Originally Posted by
fastair
Caveat emptor. 100% of my luggage is water resistant. Knowing I travel to/frow/thru places where there is rain, my purchases of luggage reflect such possibilities. Almost all hard sided bags can withstand rain, most nylon bags can. Very few bags can't. Even the bags (40 lb sacks stuffed to become hard and round) that come from Africa for immigrants are wrapped in plastic. Even my softsided 22' Tumi rollaboard is made of water resistant material. Many airports even have plastic wrapping machines in the checkin areas. It isn't like the plastic is going to protect the contents from impact damage, but it protects the contents from common naturaly occuring atmospheric conditions.
My luggage is also "water resistant" but that didn't prevent 2 (out of 5) of our checked bags from being completely soaked. This was not a case of brief exposure to "common naturally occurring atmospheric conditions" causing slightly damp contents, this was a suitcase that was full of wet clothing that took over a day of sitting out in our hotel room to get *mostly* dry. (The suitcases were so wet at one end that my wife thinks they may have been left on the ground in an area where a puddle formed. When we landed at ORD, the weather was clear; during the 3.5 hour layover, it got pretty nasty. I think it's entirely possible bags were left exposed in the anticipation that the weather would hold, and then forgotten in the whirlwind that is the O'Hare ramp.)
For the record, I understand that "stuff happens" and I'm not expecting any sort of compensation for this. Clothes get damaged and wear out in a variety of ways, and you take it in stride. But when it happens like this, especially during an international move, it's a little frustrating. Especially when I'm not an inexperienced traveler and yet can't prevent some poor decision-making on someone else's part.