shared family beach house - issue with damaged item

[Anonymous]

Team OP.

P.s.: I was team “both sides are wrong” in the other beach house thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Team OP. The DH and the cousin have equal right to the house. DH’s father is a co-owner. The cousin had a nerve offering to pay 50%. He should replace what broke as a result of him healing himself when he shouldn’t have. According to the social norms of the house, he should have asked first. I OP’s husband could have asked him to replace it and that would have cost the full amount. Aunt needs to butt out.

+1. You break something, you replace it, at whatever price it will cost to repurchase the item.

+2 this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was not in the for common use by all shed. It was in the do not use if you don't own it shed. They decided to ignore the family beach house rules. They should pay to replace.

I think everyone agrees the cousin should have paid (or better yet, followed house rules in the first place). The issue is, since the cousin didn’t do the right thing, should the DH have had an argument with him about it, to the point where one of the generous owners gets involved? It turns a relatively small thing into a Big Thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the owners is my husband's father. The other 2 owners are the dads brother and sister (cousin's mom).
The boogie board was $275.
The child that broke the board wasn't staying at the house, but they were all at the beach at the same time.
We have other things at the house that we allow others to use and these are in the main shed or in the house. I disagree with some of you about just letting this go. The rules of the house were clear. We have not had issues in the past 12 years that we have been using it. If it was me who damaged something, I'd replace it, and we did this once when we bought a new beach umbrella when the old one another cousin contributed broke as I was opening it.
Glad the cousin finally agreed to compensate us and annoyed his mom is getting in the middle.

If this family is like most families, they will all talk about you guys and how ungrateful and cheap you were. I hope the $137.50 was worth it.

+1. I think your cousin is a massive douche, but, you played this wrong. EVERYONE is talking about you now and how cheap you are. You should have taken the $137.50 (or even better said to forget about, nbd). Then you could complain about your cousin to all the family and tell them how he uses stuff out of the "owners' shed" and doesn't replace it. You would be the hero, and maybe you could figure out a way to quietly get back at your terrible cousin. Play the long game my friend.

I don’t know that there is a need to get back at the cousin beyond sharing the details of the story, but otherwise I agree with this take. I would have expressed frustration with the cousin, but waved off the offer to pay, in part because I know better than to store anything I care about at someone else’s house. Now OP and her DH have angered at least one of the owners and caused needless family drama. The fact that the cousin erred first and failed to step up like a decent person doesn’t change that.

[Anonymous]

All of this over $140.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was not in the for common use by all shed. It was in the do not use if you don't own it shed. They decided to ignore the family beach house rules. They should pay to replace.

I think everyone agrees the cousin should have paid (or better yet, followed house rules in the first place). The issue is, since the cousin didn’t do the right thing, should the DH have had an argument with him about it, to the point where one of the generous owners gets involved? It turns a relatively small thing into a Big Thing.

Agree. The fact that OP's response triggered intervention by one of the three owners tells you that she didn't handle this in the most graceful way. That doesn't excuse the cousin, who should have offered full reimbursement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is penny wise and pound foolish as the aunt could start charging you rent the week you stay.

Nope. Not aunt’s house. She co-owns it with OP’s father.

NP. I co-own a lake house with my siblings. We are generous with allowing other family members to stay. At the first sign of people squabbling, I’d be the first to say we either sell now, you buy me out, or we keep it but stop with the freebie guest policy. My vacation home will not be a stressor for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is penny wise and pound foolish as the aunt could start charging you rent the week you stay.

Nope. Not aunt’s house. She co-owns it with OP’s father.

NP. I co-own a lake house with my siblings. We are generous with allowing other family members to stay. At the first sign of people squabbling, I’d be the first to say we either sell now, you buy me out, or we keep it but stop with the freebie guest policy. My vacation home will not be a stressor for me.

+1

[Anonymous]

So wait... your DH is not a coowner? How presumptuous of you to leave things there!

[Anonymous]

How about get your junk out of the *owners’* storage space.

[Anonymous]

You should have let it go, you risked it leaving it there, it is not your DH's place, you are petty and weird.
They let you know, they offered to pay and you should have avoided conflict bcs you are too cheap and you left something where you should not have left it.

[Anonymous]

It blows my mind that boogie boards cost that much. I would never spend that. We get ours from five below.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It blows my mind that boogie boards cost that much. I would never spend that. We get ours from five below.

But could you find the special, special color scheme you wanted there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was not in the for common use by all shed. It was in the do not use if you don't own it shed. They decided to ignore the family beach house rules. They should pay to replace.

I think everyone agrees the cousin should have paid (or better yet, followed house rules in the first place). The issue is, since the cousin didn’t do the right thing, should the DH have had an argument with him about it, to the point where one of the generous owners gets involved? It turns a relatively small thing into a Big Thing.

Agree. The fact that OP's response triggered intervention by one of the three owners tells you that she didn't handle this in the most graceful way. That doesn't excuse the cousin, who should have offered full reimbursement.

Agree as well. And let’s remember it was the cousin’s friend and it’s not clear that the cousin was even present or involved except to offer payment for something a different guest did. That’s pretty generous in and of itself.

This reinforces the rules of my beach house - if you leave it behind it’s no longer yours. I am not going to be responsible for returning or storing the various crap people forget or leave for future use. I don’t throw things away usually but I don’t protect them in a special closet either.

And, there is no such thing as a special one of a kind boogie board.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure the House rules are not written on the shed doors. I would not have left a $300 boogie board in a shed for a year, trusting that no one would touch it.