DD’s friends have absolutely destroyed my carpet.

[MyOwnBestFriend1989]

I don’t even know the point in posting this but DH is on a business trip and all my friends are probably watching the England match so have got no one to rant to.

my DD (12) had her friends over today and they went to B&M or wherever it was (honestly couldn’t care less at this point) and bought some of those stupid stress toys. They’re the ones filled with fluorescent, possibly radioactive, liquid and you squeeze them. when they came back they were instantly playing tug of war with them, jumping on them and just stretching them beyond their limits. I said, in no unclear terms, “if one of those pops and goes all over my carpet I’m going to hit the roof”. Obviously I got the whole “we’ll be careful!” reassurance, and please don’t ask me why I didn’t confiscate the toys off them because I honestly don’t know!

i was downstairs catching up on Eastenders and one of the girls comes down looking guilty and sheepish and disappears into the kitchen. She comes out clutching my Zoflora and I instantly ask her “what do you think you’re doing with that”, she claims the girls were “just making potions”. My response was “not with my Zoflora you’re not now what’s the real reason.” Cue her bursting into tears shouting “we didn’t mean to!”. My stomach dropped.

I’ve marched upstairs and there it is - a, what can only be described as marinated, ocean blue stain clearly smeared into my cream carpet. Not only that, there was also some scrunched up bits of toilet paper in it which had a faint blue tinge to it meaning they had obviously rubbed it in in an attempt to get it out.

i have to give myself credit for I didn’t scream or shout at the girls: I said “girls, you have half an hour to ring your parents and get them to collect you.” There were no arguments and rightly so.

it is now 11pm and I’m yet to receive an apology text from one of the parents - not that a “sorry” WhatsApp message will pay for my carpet to be professionally cleaned.

don’t know what the point is in posting this but just deflated to be honest. Unless of course anyone has any advice on how I can get this stain out or indeed on how to passive aggressively message the parents to imply that I do indeed want to be indemnified for a professional clean.

I don’t know why you lied to be honest. I’d have told them their darling child was responsible to see the reaction. I bet the children said fuck all to their parents.

Huh? You think the ops child and her bear no responsibility?

Making potions with Zoflora? I love the imagination 🤣

I'd try to remove the stain. Cream carpet isn't sensible...

You seem to snap quite often 😕

Goodness knows why you lied, how are they going to know what to clean it with? And if their daughter did tell her parents why she had to be picked up early you're going to look like a crazy woman.

Why are you only blaming the friends and not your own daughter, who had invited them and who was effectively in charge of them?

Of course they won’t have told their parents, and you don’t know which of them actually caused the damage anyway. You can’t expect all the parents to pay for your carpet.

You're weird for lying about the kind of stain to a professional. Also, you told your daughter's friends to disclose to their parents why they'd been sent home, so lying is useless. This thread is messier than a stain on your carpet.

Agreed. Weird too.

Huh? There was clearly no intention to stain the carpet. In their mind they were ‘behaving’ but capering and just having fun. Kids don’t think through the steps fully of what consequences are. That was OPs job. Simply saying ‘behave’ doesn’t outline what behaving means. Saying it wasn’t an accident is illogical as the alternative is they did it on purpose which wasn’t the case.

I agree.

I used to work in a Dry Cleaners and we used to tell people when they came in with stained garments that they must tell us exactly what the stain was, otherwise we couldn't guarantee to remove it.
Some people were embarrassed if they brought in a suit with vomit stains due to a night on the ale !
We'd seen it all.
(We also had to report all garments with significant bloodstains to the Police.)

These 'stress balls' can be filled with water/glycerine and/or a sugar solution and a dye.

It’s an accident, if you didn’t want the risk you should have told them to stop/ go outside etc. id have told the parent who’s cleaning through I don’t understand why you would lie?

No intention to stain n the carpet is not the point- they did not care if they did stain the carpet- if they had cared they would have stopped when warned. The fact kids don't thi nk things through is no excuse- they were warned. It wasn't an accident as it was easy to foresee what would happen and they were warned- in your scenario whatever they did would be fine because they are kids and having fun- life is not like that consequences follow even if you are having fun- the sooner they realise that the better.

You are 100% responsible for what has happened to your carpet. It was completely foreseeable and your job was to prevent it. If that was supposed to be a sleepover you have handled this appallingly by sending them all home. I have a handheld carpet cleaner that would get that out, especially if you had stain treatment when you bought the carpet. You are an adult and knew they were rough-housing a slime-filled toy near your cream carpet. They would have been in the garden if that was my house. Or it would have been "put somewhere safe" by me if garden wasn't an option. I'm also curious about how you spoke to the visiting child. Your kid could end up with no friends at this rate, you sound very grumpy and unfriendly.

Still not following your logic. You don’t know if they cared or not. They clearly got upset and cared when it happened. One in tears.

Point is it’s the adult present that had overall responsibility to foresee and mitigate that risk, so it’s not a free for all.

+Feel sorry for OPs daughter. At her age it may be excruciating to have her friends being told to leave.

Folk are at end of day entitled to different views so can also agree to differ.

As for lying about the stain type that’s just weird.

Tell me you don’t have children without telling me you don’t have children

Ridiculous thing to say

Sorry OP, but I don't see how you can blame the other girls' parents or expect them to pay. The girls were under your supervision, you knew they had the toys and that they were playing with them roughly, and you didn't intervene to stop the game or send them somewhere where they could play with them safely. The only adult who bears any responsibility is you.

I hope you're able to get your carpet clean. Professional cleaning does work wonders these days, it should come out.

She didn't tell them to "stop" in the sense of putting the squishy away. She told them to "be careful" while leaving the squishy with them, on the cream carpet. It's possible that 12 year olds should know that careful=not having a squishy toy in the same room as a cream carpet. But they were probably following the OPs lead, she also said to be careful (or rather than shed be cross if it broke) but seemed happy for them to continue to have the toy, while still where the carpets were.
Given that the squishy had already been stretched at that point it's entirely possible they were being "careful" in the sense of sitting quietly gently squishing it. But that it burst because those things are time bombs. But if OP didn't predict that (or did but ignored her instinct) she can't blame the 12 year olds. Let alone their parents.

12 is easily old enough to know about cause and effect, I agree the OP should have taken the squishy off them, but they should have listened when warned- it was easily predictable, however it is not the OP's fault, it is the 12 year olds.

I assume that means you do, which explains a great deal about the behaviour of older children. The only thing which is ridiculous is your idea of treating 12 year olds as if they were toddlers, because they have no control over their actions, and pretending they have no culpabilty in this scenario.