'AITA my friend ruined my yixing teapot and I want her to replace it or give me $500?'
"AITA my friend ruined my yixing teapot and I want her to replace it or give me $500?"
When I went to china I bought myself a yixing teapot. This is a clay unglazed pot that gets “seasoned” the more you make tea in it. Kinda like a cast iron pan. Since it is unglazed you can not wash it with soap, or any rough sponges.
You clean it by using hot water and then you let it air dry. Nothing else. This is the issue, I left for a work trip and my friend watched my cat. ( I paid her) I told her she can use anything in the kitchen.
My yixing teapot is not in the kitchen and neither are any of my fancy loose leaf teas for it. I have a normal kettle in the kitchen for guests to use. I came back and found the yixing teapot in my sink and it smells like soap. It also has multiple scratched on the inside.
I called her up and she told me she used it because she loved the tea I make with it. She then washed it with a rough wire sponge and used soap. She didn’t know where my sponges were and didn’t want to put it in the dishwasher.
I tried to fix it and I couldn’t, anything in it comes out with the taste of soap and the scratches are just getting bigger with every boil I try. It’s ruined. I called her up and asked her to replace it since she ruined it.
She told me to just clean it and I told her I have tried. She agreed and I sent her to the teapot from the same store I bought mine that was most similar (It’s actually cheaper then the one I bought in China.)
It is about 500 dollars. She called me pissed after I sent her the link, and refusing to pay it. She claims I should have told her not ot use it. I pointed out that it was behind glass and I didn’t think I needed too. I asked her to pay again and she is pissed. Should I just cut my losses?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
I’m saying NTA because it was enclosed in a Glass case. AND you made alternative an alternative available. My personal toy is in my drawer, and just because i tell someone to make themselves at home doesn’t entitle them to use it. I have lots of expensive items, most of use do. Do I have to make a list of all the expensive things I don’t want a pet sitter to use? Goodness I just can’t. You’re not TA.
NTA. The people here who think she couldn’t have known need to use some basic common sense and I wouldn’t trust any of them in my home. Who takes an item out from a GLASS DISPLAY CASE… Then uses a WIRE BRUSH ON IT???
I don’t care what the item is. There is no world where you take an item out of a display case and use a metal wire brush on it. I cannot think of a single item that could be behind a glass display case that I would wire brush. Even if I saw a rusty kitchen knife behind a glass display I wouldn’t wire brush it and that’s something nominally appropriate to use a metal cleaning tool on.
It’d be like someone going into the hutch in your dining room, taking your gold-trimmed china (no pun intended) that you got as a wedding gift, and running it through the dishwasher. And then being like, “What? You’ve fed me a meal off of it before, so I figured I could do what I wanted with it.” Crazy-making. NTA.
NTA. People in this sub can't read, and that's the only reason you're getting anyone saying otherwise. You said she could use anything in the kitchen. A fancy teapot in a display case in a different room is obviously not part of that. Your friend should have offered to replace it as soon as they found out it was ruined. That's what I would have done, because I'm not an AH. Your friend is an AH.
NTA. wasn’t in the kitchen, no reason ever to use a rough WIRE sponge on RAW CLAY. That is unhinged. I am assuming it was in a fancy glass cabinet (edit: or displayed somewhere) which should have been an indication to ask before using it. she should be held responsible to pay you back but definitely won’t so I would just cut your losses and never let her back into your house.
NTA. You said kitchen, that means kitchen. I wouldn’t pull anything out of a decorative hutch/display case unless I was specifically told I could (I’m assuming this is the kind of glass it was behind.) Just because you’ve made tea for her from it before doesn’t mean it is fair game.
It DOES sound though like she will not replace it, or that if you force the issue she will cut off contact after replacing it. It’s up to you where your boundaries lay with this one. Were it me who ruined the teapot, and I couldn’t afford it outright (I wouldn’t be able to in my current situation), I would ask if paying off the value over time would be acceptable if there isn’t a payment plan option on the site itself.
She clearly had no idea how valuable it was, and $500 is a lot of money. Maybe she’d be open to a compromise like that.
You didn't keep the fancy teapot in the kitchen. You told her it was ok to use anything in the kitchen. She snooped around outside your kitchen and found this teapot. She ruined your fancy teapot and now refuses to make you whole. NTA. She owes you a new teapot or the funds to purchase the teapot.
NTA. But yes, you are probably going to have to cut your loses and chalk this up to a lesson learned scenario. I am sorry this happened to you, but your friend needs to fix what she broke. But, she will most probably block you and you won't see the $$.
Everyone has good and inexpensive homeware stuff in their houses, and there’s an assumption that house guests will not use the ‘good stuff’ (or if they do, they look after it properly). It was in a glass display cabinet so clearly good. Any person with half a clue would get this.
I agree with another commenter that this seemed really unnecessarily destructive. I have multiple teapots of varying quality and expense, and I certainly wouldn’t be using a steel brush on any of them. Who uses a wire brush on ceramics, which are delicate??? Ridiculous.