you provoked a good discussion here, like cocktail party banter where everyone has a say in the matter over drinks and pretzels.

I don't know why you paid for your friend's damages.

I think you are accustomed to staying in large corporate hotels and family run hotels are run differently.

When I was young I might have tried to get away with not fessing up and paying for damages I know I made.

Now that I am an adult I would of course offered to pay for damages the next time I passed by the front desk after the accident.

Please pass the cheese and fois gras....

ooops, make that pretzels I can spell that.

As fascinating as all this insurance banter is - and I do find it informative - I think common sense is more to the point.

As owner of a rental home, I've had to come up with some pretty clear delineations between what's normal wear and tear and what's unusual and worthy of a penalty. Those delineations may not be legal ones, but I think they're pretty reasonable, which is what a small family-run hotel ought to be in any country.

Breaking a wine glass, or two or three? No biggie - happens all the time. Getting ashes from the fireplace on my sofa and chair cushions? It's not my favorite thing to clean up, but I'm not going to call you on it, or even on a small burn spot - I have to recover things every few years anyway. A broken bedframe? You bet! Either you or your kids were doing something you shouldn't have been or lightning came through the window and split the side of the bed in two - in either case you should have told me right away. Will I charge you for replacing the bed? Probably not - just the cost of the carpenter who had to come and fix it. If you burned my carpet in such a way that I and future renters would notice it, I can see keeping 100 euros of your deposit if my trouble to get it fixed or replaced was going to take a couple or few hours of my time, which it probably would.

AND, I would expect you to tell me, imediately, hat had happened. The bed-breakers never mentioned it - did they think I'm blind and wouldn't notice a wooden bed frame one side of which was literally split in two? What irked me most about that incident was not that it happened - heaven knows, kids jump on beds, maybe some huge person plopped into bed too hard...whatever - but that no one mentioned it to me. Had it been me, I'd have called the owner the minute it happened toay, er, hate to tell you this, but we split your bedframe in half - what's the damage?
I, like the manager of the hotel, would also have been irked. I think if you had fessed up right at the start, it's quite possible there would have been less severe monetary consequences and you certainly wouldn't have been subjected to a tirade in public at the front desk (there's another hint about the hotel, no? Obviously the breakfast room is within hearing distance of the front desk).
I'm sure at the time you and your friend (and really, WHY didn't the friend who did this take care of all this?) were not being devious, but I suspect there was some underlying assumption that it wouldn't be noticed until you had gone. Because really, if I had burned a rug my early childhood Catholic guilt would have sent me straight to that front desk within minutes with apologies galore. I wouldn't necessarily have made an instant offer of compensation, but I would have brought the matter to the hotel's attention and then tried to figure out - or argue out - a solution with them.

Hi,
I have not read all the responses, but I think the hotel was wrong. I assume that when you have a business, part of it is repairing damage like a burn in the carpeting. There are companies that can repair that quickly and cheaply. I know this do to teenage son and cigars in the family room. If you intentionally smash something in the room that is different. I would not expect company in my house to replace or pay for accidental damage. But this is a good lesson for me. I will be more careful.

gracib, are you sorry now that you asked. ..Let's hear from your friend.

Well I have a different point of view.

What happened was a minor accident - not deliberate destruction or even negligence. And minor accidents should be considered normal wear and tear - which the hotel should either cover or file for with its insurance company.

They are running a business - badly it seems from their attitude problems. I don;t think you owe them a thing - and you should dispute the additional fee with your credit card. I think they owe you an apology for causing a scene.

Nice to see StCirq in such good form. Good work, dear.

I've been thinking about this more. Suppose the accident was as innocent as stated. The hotel has no way to tell that. It looks to all the world like the friend was ironing the clothes on the floor, and/or left the iron there for a considerable period of time. Because the accident was not reported, the hotel is naturally going to draw an adverse inference. All of this might depend on the severity and size of the burn, etc. I can understand the manager being furious.

