Children do £3,500 of damage to homes

PARENTS shell out nearly £3,500 fixing damage around the home caused by their children, says a survey.

The average amount spent fixing scratched floors, sofas covered in spills, ripped wallpaper and broken TVs and gadgets over a child’s lifetime was £3,466.

Wall damage was the most common offence with 84 per cent of parents having touched up walls and woodwork after it was scratched, drawn on or dented.

The survey found 78 per cent of parents had to pay for specialist cleaners to get rid of carpet stains caused by spills and accidents.

The top incidents were wall damage, carpet stains, damage to sofas, chairs and beds (72 per cent), mirrors, ornaments and pictures (61 per cent) and TVs, phones, tablets, digital boxes (56 per cent).

Daunting

Mum-of-one Jo Finlay, 37, of St Albans, Herts, has a six-year-old “little monkey” called Ethan.

She said: “He broke his bed after he and a friend decided to use it as a trampoline and he used to pull down any pictures on the wall until I moved them all higher.

“But it’s his tendency to spill juice all over the place which really annoys me. He spills it on the carpet and sofa all the time.

“I don’t even bother trying to get the stains out now – there doesn’t seem much point until he gets older.”

Andrew Nesbitt, of DiscountFlooringDepot. co.uk, which did the survey, said: “I do think £3,466 could be a daunting figure but many aspects of decor, furniture and furnishings in the home will eventually be replaced or upgraded anyway, and most parents seem to understand that for kids these kinds of thrills and spills are just part of growing up.”