People Are Sharing The Most Money Their Kid Ever Cost Them In One Go Because Of An Accident, And I'm As Impressed As I Am Horrified
It's also extremely messy.
And extremely expensive.
Knowing this first-hand, a parent on the popular fatherhood subreddit r/Daddit asked the forum to share their stories in response to the question: "What's the most money your kid has ever cost you in one go? Can anyone beat $7,800?"
Of course, that dollar amount had us all on the edge of our seats, so poster Good_Policy3529 started the conversation: "A while back, I found out that my young son had discovered the cap on our sewer cleanout wasn't correctly in place. He developed a hobby of dropping rocks down it for fun..."
"...We had to get an excavator out and dig up the whole line. It was packed with hundreds of rocks. All shapes and sizes. Total bill around $7,800. I'd love some similar stories for commiseration..."
"...P.S. And yes, I have replaced the cap and am keeping an eye on it. Neither my house nor my kid came with an owner's manual, and nobody told me that one of the rules of parenting was 'make sure your kid isn't blocking your main sewer line with rocks to amuse themselves.'"
Here are some of the stories other dads shared about the single biggest costs they've incurred because of their kids (or that they caused their parents when they were kids):
1."A friend's daughter was using her allowance to buy bags of candy. She then used the candy to bribe her 2-year-old brother to be quiet at night. $5,000 dental bill in a 2-year-old."
—Bishops_Guest
2."Mine broke several trilobite fossils. They didn't cost me much in dollars. But trilobites died out 250 million years ago, so, counted in time, I was pretty pissed."
—miguel-elote
3."Told my 4-year-old to go potty before we all walked to the playground. He apparently couldn't reach to turn off the water after washing his hands and didn't bother to tell us. We came home after about 45 minutes to water pouring through the ceiling into the main floor. Had to get all new floors and a new master bath. $120,000 in damages, 10-month-long fight with insurance, and had to stay in an Airbnb for 2 months. House looks great now, but def wouldn't recommend."
—unreasonably_sensual
4."I was doing yard work, and my 15-year-old was target shooting with a spring-loaded BB gun. Randomly heard a crash and got a $700 bill for the neighbor's rear sliding glass door."
—95jw85so84bs
5."You know those ultrasonic sensors on the back of a car bumper? He thought they were buttons, so he pushed them…harder and harder until they fell into the bumpers. Ended up being something like $700 to fix them all."
—nafuot
6."Well, my middle child totalled my van. According to my insurance, it was worth $15,000."
—whats1more7
7."My daughter stuck a Lego 1x1 up her nose, and it got stuck. My wife took her to urgent care, who said it was way out of their league, and she got sent to the ER. Three nurses and my wife had to hold down my daughter, and two different doctors attempted to get it out until a third one got it out on the first try. A $500 ER deductible later, and my wife didn't even keep the damn brick so I could at least put it on my Lego shelf as the most expensive Lego purchase I've ever made."
—clunkclunk
8."$12,000. Youngest woke up in the middle of the night and ran the upstairs sink with the drain closed. It ran like that for hours until the kitchen and dining room ceilings collapsed."
—schrombomb_
9."My kid was flushing wet wipes down the toilet. We specifically told him not to do it, but he did it anyway. Eventually, it clogged the main line, and sewage backed up in our finished basement. Had to tear up all the bamboo flooring plus two feet of drywall. Cost us around $15,000, though homeowners' insurance paid for some of it. We don't keep wet wipes in the house anymore."
—nutkizzle
10."I was the kid in this case. Got a Wolverine 'adamantium' mold thing as a gift. Tried to make the mold, it sucked, poured it down the bathroom sink. The 'adamantium' basically hardened into concrete in the pipes, cost my parents close to $5,000."
—CaptainObvious1906
11."Last year's summer vacation — our 3-year-old got five minutes without surveillance when we were putting our baggage in the house, and there was a small playground at the front yard where he started playing right away after hours of sitting in the car. Sadly, there were some colorful stones lying around, and he took them to do a superquick drawing session on several parking cars. 15,000€ damage on the paint of five cars in fucking 5 minutes. Our own car not counted, which also got a new design."
"Technically, we wouldn't need to cover the other people's damage under German law, as he is too young and five minutes is not problematic for the duty of supervision. But we are no assholes and actually have insurance exactly for this kind of damage done by our young kids. Doorbell ringing around, a big sorry from our tearful boy, handing over our insurance data, and the whole episode was cleared."
