Man refuses to pay sister after his kids destroy her art supplies says, 'Wait paint costs how much?'

I refuse to pay my brother back money I owe him because he let his kids destroy my art supplies.

CSmith100000 writes:

I currently owe my brother around $300—he fronted me some money for a family vacation and said I could pay him back in December (a 3-paycheck month).

My husband and I are hosting a small Thanksgiving this year with the family members who live within driving distance, and my brother's family arrived on Monday to stay through the weekend. His two kids (3 and 6) are generally well-behaved, but they're still kids, so I let him know to keep them out of the bonus room (currently half-finished) and my craft room.

You all know where this is going, so I'll just cut to the chase. I came home yesterday to find the kids splayed out on the living room floor surrounded by art supplies in ruined condition. They were finger painting with my gouache and had completely cross-contaminated the colors, drawn on my good watercolor paper with Copic markers (completely crushing the tips of the markers as well), and ruined or dirtied several items that my friend had brought me from Korea.

I confronted my brother, who was nonchalantly watching TV, and he told me that he didn't let the kids go into the craft room; he had gone in himself and grabbed them "just a couple things" to entertain themselves with.

He agreed to buy me replacements until I actually started tallying up the cost—then backtracked and said the price was "bullsh%t" and started insisting that most of the stuff was still in usable condition.

I said, "Fine, you don't have to replace anything, but you can forget about the vacation money." He snapped at me not to argue in front of the kids. I replied, "Who's arguing? Sounds like the conversation is over."

Now he wants me to pay the vacation money immediately and work out the replacing of the art supplies after. I feel like he's just going to try to haggle with me or is going to replace my stuff with Crayola and call it even.

OP responded to some comments:

KaliTheBlaze says:

Tell him that you’ll take advantage of the current Black Friday sales to replace the numerous items he stole to give to his kids, and he can have any remainder after you replace the stolen, destroyed items with other identical products or equivalent but no more expensive products. NTA.

In the future, you might want to pick up a few kid craft items when you’re hosting kids. Yes, it absolutely should be the parents’ responsibility, but it can be hard to have everything when you’re traveling with small kids. A $10 box of somewhat similar but much cheaper things to entertain the kids will keep any decent parent out of the rest (and be met with gratitude), especially if you give them an idea about how expensive and/or hard to replace your good stuff is.

This is how I’ve dealt with my own nephews - I have stuff for them that is a small gift from Auntie Kali, often including bargain items and my own cast-offs, and only the only bits of my personal stuff they get to use are things that are hard to damage.

OP responded:

I do have playdough sets and Legos for the kids, but I will add some Crayola stuff once things have calmed down.

Dr_____strange says:

Also, put a lock on the rooms you don't want guests to go into. You won't believe how comfortable people are with violating boundaries and rules made by the host. I am used to hiding all my good stuff, from food to pens and markers to headphones when kids are there.

OP says:

I will try my best with the lock, the room has a cr%$py pocket door that doesn't even really close all the way.

pink_gem says:

NTA. Debt is debt. That is why a ledger shows both credits and debits. You and your brother have a ledger of transactions between you. He gave you 300 dollars, so you were at -300. It is totally justified to now use the art supply debt that he owes you to calculate off your debt.

But, bear in mind, if you are able to replace everything at 175 (which is your cursory estimation, I know not final), then yes, you should still pay your brother 125. Don't do anything yet.

Figure out what needs to be replaced, replace it, take a photo of the receipt(s), and text it to your brother. If it comes out to 325, tell him he owes you 25 dollars. If it comes out to 275, send him the 25 dollars you owe.

teresajs says:

NTA. Take the cost of replacement supplies out of the amount you owe him. Provide him links to the supply listings (with costs) for the exact replacements you purchased.

Proper art supplies are expensive. It isn't your fault that he didn't know that and just gave his kids your supplies without your permission so he didn't have to entertain his own kids.

What do you think? Should OP pay back the debt?