To complain to garage after finding something disgusting in my car?

[Shmee1988]

So, last week I contacted a garage local to me as my car was due its MoT and service. The man I usually use retired last year so this was the first time using this garage. They asked me to stop my car down on Monday morning and pop the keys through the letterbox. I had no choice to do this as they open at 9 but I WFH with 9am start. I wrote my number down on a bit of paper and put it under the windscreen. I didnt hear back all day so at 4pm I rang twice, no answer and eventually went down at 5pm. The car hadn't moved and the place was all locked up. I rang the ring doorbell and after a few minutes the woman who runs the place came down looking half asleep and have me some absolute bs excuse about why my car hadn't been done. She said she got confused about what it was in for but didnt have my number. If she had have looked, it was there! This ain't convenient with 2 kids, a job and multiple after school clubs as im sureant of you know.
Anyway, she gets to it on Tuesday, the car fails and work takes a couple of days so I finally get a call to say its ready at 4:30pm yesterday.

Shes left the wheels on the wheel for me and gone home, fair enough. When I open the back door to put my son in his car seat, there is a disgusting, huge, used sanitary towel, with blood and pubes just laying on my back seat. Now I know without a shadow of a doubt it wasn't there when I dropped the car off. Firstly because I haven't used towels in 20 years, I am the only female in our family and my car was fully valeted 2 weeks before it went in.

Would I be u reasonable to pursue this and ask for an explanation and apology? Or is it pointless drama?

YABU - bin it and let it go
YANBU- complain!!!

I can see why you would want to think it had fallen out of a bag of rubbish but what are the odds only one item would fall out?

Maybe she thought you’d been a bit haughty when you first spoke to her and had also watched Fargo at some point. There was an episode where a woman left a used tampon in a desk drawer to make a point.

I agree with @ there’s not much point complaining to them and the department for transport (?) would probably be as incredulous as the posters here.

The thing is, I genuinely wasnt rude or off with her at all on that first day. I knew the excuse she gave was rubbish but I work in a service role and understand that things happen. I explained it was okay and that I wfh so not a huge problem. I gave managed to gets lifts to kids clubs etc. I have emailed them so we shall see if a reply is forthcoming

Yeah but some people just get their knickers in a twist when they get caught out. Even if you were reasonable, my bet is that she’s the type of person to make 2+2=30 and it led to this childish dirty protest. I mean, who else and why and how would that have gotten in to your car. Disgusting.

Was the woman older? Like could she have been having menopausal flooding and somehow the towel fell out she had more than one on.No probably not and you don't want to know about it anyway right, I would be upset as well.

No, id say she is late 30s early 40s.

What do you want out of this @Shmee1988 ? What would constitute an effective outcome or resolution for you?

Tbh, I posted this when I was unsure if it was worth raising. Then I decided to do it anyway.

It’s a risk I Wouldn’t bother I’m not saying this is the case but if I read that in a review I’d be inclined to to think it was made up

I dont disagree, thats why its so unbelievable.

Yeah I was gonna say...why would there be pubes?

Was the car left unlocked for you to collect? Some random could have put it in there if they changed a towel in an emergency in a quiet corner somewhere. Pretty disgusting behaviour whatever. Or someone with a vendetta against the garage. I would think it highly unlikely the garage did it they usually like to keep customers.

Aside from the sanitary towel - are you absolutely 100% sure that’s what it is? I’m sure you are but it’s so bizarre that I kind of want to see the photos - did I read it right that they left your car key on your car wheel and went home?? Did you agree to this or did they just tell you they’d done it? I assume your car is not a brand new Ferrari but I wouldn’t be happy with that!

My first thought is that this is people at the garage playing a "prank" (unfunny as it is) on each other and forgetting to remove it before you picked up the car. Some people have a disgusting sense of humour.

I thought I would pop back and provide an update, mainly for those of you who genuinely believed that I was making it up....
I sent an email to the garage to ask for an explanation. The lady was very shocked and apologetic and told me that it was infact her dogs nappy as he has a tendency to wee inside. It is not absolutely clear if her dog was in my car or if she used my car to transport rubbish (?).... but she has offered to give me £30 to have my car cleaned.
Thats fair enough right?

I thought I would pop back and provide an update, mainly for those of you who genuinely believed that I was making it up....
I sent an email to the garage to ask for an explanation. The lady was very shocked and apologetic and told me that it was infact her dogs nappy as he has a tendency to wee inside. It is not absolutely clear if her dog was in my car or if she used my car to transport rubbish (?).... but she has offered to give me £30 to have my car cleaned.
Thats fair enough right?

But you said it had blood on it.

It honestly looked like it did. Very dark. Maybe it was very old wee.

Well that explains the "pubes".

What a load of nonsense.

Next instalment: there are leprechauns dancing around a toadstool in the boot.

If you don't believe something you have two options; leave the thread or report to mn mods.

Thanks for the update OP. Probably not a full explanation but at least you have the cleaning expense covered.

I feel like people wont be happy until I put pictures on, which I absolutely will not do. I just think its bizzare that people think I would make it up. Although, now I have looked a bit closer I can see the pad has little green bones on it.

Are you struggling to locate the report button?

It's there so threads aren't littered with troll hunters you know 🙄

Were you rude to her when you turned up expecting the car to have been done?

I know the thread has moved on a bit but £30?? Surely this isn't sufficient to get your car cleaned? I'm in Ireland but valeting costs start from about €80 (and are usually quite a lot more if you want seat upholstery cleaned - I pay €140). That's a range of approx £69 - £121. I think she needs to give you significantly more than £30!