The New School handed out the last of their Didomi water bottles earlier this month, though some say the free bottles have incurred quite the cost. Bottles with the spigot cap have allegedly been leaking and destroying personal items.

Shortly after Strategic Design and Management master’s student S. Sho got her water bottle, she opened her backpack to find her Macbook soaked.

“I don’t know why the top wasn’t closed correctly,” Sho said, referring to the spigot water bottle lids. 

When Sho went to the Apple Store they reportedly told her it would cost nearly $3,000 to repair the computer and recover the data.

“I bought [the Macbook] a couple of months ago, it was brand new and around $2,000,” she said.

She emailed evidence of the water bottle’s damage to her Macbook to the university’s Emergency Fund and the Student Senate. Sho received $500 from the Emergency Fund and received no response from the Student Senate.

“But honestly with $500 I couldn’t repay my laptop,” Sho said.

Sho did not lose only her physical Macbook, but also her projects. 

“And the bad part is that all my data information [and] projects, during this course, this program was on my laptop,” Sho added.

As an international student, Sho expressed it is difficult for her to get a loan or an off-campus job to pay for the laptop repairs. She tried to use the university’s 8-hour laptop loan; however, she said it was not sustainable for completing work on time. 

Meg Brill, a senior at Parsons School of Design also allegedly had a bottle that leaked. While their laptop was fortunately saved by their case, water soaked their New York public library book and parts of their thesis project. 

“I had photo positive slides for this thesis that I’m doing and it got all over them, those are family photos,” Brill said.  

Like Sho, Brill also had the spigot lid. 

“I think it was the spigot because I carry a water bottle with me most of the time … I’m usually pretty good when I close them,” Brill said.

This version of the lid does not appear on Didomi’s official website.

“I expect nothing and I’m still let down. That’s kind of been my motto of attending Parsons for long,” Brill said.