A reason to lie??

A neighbour of mine, an older lady, offered me a cot which I gratefully accepted. I sent my hubby over to pick it up in the weekend, since she said she's getting a boarder and she needed the space. Now that I've seen it though, I just don't want it. Its a really old one, looks like it probably had her kids in it (they are now adults), and quite dirty/grotty looking. I don't want to offend her, or seem ungrateful. I could paint it, but am already busy struggling to keep working long enough to get the PPL, and just don't have the time or energy, besides it will still be an old cot and I'm not even sure if a new mattress would fit it. What should I do? I don't like to lie, but I don't see many other options.

Get the measurements and see if a matress will fit. If it doesn't I would just say I can't get a matress to fit it sorry, and say Thank you very much for the offer.

I hate lying too so in my mind you have two options.  Find a valid reason not to use the cot or clean it up and use it.

 

Have you checked the measurements between bars etc?  If it's an old cot it may not actually fit within the NZ safety standards and then you could quite honestly tell her that as your reason for buying a cot instead of using hers.  You could also ask a builder to look at the wood the ensure it's still ok and take measurements of the inside of the cot to see if you can get a mattress in that size.

 

You could also just try cleaning the cot.  You may be surprised by how nice it looks once it's cleaned and made up with a new mattress and some nice bed linen.  Cot mattresses come in lots of different sizes so if there's nothing actually wrong with the cot you could save yourself a few hundred dollars.  Plus IMO often older wood items are built better than the highly manufactured ones we can buy nowadays. 

 

 I understand what you mean by not having the energy to DIY, I worked until about 8 hours before I gave birth and I had no energy for extra projects either.  Why not as a "baby shower" you get friends to come over and help you do a bit of DIY sorting out the cot and any other little projects you'd like to do for the baby's room.  Afterwards you can order in pizza and a few bottles of wine and sparkling grape juice to thank them.  I think that would be quite fun.

Well I've been out and about looking at the sizes of mattresses, and without travelling into Nelson I can't get one to fit. I'm really leaning towards buying a new cot and telling a white lie about where it came from and asking what she would like me to do with the other one. Feels a bit naughty but I'm just not happy about using it. Thanks for all the replies, it helps to know others would do something similar. :)

We were given an older style one from my parents, and Lucy used it and it was fine. We haven't bothered to check the gap between the bars! Both my babies have turned out fine by using an older style cot.

Perosnally I wouldnt use it Either. Not when they spend the majority of their time in it.

If it were me I'd take it back to her, thanking her for the kind gesture and thought but telling her you cant find a matress to fit. I'd also suggest taking it to sally's or somewhere similar.