd be fine with the mess. This lift was never going to go well - people keep saying that OP should have put the stuff in the boot. She clearly should, but I also strongly suspect that the friend would also have been horrified if the boot had got sandy.

I would have wanted to throttle you, I cannot lie!

This!!

It could be cleaned in other ways but noo she wants a professional valet

Same lack of consideration @Jibo @Cailin66

Ok, so I don't personally think this was a big deal but that might be because I don't drive and my partner has an older car just to ferry the kids around

It's not a new car but it's new to her as she bought it around 3 weeks ago I think. It is quite an expensive car and has clearly been well looked after

She has suffered with ocd and anxiety since a young age and I noticed last night that she was extremely agitated, restless etc, presumably because of the car. She's like this with her house too

I spoke with my partner about it and he said maybe I should have offered to pay for it to be cleaned but I'm not working at the moment and I presume it would have cost around £40-£50 to be cleaned

All your words OP - so from all
that I get that you are saying because you can't drive and your partner drives an old banger, you can't appreciate or respect other peoples belongings. You knew it was an expensive car. You don't work at the moment. Her house is immaculate too. It sounds like you're jealous of your friend and maybe it wasn't an accident at all...

Anyone who's that precious about their car needs to get themselves a rechargeable cordless hoover.

The GTech one is brilliant for hoovering out cars.

I thought you might have been sick in it when i read your title.
Ok sand is annoying, i probably would have just hoovered it out myself, muttering as I did so, but shes clearly very fussy about her car and house and not as relaxed as you are so I
would have offered to help clean it ,which you did, and if you can afford it Id pay to have it valeted at one of the cheaper places ( some valeting costs £100+ if they are really detailed and shampoo upholestry etc but there are also some that would charge £25 for a hoover and clean so I would quantify where it was going! )
She does sound anxious/ ocd so it must have been hard for her to cope with but mistakes happen so offer her £25ish for valeting, apologise again, and draw a line

@Megifer

maybe OP’s mate doesn’t want to have spend £150 every three month getting her car valeted and so she is careful about goes in it. No way do I wanna drop that much on having my car valeted so when I go the beach I make sure me and my stuff isn’t all Sandy before getting in my car

however anyone tries to claim otherwise OP was sooooooo at fault here

Idk I don't think id pay. It's sand and while I appreciate she has OCD needing the valet rather than just using the hoover at the garage or someone's house is her choice bc of her condition. Not yours.

Most people who agree to pick someone up from the beach know some sand will be involved

I think you need to offer and borrow money from your parents or boyfriend. It's pretty obvious you'd cover her car in sand as it gets everywhere

I agree with @JudgeRudy. If her OCD is intrusive thoughts about contamination then she is not so much pissed off with you about getting sand in her car but in proper distress and not wanting you around or wanting suggestions about you cleaning or a valeting service. Probably because nothing other than her own ritualistic and repetitive cleaning will reassure her (though of course the reassurance never arrives in OCD). It’s difficult to understand the level of distress if you don’t have OCD and it’s why those of us who treat OCD get so frustrated when people say “I’m a little bit OCD” or Channel 4 produces another cleaning programme mocking people who suffer and trivialising the very real distress.

it will be pretty difficult never to fall foul of her OCD and tiptoeing around her isn’t necessarily helpful but you do owe her some space and then a big apology. I think offering her money towards the cleaning of her car is an important gesture, not for the removal of every grain of sand but as a concrete acknowledgement of the upset it has caused her.

Honestly I think a £3 vacuum at the petrol station would almost certainly solve the problem, but the OP's friend, due to her OCD, has settled on an OTT solution as the only one, which is understandable but I don't think OP needs to foot the bill for something expensive when there's a much cheaper alternative that would almost certainly do as good a job. She hasn't totalled the inside of the car or smeared shit over the interior, there is some sand that can be hoovered out.

OCD isn't some sort of carte blanche to make other people foot the bill for a solution that isn't actually needed. Has she even tried the hoover thing, or gone straight to needing an expensive valet without even trying the most obvious solution?

And I totally understand that it might have caused emotional distress but I don't think your own issues around cleanliness are a reason to feel justified in asking for a lot of money for something that could most likely be sorted for a fraction of the price. OP's friend hasn't asked for money anyway, and given it's her choice to go for the valet over the £3 hoover option, I don't think OP needs to be offering large chunks of money for some sand in a car, new or not.

Could she have parked it outside your house, OP, and used your hoover? That might have been something to offer, although I suspect she was already fixed in the mindset that it had to be a professional valet and nothing would change that.

It doesn’t matter. You caused a problem and you need to pay to fix it.

it will be pretty difficult never to fall foul of her OCD and tiptoeing around her isn’t necessarily helpful but you do owe her some space and then a big apology. I think offering her money towards the cleaning of her car is an important gesture, not for the removal of every grain of sand but as a concrete acknowledgement of the upset it has caused her.

This seems so wrong and so backwards in thinking to me. I've twice been so ill with anxiety that I became non-functional for a prolonged period of time (I've had lower level but clinical anxiety for much longer periods but these were the worst two episodes). Both times there were particular topics that triggered me and people casually mentioning those could leave me distressed for days. People obviously did bring up those topics, including people who knew that I was struggling with that issue at the time. That was perhaps a bit insensitive, but completely with the realms of normal behaviour - like getting some sand in a car. People didn't owe me huge apologies and amend making and they certainly didn't owe me cash 'concrete acknowledgments' of the pain they'd caused, real as it was - because they hadn't really caused it, my mental illness had. OP owes her friend what she'd owe anyone if she'd got sand in their car - an apology and an offer to help clean it. Everything that the friend 'needs' on top of that because of her mental illness isn't OP's responsibility to provide.

If I was the friend I’d be happy if you offered me a little bit of money towards getting it cleaned, and not being treated dismissively because we have different standards.