Why I don't like loaning things out...

[dustin92]

And here is why...
I had a nice space heater, one of the copies of the Edenpure. Somewhat cheap, but still a nice heater, and was $120 something full price (we got it on black friday 2012 for $49) I used it mostly to heat a small enclosed porch that we converted into a spare bedroom. Before Christmas, a family at our church mentioned that they were without heat for two days until yhey could get parts for their furnace, so we loaned the heater to them. Got it back tow days later and all was fine.... About a week later, they asked if they could borrow it for their adult kids, who had no furnace in their home, and couldn't afford to install one, were trying to get help from so and so agency. So they borrowed it. We just got it back sunday, sans remote control, and looking like they had used it for batting practice. Filthy and scraped up, the grounding pin had been broken off the cord (seriously, how expensive is an adapter plug?), and the cord ripped out of the back of the thing. It still works, but for about 30 minutes just stank of dirty nastyness. I was not thrilled. I will put a new cord on and it will be fine, but when I borrow something, I return it in as good or better condition than when it left. Apparently some people don't feel the same. Any experiences along these lines?

 

[supersuds]

Oh, yes, I have a story like that...

My uncle borrowed an outboard motor once. He didn't attach properly it to the boat and when he started it, it went to the bottom of the lake.

Easy come, easy go!

 

[d-jones]

Yes damn it, and it always pisses me off!

A few years back, OK, quite a few years back, a newbie mechanic at the facility where I was working at the Van Nuys airport asked if he could borrow some of my  tools to install an actuator in the rear beam of a Gulfstream business jet. Since it's common for new mechanics to have an incomplete tool set at first, I agreed and let him take what he needed. I was working on the landing gear of another Gulfstream about forty feet away and not paying much attention to him until I heard the loud sound of clanking metal come from his work area. I stopped what I was doing and watched him for a moment when I saw something I simply couldn't believe. He was installing the actuator for the inboard flight spoiler and had a number of my Snap-on wrenches and ratchets laid out on the surface of the adjacent ground spoiler panel and on the top of his nearby toolbox. While I was watching he decided he was finished with one of my wrenches and simply let it fall  from shoulder height to the cement hangar floor where it landed with another loud ringing clank. I put my tools down and ran to his work area where I gathered up all of the tools he'd borrowed from me and returned them to my toolbox. The oddest thing was that he couldn't understand what I was upset about. Then on other occasions I've had tools returned to me covered in Skydrol or Exxon 2380, so that I had to clean them before I could put them away. What can I say about these sorts of people other than some folks just don't have a clue about how to behave.

 

As for your point about returning things in the same or better condition than you received them in, my wife borrowed a very large suitcase from a lady she knows so that we would have enough baggage for a trip we were taking. Somewhere along the way a very large rip developed along one the suitcases fabric seems. When we got home we went out and bought the lady a brand new suitcase identical to the one she loaned us and gave it to her. Then we had the torn suitcase repaired and we still use it to this day when we travel. Anything else would have been just plain rude.

[this post was last edited: 3/18/2014-01:02]

 

[whirlcool]

I have found that unless a person has a financial interest in something they are borrowing they will treat it like crap and it will not return in the same condition in which you lent it to them.

I can't tell you how many times I have lent stuff out and it either came back damaged or never came back at all. A woman across the street borrowed our 8ft aluminum ladder. She never returned it. A few months later I go and ask her for it back. She claims she never borrowed it from me in the first place. No matter how much I tried to reason with her she claimed that I was the crazy one and that she never had my ladder. I think she lent it out to one of her kids who no longer lives at home and forgot about it.

I should have learned this lesson as a kid. I had a prized model car that I had entered in a contest and won a minor prize with. My cousin comes over and asks if he can borrow it for a week. I reluctantly said yes. The next week he shows up with no car. I asked him where it was and he said "I was through playing with it so I set it on fire!". Idiot!

 

[alr2903]

We remodeled this house a little at a time and paid as we went.  Always watch your tools when one of these "contractors" borrow something. I have saved my Ryobi drill from being kidnapped twice.  The tool closet downstairs had a hasp on it when we moved here  and now I understand why.  I have a padlock in the hasp now. 

 

[norgeway]

Im not in

The habit of loaning anything...usually you either don't get it back at all...or its torn up!

 

[gansky1]

Neither a lender nor a borrower be...

It does take some "bad" experiences to learn not to lend things out. Having had my fair share of these in the past, there are things I make a polite excuse for not lending without guilt.  I've been asked several times to borrow my Escalara motorized appliance dolly, my answer is always the same.  Leave a $1500 cash deposit and it's all yours.  No exceptions.

 

[polkanut]

I'm in total agreement with Hans & Greg.  I've gotten burned twice and learned from those experiences real fast.  I'm even paranoid about taking food items somewhere and not getting the container, plate etc. back.  I've learned to use either aluminum foil pans or oddball plates and containers that I've found at thrift stores.  And don't even get me started about retrieving utensils.   

 

[tomturbomatic]

My parents loaned a new Samsonite card table to our neighbors (who asked to borrow it) for bridge. My parents did not play bridge and were not invited. When they returned it, without a word about the damage, it no longer sat level and sturdy. They or their card partners had damaged it, probably by not knowing how to release the leg. I hope no adult sat or fell on it. I guess they were too proud to ask one of the other couples to bring a table with them.