If It left a burn like the iron's shape, I suspect, it means the iron was not noticed being left on the carpet, an accident, yes, but careless and stupid. I wouldn't know how to judge it if it were my place. Only angry comes up

Well, when you have no brain to begin with Ms. C, it's not surprising that only angry comes up, now is it? (smile)

I agree with NYTraveler-it's a business, for God's sake-there's absolutely no way I'd pay them a cent-they need to quit whining and lose the attitude, or they'll have no business left to whine about! (Oh, and I'd bet you dollars to donuts that not a cent of any money you pay them will go to repair that carpet!)

Some hotels have rules that state things like no washing/hanging up of wet clothes in the room or ironing. If the hotel had posted "no ironing" (which they didn't) then liability would be assumed. As others mention, it was, however, an accident and not deliberate. What if your friend had not noticed that the iron had fallen and the room caught on fire? Then,would there be liability? I think you really should send this question to the NYT ethics column!

I must admit, it would be great if I never had to take responsibility or pay for my bonehead moves! Unfortunately, I'm either not pathetic enough or attractive enough to get away with much.
I really don't understand this idea that because the hotel is a "business" it should somehow pay for the bonehead actions and accidents of its lodgers. Is this simply an anti-business sentiment? Even someone with relatively low standards like myself would not be thrilled to be rented a iron-sized scorch mark on the floor. For obvious reasons, the hotel owner must fix that for future tenants, probably by replacing the entire carpet. And the hotel wouldn't be in business very long if it had to replace the carpeting after each guest.

If we put aside the arguments by the non-attorneys, non-insurance folks, non-hotel folks, the others "nons" ... gracieb, most would sleep better if they simply held themselves accountable for the damage they do, and take the steps to rectify it. I must admit to a lack of patience with people who focus on finding loopholes to personal accountability, when they are clearly at fault. I assume you are sleeping okay, no surprise.

Hello, airlawgirl ... I'd give you a shake except I need all ten! Take care.

Carpet

I don't mean to be rude or anything. Really now... YOU damaged the carpet so why do you think that you should get away with it? I mean come on, you should at least pay for the damages. You also knew that your friend damaged it and it was your guys fault for ruining the carpet. Do some rules apply for some people but not you? You ruined it and you are responsible for it.

Has it really been over two and 1/2 months since this classic thread last surfaced?

I was obviously traveling when this appeared and I missed it.
This is so funny.
Somebody damages the carpet and can't understand why they are responsible? Where does it end? They set fire to the bed and expect the hotel to ignore it? They break out a window on purpose for more air and think it's their right? They cut up the shower curtain to use as suitcase packing and think the hotel can just get another one?
You can bet if there had been an obvious scorch mark or other damage to the carpet when gracieb arrived to the room, one of the first things she would have posted would have been, "it was a two star hotel but I was shocked by the damaged and stained carpet."

Please don't come stay at my house, because if you damage something by carelessness I can't afford to replace it either.

By the way, has anyone ever dropped an iron? How quickly did you pick it up? How long would even a very hot iron have to lay on the floor to create such an obvious scorch mark? Certainly more than the few seconds reaction time it should take to pick it back up.
This is not ordinary "wear and tear".

100 E is cheap to pay after all

funny thread

I can't stop thinking about this funny thread. My favorite is the number of people who seem to feel that since it wasn't clearly posted that ironing wasn't allowed, that the person doing the damage shouldn't be held responsible. Or that since it was an accident, they shouldn't have to pay for the damage.

OK let's carry this a step further. I see this future post:

"I stayed in a nice hotel when I went to the sheep-shearing convention. The night before the big event, I wanted to make sure my shearing equipment was working properly so I plugged it in, but tripped and it took off. In a matter of minutes it had zipped across the bed cutting the bedspread in half, then it hit the floor and cut a four inch track through the carpet. Finally it came to rest when it got caught up in the draperies, although they were hanging in shreds.
I checked carefully and there were no rules about not allowing sheep-shearing tools in the rooms, so thankfully I can't be held responsible for the damage, especially since we know it was an accident anyway and I didn't do it on purpose."