—ore2ore
12."$3,500. Turned off our chest freezer that we had just loaded with a 1/2 cow and a pig, plus some other stuff. We didn't notice until 5 days later."
—thecasey1981
13."Didn't cost me much money, but a similar story. My son had a delicious cut of beef brisket that he didn't want to finish, and apparently didn't want me to know he didn't finish. So he flushed it. Just big enough to hide in the curves of the toilet. As I try plunging it, it just pushes the clog down further."
"The final straw was the snake pushing it down to the choke point of the toilet, where it opens to the pipes. Had to completely remove the toilet only to find a very compressed chunk of brisket stuck in the toilet. We had only one bathroom at the time. That was a fun day indeed. Total cost: 1 pipe snake (useful though, so I didn't mind), and a replacement foam ring to replace the wax seal on the toilet."
—bs2k2_point_0
14."It's not as expensive, but one of my kids at some point put a quarter into the CD slot in my minivan radio, which eventually bumped and jostled its way around and through the system until it nestled so perfectly between a couple of wires that it caused the whole vehicle's interior electrical system to short circuit, killing my turn signals, and lighting up every warning on my dashboard. $300 to find and remove a 25-cent quarter, so I guess it cost me $299.75."
—cranberries_hate_you
15."My brother drove my mother's car through the back of the garage at age 4. Took out the car, the garage, the bikes, and the BBQ. It was 1986, but still probably more than $7,000."
—drewlb
16."I had a soap dish on my bathroom wall. My daughter planted a foot on either side and pulled as hard as she could, and yanked the whole thing out of the wall, and caused a bunch of the tiles on the wall to start popping off, smashing into and chipping the tub. Ended up doing a whole bathroom remodel for $15,000."
"Bathroom was in dire need of it (was the same everything from the 1950s, immaculately preserved by the previous owners, but still very, very old), but it sucked to have our timetable for a remodel moved up by several years."
—trevdak2
17."I was at work about 40 mins away and my other half was struggling to keep an eye on both our boy and dogs, just one of those days... The boy threw small boxes of raisins on the floor, and one of the dogs snuck off with two boxes and ate them. Fortunately, my partner noticed quickly and rushed the pup to the vets. Lots of vomiting and a blood test later, we're slapped with a £450 ($600) bill."
"I'd already had around £600 worth of car maintenance fees that month, so it was a little rough. Needless to say, raisins are now kept out of reach, and he's monitored closely whenever he has them. (Raisins are HIGHLY toxic to dogs and will destroy their kidneys if left to digest.)"
—iBear92
18."Not me, but my sister ran up a $4,000 phone bill between 10-cent texts and daytime minutes used, and of course, an extensive library of ringtones. Thankfully, the phone company didn't make him pay it all, but I will always remember the day that bill came."
—crazyleasha37
19."My stepbrother had his dad's credit card number logged on his Xbox. He bought V-Bucks in Fortnite, skins in COD, etc. I never found out the total, but allegedly it was enough to buy a car, so I'm guessing in the low $20,000s. He now has to pay off every penny back by giving half of his paycheck to his dad. This happened when he was 17, and he's still paying it off three years later."
—Natural-Secretary-24
20."My son is prone to extreme mood swings/angry outbursts. He manages this much better now, but things we've had to replace following his rage include: Living room TV (threw something at it, cracking it) $5,002; cabinet doors (kicked and cracked), $600; 4-5 panes of glass, $60 in materials (I got good at DIY'ing these replacements); door and trim damage from slamming, DIY'd for $50 in materials; wall damage from kicking, DIY'd for $50 in materials."
"He also once, arguably absentmindedly, decided to scratch his name into the car with a rock. It's an old car and we didn't elect to repair it, but I think we got one quote for $900 before deciding to live with it. Sigh. I love that kid, but he's a chaos monkey."
—shimon
21.And finally, "Accidental issues. Broken dishwasher. Son was goofing around in the kitchen while the door was all the way down. Fell on it and completely bent/twisted it. It was about $1,200 for a new dishwasher."
—robowarrior023
And there you have it, folks. If you have kids or know any accident-prone ones (or were one yourself), we want to hear about the single biggest expense they've caused the adults in their life. Share with us in the comments or via this anonymous form. Your responses may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community article.
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