My car slipped on black ice and I hit my neighbors mailbox. Gave her my insurance info. She said my insurance wanted her to pay upfront and she didn’t have the money.
I said I would buy the mailboxes and pay my handyman to put them in but it would be after the 1st of the year because the mailbox wouldn’t be in until 12/29 and he had family plans.
On 12/29 she called me but I couldn’t answer because my daughter was sick. I texted my handyman and asked for him to arrange what day he could come and install. He holder her he had the mailbox and arranged for Friday 1/2 to install when he was back in town.
On 12/31 she texted my sarcastic text messages that I didn’t care. I told her my daughter ended in the hospital and I couldn’t return her call which is why my handyman reached out to arrange a day and time.
She said out of respect I should have called her back. That I should be ashamed of myself and be more apologetic (I’ve already had two 30 minute calls where I profusely apologized.)
I told her to go through my insurance if I wasn’t doing it fast enough. She then sent this text, “And you are the homeowner that plowed over my mailbox. So completely disrespectful and sinful!! You should be ashamed and embarrassed and apologetic. Call (handyman)??? You are pathetic.”
In then sent this and blocked her “I’m returning the mailbox. Go through insurance. You have the info. I didn’t have to buy them and pay (handyman) to put them in. He told you he’d be there on Friday and I told you the same thing. That obviously isn’t good enough. So go through insurance.”
AITA for making her go through insurance after she started calling me names?
ESH. She sounds like she’s being overly dramatic but YTA big time for making your neighbor go through insurance from the start. It’s a mailbox, not a hugely valuable object, you could have bought one at the local hardware store and gotten any cheap local handyman to install it. You wanted to do things in the way that’s most convenient *for you* rather than prioritizing a quick solution for your neighbor whose property you damaged.
When your insurance rate goes up for a less than $100 mailbox dont be mad.
Out of interest sake, how old are both of you?
Why not just have someone, if you don’t want to do it, just replace the mailbox? It’s low hanging fruit and can be done in a nominal amount of time.
NTA she can go thru insurance
Good fences, amiright?
Idk ESH
You were very meticulous in putting the dates the mailbox was supposed to arrive, when she texted you, but neglected to add that you hit the mailbox 4 weeks ago.
Yes I also saw that the earliest date the box would be delivered was 12/29. However if I had to wait 3-4 weeks patiently for my mailbox to arrive which is down due to no fault of my own, yeah I would expect some notice too if nothing happened on 12/29. You could have sent a text that an emergency came up.
She also went a bit off the deep end but I can kinda see why she was upset in general. She should have found a way to go through insurance from the beginning. You both sucked in this scenario, and it was disingenuous to not post when you hit the box, you can claim ignorance or you don’t think it was relevant or didn’t realize it, but you were careful to mention how frequently she was jumping down your throat with exact dates.
Read again, she picked a mailbox that wouldn’t arrive until then.
NTA.
You gave her your insurance info, she likely misheard what they said about paying upfront (she likely got told she COULD pay up front and ask for reimbursement with receipts if she wanted it done THAT minute), and decided to try to make it a you problem.
It sucks that someone old enough to be your granny is so petty, but maybe if she’d tried that old adage about flies and honey, she’d have gotten a better outcome.
NTA. She wanted attention. Wanted to make you feel bad.
Yes you are the AH. And now you will have that claim on your insurance record for no reason, and likely still pay out of pocket. Did you put in a temporary mailbox?
ESH. I get having a sick child. That doesn’t mean you can’t take a call and use the few minutes it would take to say: “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but my child is very ill. Would you be able to arrange a time with my handyman, and I will take care of the bill?”
Leaving voice mail messages isn’t the same thing as actually speaking to a person.
OTOH, you were doing her a favor to expedite fixing the situation. Haranguing you for prioritizing your attention to your child vice kissing her butt for what seems to be an accident which couldn’t have been avoided (black ice is a killer) isn’t acceptable behavior.
From what I read in the original post, this was all in a matter of a couple of days. There’s no reason this couldn’t have waited a bit. All she had to do was go today to the Post Office and ask them to hold her mail there until she got a new mailbox.
Be careful. Accedental or not i believe it can be a felony to destroy someones mailbox as it counts as federal property iirc. Get it fixed quick and be done with it. If i had to wait a week i would have called the cops by now.