# Paying for accidental damage



## Orfin (Sep 26, 2016)

First day in town where i settled in Mexico, i met with the person i arranged to rent a place from. We met at a restaurant in town.

When we finally got together there, we were being bugged by a lady who was selling ceramic bowls on the road side. It turns out she was demanding to be paid for a broken bowl she says my host broke by accident passing by on the sidewalk.
It was a pack of 3 bowls with one broken. I offered to buy the whole set but my host insisted to pay for just the one. So thats how it was settled all for 25pesos.

Now; a good while later, i had an accidental damage incident of my own in town. :sad:
Not 25 pesos, not 250, and not even 2500 pesos in damage. 
I was exiting a store when two other people barged right at me to enter as i exited. So i gave the door an extra push after opening it so it would open wide enough for the whole gaggle to get in by me. 
The big glass door shattered into a million pieces and i was the last to touch it. The security video shows what happens and it looks like i casually opened the door and the thing shattered on me. I recall giving it an extra shove as i opened it and the camera footage shows it as not even a shove. But it was enough to shatter it.
No body was hurt and they cleaned up. They asked for my name and number and then i came back when the owner came around and he asked me to pay for it. 
So we agreed to wait for the estimate bill to come and then discuss. Probably a US$1000 door in USA but the way it shattered is like it was a cheap knockoff that wouldn't be legal for public venues in USA. Either way i knew it would be expensive even if by Mexico pricing.

So the estimate comes in later in the day and it's 6800pesos for the door. I hope they don't decide to inflate it when the work is done.
I agreed to pay that even though the footage shows a door failing under what looked like normal use. I did give it a shove which didnt really appear as such on the footage, but it shattered a second after it left my hands. I think the door lacks a stopper to keep it from opening to the point of acting fulcrum and leverage against its own point of attachment to the hinges. And that point is glass ,which overloads easily compared
to wood or metal. I will have to look at it again to see if it has a design that lets it act as leverage against its own attachment points.

Any way, not complaining as i have agreed to buy the new door out of sheer will to help the cause of people who were so nice about it and not even acting one bit like they held me responsible other than just saying they will look into the repair cost and then talk to me about what they want to do. I bet if it was minor damage, they would let it go, but a main entrance door is a security and airconditioning problem waiting to add to the already wasted expense on the door.

Keeping it friendly with them and the quoted price is not too hard on me. I hope i end up paying into a good relationship with the people even though the same situation would be reverse back home where the store owner would be wondering about having to pay out for putting customers at risk with a dangerous door. 
I am sure the faulty/dangerous door issue can be brought up here legally but nothing is worth more than good relationships which i would rather pay into than get paid in the making of bad relationships. Who knows, maybe they can't afford a new door or the security risk and cooling loss from not having a closed door.

If i see the door is replaced in a shatter prone configuration, i will talk to them about it so they can consider a cheap fix to what could end up being a bloody glass cut mess if it happens again. 

Imagine opening a door and walking into a 6800 peso unexpected expense. It could even get inflated overnight.
Not as worried about paying for it as i am about any people in town deciding they know who pays and then try to corner me in staged accidents everyday in hopes i have no problem paying them. I am plenty sure word is already getting around.
They are already rumoring i must have super powers to just casually open a huge door and shatter it to a million pieces. Maybe the area bandits will consider that before getting the idea to exploit me.:bounce:


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

ha ha .. reminds me of the day we were walking around Puero Vallarta and my sister walked into a place filled with crystal and glass.. my husband walked in and tripped over one of those invisible little steps.. he fell fowards and grabbed on to a counter that happened to be on wheels..

It was out of a candid camera show and the face of the clerk in the store was priceless... My family and I died laughing.. but we were lucky only a large glass vase was broken and it was a cheap one , otherwise it would have been time for my husband to have a bad leg and negociate...


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