Does she have to return the dish to the owners of the furnished apartment?
Question

                I was renting a furnished apartment and I gave some food to friend of ours in one of the dishes that belonged to the apartment, and I do not remember whether he returned the dish to us. The custom in our country is that a person should return the dish in which he was given food! Now I have left that apartment. Do I or my friend have to return the dish, or can we give its price to the owners of the furnished apartment instead?.
Praise be to Allah.Firstly: 
Renting a 
    furnished apartment comes under the rulings on rental contracts which the 
    fuqaha’ have discussed in their books. 
This type of 
    contact is common and people engage in it on a daily, monthly and annual 
    basis, so it is worth learning the rulings on it, because there is no 
    transaction that takes place between people in any time or place but it is 
    subject to the rulings of Islamic sharee’ah and the guidelines of sharee’ah 
    which take care of people’s interests and seek to ward off harm. End quote 
    from al-Mulakhkhas al-Fiqhi (2/114). 
Among the 
    rulings on renting that the fuqaha’ have explained is the fact that it is 
    permissible for the renter to lend what he has rented, as is stated in 
    Mughni al-Muhtaaj (3/315), and (the borrower) may use it then return 
    it. 
Based on 
    this, there is no sin on you for lending this dish to your friend. 
Secondly: 
A rented 
    apartment or anything else that people rent is a trust in the hand of the 
    renter. What that means is that he does not have to pay compensation for 
    anything that gets damaged, so long as he did not transgress the limits and 
    was not negligent. 
It says in
    al-Mawsoo’ah al-Fiqhiyyah (1/27): 
There is no 
    difference of scholarly opinion concerning the fact that the rented item is 
    a trust in the hands of the renter. If it is damaged without any 
    transgression of the agreed terms of use, or any failure to protect it or 
    guard it, then he does not have to pay any compensation. End quote. 
See 
    Badaa’i’ al-Sanaa’i’ (4/210) and al-Mughni (5/311). 
If the 
    rented item is lost due to negligence or transgression on the part of the 
    renter, then he must replace it if it can be replaced with something 
    similar, or pay its value if it cannot be replaced. 
It seems 
    from the question that the sister fell short in asking about the dish that 
    she lent to her friends. She should have asked for it from those who 
    borrowed it. As this did not happen, this is a case of negligence. In that 
    case, she has to compensate the owners of the furnished apartment for the 
    dish, either by following up with the friends who took the dish, and taking 
    it from them and giving it to the owners of the apartment, or by buying a 
    similar dish for them as a replacement. If there is no such dish available, 
    she should give them its value. 
And Allaah 
    knows best.