Wee in ball pool at play place

[Tippytoes]

Had ds party today in a small play place. One of the party, girl of 4, wees in the ball pool, obviously an accident. We tell the owner straight away and they promptly announce that nobody is to go in the ball pool. Anyway, they want the parent responsible to pay £100 (which is what they say it costs) to clean it. We were made to feel really bad for the rest of the party and it really spoil it for me (not the children though!). Do you think this is right, they should pay or not?

StewieGriffinsMom I wish the place I worked had one of those when I worked there. We had the biggest ball pool I have ever seen, it was a pain to clean out, the yearly total empty was positively traumatising .

what if a child vomits in the ball pool?

or trips and has a nose bleed?

is it still £100 then?

I think its rediculas, if you want to open a place for little ones then you have to expect the wee to come with it.

Interesting subject.

I own two children's playcentres and have removed ball pools from the centres. You will probably know how far a bit of sh^^ will go. After another "accident" we decided that enough is enough and they weren't worth the bother. We actually have a ball cleaning machine costing £3500 so cleaning the balls was not a huge problem, but if you were present at a ball clean you would not let your worst enemy's child near a ball pool. They are without doubt the most un-hygienic place you could find.
One of the contributors suggested "damming" balls and cleaning the infected area. Unfortunately this does not work in practice as after a couple of people being in the ball pool the "dirty" balls could go anywhere. As for it taking 15 minutes to clean a very large ball pool that must happen in a parallel universe it normally takes about 2 hours and the balls have to dry before they are put back - it is usually done overnight.

We do get question "why don't you have ball pool?" and have to explain the health reasons for not having it. Health & Safety officers are also not keen for the above reasons and also accidents with children landing on top of children hiding amongst the balls

Haven't read the thread, I would have given the place a bag of baby wipes and told them it was far cheaper and good for anything

Ok reading the above post (bluemax90) I have changed my mind! Never letting dd in a ball pool again. It sounds foul!!!

From what I know of law if the £100 cleaning charge isn't written down anywhere then they can't charge it. Otherwise there's now way to prove it wasn't made up on the spot.

IMO a place like this should be prepared for accidents and should actually thank you for telling them. To me it seems insane that there are tens of parents who walk out not telling them about an accident, yet you being the good Samaritan are charged because they found out who did it!

In taxis there's a sign saying £50 charge for soiling the taxi in any way which seems reasonable for the cleaning cost and lost revenue.

And in swimming pools there's usually a sign stating the charge in the event of an accident. In my experience nearly all pools make the under 3's/4's (the ones most likely to have accidents) wear an aqua nappy before they can go in the pool.

I think £100 is a fair charge but is should be obvious and fairly applied.

It's annoying to be charged, however, these places are businesses trying to make money. This isn't school, it is a profit-making organisation. It doesn't sound like a chain business, so imagine if you'd scrimped and borrowed to buy a business and were worried about making it work, and every other day some parent off-handedly tells you their LO has weed in the ball pool which you know you will have to close and clean and lose money over. Why on earth would they greet the news with enthusiasm and who covers their losses?

Imagine if they had 4 accidents a day - should the ball pool be closed for most of the time and lose them income? Should they routinely keep it open and have kids coming out with clothes covered in wee? How do they know there wasn't a poo to go with the wee (hard to spot?)

Yes they have to clean the ball pool anyway, however if there are no accidents this is likely to be when it fits into their general cleaning schedule, rather than on-the-spot special cleans.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a lot of money and yes it's a children's play place, however at the end of the day if our little darlings have widdled to the detriment of the business then we should expect the business to charge us something rather than pat us on the back and tell us it's all ok.

The entrance fee alone is for the use of the facilities not for spoiling the facilities so they can't be used for a few hours too.

Put another way - how much would it cost for you to hire a ball pool for two hours all to yourself at peak time?

lol stewiegriffinsmom @ 'taking the piss'

If you are in a business putting pre schoolers in a pit of balls when they are excited you will either have to factor in cleaning expenses or have a clear policy on charging which is communicated to the parents.

Ds poohed in a soft play place once, they were very good about it and cleaned it up very efficiently (I offered to do it but they wouldn't let me handle the cleaning equipment). If they had tried to charge me I wouldn't have paid and would have never gone again.

I agree that there should be a policy on cleaning charges. However advertising the costs would most likely inhibit parents from advising staff of accidents, which means that your DC could be rolling around in some other child's poo with the child who did the poo long removed by parents not wanting to be charged for cleaning!

Pigleto, wouldn't you be annoyed if you thought a parent knew about the poo but hadn't reported it due to cleaning charges?

Even you have said you wouldn't have paid for your DC's accident - if there was a big notice on the wall saying "Wee/Poo/Vomit = £100 clean up charge" would you still have told the staff?

However, factoring in cleaning expenses means putting up the prices for everyone and being less competitive. In effect, all the parents of children who don't have accidents are being charged in advance for something their DCs haven't done.

Also, as a business, if the owners put prices up to factor in cleaning charges they would be less competitve and lose custom for being "that expensive place" that parents avoid.

disgusting that the Mother didn't inform anyone though - just changed her clothes. YUK maybe that pissed them off.

I think the charge is a bit high - maybe pay 50%