Another neighbor 5 doors down, a retired couple, asked to borrow our Scotts drop spreader for putting down fertilizer. Daddy had used it for a few years and it still looked new. It had the rich green paint with orange lettering and accents. After every use, he flushed it with clear water according to the directions, fully opening the spreader settings and rolling it back and forth to rinse off the agitator/distributor bar, a wicked, toothed thing at the bottom. The spreader was allowed to dry in the sun to protect the metal from rusting. So this old guy uses it and never rinses it out, lets it sit outside overnight in the dew and when we got it back, there was rust in the bottom. Just like y'all have said, if it had been a priority to him, he would have had one or rented one from the nursery when he bought the fertilizer. Maybe he would have taken care of it and maybe not, but he sure did not take care of ours. We learned that saying no in a polite way was the best way to preserve our things. You don't really make friends by letting people abuse you and your stuff.

Our mechanic loaned me his nice 1969 Buick while my '66 Caprice was in the shop for the day. I washed and waxed his car, as well as filling the tank in return for his letting me use it. He told my father that he had watched me driving and even though he knew what kind of power my car had, he said he never saw me take chances or do any hot doggin'. He knew I would not abuse his car because he saw how I maintained mine and that was why he volunteered to let me use it.

A neighbor of ours had a nice personal library and she made you sign out books after having too many loans go forgotten.

John and Jeff modified a KD2P by adding a water heating element for friends who lived in an old house without very hot water. When they asked about it after the people moved, their "friends" said they had left it. Great gratitude.

Polonius, for all of his bombast and cliches was spot on when he said, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

 

[washerboy]

Truck

I was surprised to find how many friends I had when I first bought a pick up truck back in 1997. After letting folks "borrow" it a few times it occurred to me it always came back dirty and of course gas  needle on E....the truck is now in my garage with 210k miles on it and I just tell folks "no"...depending on whom it is I'll offer to transport whatever they needs transporting. I understand the story above about the heater. I let a friend borrow my sewing machine to hem a skirts...after weeks and weeks and I had ask for it back...she had allowed her children to play "race car" and it was junk...I was pissed, but on the other hand my fault..I was the one that agreed to loan the machine...so it went straight in the garbage can..I went and bought another machine and it does not get loaned out.

 

The best loan disaster was when I loaned my camping equipment to a friend...after several months I ask for my equipment back...it all came back undamaged..however it was returned by throwing it all in my front yard during the day while I was at work.

 

I've finally learned the lesson...when I loan money or possessions...I need to be parepared not to get them back.

 

[mattl]

I guess I'm lucky. I have a lot of tools, I've built and remodeled homes for years. Perhaps because I know and trust my group of friends any of my stuff is available when ever they want to use it. I've never had an issue. But I'm not going to let a casual acquaintance borrow valuable stuff.

 

[rp2813]

My dad lent out the '50 GMC to a long list of friends and relatives over the years.  After having it return with a nearly empty gas tank one time too many, he adjusted the gears on the mechanical sending unit to make the gauge's needle point to "E" well before the tank was empty.  Problem solved.

 

These days, nobody ever asks to borrow it.  They're afraid of it, or simply don't know how to work a column shift.  That's if they can get past the starter pedal.  Works for me!

 

[alr2903]

Rp, you dad had some good smarts about him.  We will take you were you need to go, or go with you if  something large requiring the P/U truck.  An accident can be very expensive the loss of the vehicle. possible lawsuit.  as well as the loss of a friend.  You can rent a local uhaul truck for $20 bucks and save a world of grief. alr

 

[rockland1]

Loan out story

I left a business man in town use my appliance blankets and he returned them after he had them dry cleaned!

 

[whirlpolf]

"Never again" - I cannot subscribe to that

Honestly, I have had my share of beaten-up appliances and cars and tools and what have you.

Yet I might want to mention one heartwarming story:

I once gave this carpet cleaner away to someone hardly known to me, only via a friend's recommendation. It was one of those dry powder scrub-it-in types of machines (a Vorwerk machine actually).
Not only was the machine just spic & span, even all those bags of cleaning powder had been resubstituted.
Asked why they had done this, the modest answer was: "well, we could not contact any sales guy of that company of yours, so we kept calling friends, who of them might have any left overs of this product in their homes / some of them did, and so they helped us out".

I just love the reciprocal thing to it: One helping another one, this one calling out and others helping this one, then again.... (and so forth).
Can you get the idea?
I cannot say "never again" after THIS, could you?

 

[whirlykenmore78]

When you borrow something that is working.

RETURN IT THAT WAY! Why would anyone return it broke? If it breaks then help with the repair or replacement cost. Quite simple common sense/decency.
WK78

 

[wayupnorth]

I find close friends and family are the first to abuse, ruin or whatever something you said they could use. My great nephew borowed mt ATV and totaled it. A cousin borowed my canoe and smashed it up. My big extension ladder still hasnt been returned after 2 years of asking for it back. I could go on but this is a start. All I get is a too bad, so sad. I lend nothing to nobody now.

 

[ptcruiser51]

Oooh!

Over here! Over here!

Some years ago a friend asked to borrow my Rival crockpot for a party. (I was not invited, but that's OK).

After some weeks he returned to me a NIB Sears Counter Craft model because mine had gotten broken by accident.

Damned thing never worked right. I finally jettisoned it and bought a replacement Rival that has worked fine ever since.

Lesson learned.

 

[whirlcool]

Well at least they tried... gotta give them credit for that. If we ever borrow something, which is very, very rare we make sure it goes back cleaned up ready to use again.