I have similar issues, but they are magnified.
I have or rather HAD family who would routinely borrow my stuff, or break it, or sell it for cash(and keep NOT FOR SALE ITEMS) or give it away, lose it or flat out forget it places. Somehow, it always becomes my fault when I don’t get my stuff back or it comes back broken.
Oh, case and point:
I was doing an event for them, and they forgot to tell the property management to turn off the sprinklers. The damage to my equipment exceeded $80K as my console went down, my outboard racks and my playback decks.
They borrowed my trailer, and well, they lost over $300 in cable locks, locks for the rear door, receiver locks and more. But, not their money, why bother?
They lost a 100-foot 8-gauge multi-strand AC cable. First, they didn’t ask, second, they just left it at an event.
I never borrow anything from them. Their stuff is always beat up or broken.
Ultimately, we must take responsibility for our own possessions, which means securing and inventorying them. I’m serious. I have all my yoyos in a very simple database, which serves to help me keep track of what I have, what it cost me, specs, notes and other details. If anything breaks, goes missing, gets modified or whatever, I know at a glance. Fortunately, nobody is taking my yoyos yet.
The bottom line is you know who did what, and I’d confront them about it. He can lie all he wants. The truth is known and if he wants to be a liar about it, then that’s HIS decision.
My kids aren’t too good about respecting others stuff, but they do know to not mess with my yoyos. My more recent incidences involve one child who repeatedly plays with scissors, and I keep finding MORE scissors and taking them away and OUT of her reach, and yet, EACH DAY I find what I am assuming to be a new pair of scissors, but that’s not possible because the place I keep the “confiscated scissors” would have “exploded” a long time ago. The kid has been punished repeatedly for having scissors, plus she’s cut hair THREE TIMES(hers twice, once the baby). Smacking the scissors out of their hands means nothing either. This kid isn’t even 3 yet, clearly not an age to be playing with scissors.
My kids are also notoriously stubborn. One hurt her neck jumping and falling off the bed, despite being told to NOT jump on the bed. Emergency room visit, X-rays, can’t find any physical damage, probably a twisted muscle that worked itself out after a few days. What happened? Went back to jumping on the bed! The boy, again, jumping on the bed, jumping back and forth between beds… didn’t make it one time, broke his leg. He slipped, it got caught between the box spring and the frame surrounding the box spring. Still jumps on the bed. Same kid, been told not to run around with pencils and pens and scissors… the other night, he combined playing on the bed and running around with a pencil. He stabbed himself in the eyelid with a pencil. Fortunately, he only broke the skin on his upper lid. Talk about lucky.
Kids can be very stubborn, ESPECIALLY when it comes to doing stuff wrong or breaking the rule. All I can say is to take some of this into your own hands and do things to keep your stuff safe. Having a place that is “put away” helps. Like I saw this rack that looks like a golfball collectors rack on YoYoSkills in the background of a video, and I’d like to have a rack like that, with a locking glass door! Locking cases might be another option. I’m going to get a case like that and I’ll keep a printed inventory of what should be in there inside of it as well as in another location. Hard to argue when someone cracks into a locked case AND there’s an inventory! Another option is “move it to higher ground” where they can’t reach it. This has failed with me and the scissors, and until I find out who is retrieving scissors, it’s going to be difficult to stop this problem.
Note: Don’t take the route of “do unto others as they did unto you”. I find this method rarely works, because it’s often interpreted as “how dare you do to me as I did to you”. It is kind of a double standard. Those who lack respect and boundaries don’t appreciate it when they are served with the same discourtesy. They just fail to understand. I mean, if you want, try it, but in my experience, it backfires more often than it works.
On the other hand… A microphone was lost at a show during the summer. We(my crew and I) SCOURED my equipment: all my bins, cases, bags, we could not find it. I’d also gone through everything later at my residence trying to find it. I found it last night putting some mics away to do the winter version of the same show. It was in a case we COMPLETELY emptied looking for it before. I guess sometimes we can find things when we least expect to. I’m kind of riding a bit of a “high” on finding that mic even though I have no intention of using it this weekend. I mean, I like the mic, but I prefer a different mic from my inventory.
