OT - Neighbor borrows tools and doesn't bring back

[Connor Aston]

[Upscale]

Been watching Fargo again?

[Phisherman]

My father painted tools pink and kept them (the good ones) out of sight. I tell people that I never loan out my tools; however I'm glad to help them with the job using my personal tools.

[charlie b]

Walking that line between being a good neighbor and being an abused neighbor can be tricky. Asking "helpful" questions like "What are you going to do with this tool?" can short circuit its abuse. In the cutting through comp shingles example, you could then point out that a circular saw is the wrong tool for the job and that a sawz all/ bayonet saw would be the tool for the job - with the right blade of course. Then you can offer to go with him to buy one - along with the proper bladeS - plural - for the job he's got in mind. Now you're in Helpful Advisor mode rather than the less desireable Lender mode.

Also make a point of asking how long he'll need the tool. Explain that you often do things very early in the morning and late at night and you'd hate to wake him up to get your tool when you need it. So stress that you need your tool(s) back by sundown. Now you're the Helpful Neighbor who is also the Considerate Neighbor. It also make him schedule things for a week end.

I HAD a brother in law living acrossed the street and two doors down. His wife wanted to remodel their house and he, being an auto mechanic, had few tools for that type of work. In no time at all he had

- my pick up truck with the bed full of 2x4s

- my worm drive circular saw, with blades

- my sawz all with blades

- two of my electric hand drills with bits

- my crow bars

- two or three of my hammers (ball peen hammers are useless on remodels)

- a couple of my extension cords (the ones his sister hadn't "modified" - with the hedge trimmer!)

- my framing square and regular square

- my palm nailer (he had a compressor)

- my 6 and 8 foot ladders : : :

If I needed one of my tools back it'd take days to "borrow it back" and this went on for over a month.

Things came to a head after a couple of weeks when I heard my skill saw cutting something - at 10:30 at night. Our neighborhood gets quiet after about nine pm and folks call the cops after that.

Now knowing that this guy had a problem with "authority figures" (he'd chased his father around the back yard with a baseball bat when he was a teen, and tried to back his bug eyed Sprite over a county sheriff in his early twenties) I went over to suggest he knock off work for the night and offered to give him a hand when he got home from work the next day.

That lead to a lot of yelling on his part and me demanding my truck and tools back. When he was about to THROW my skill saw into the bed of MY truck - from his porch - things got a bit testy. That incident ended with him pulling a knife on me and my 6' 6" neighbor, who'd come out of no where, taking the knife away in a less than gentle manner.

Needless to say, I became a little tighter with my tools. Fortunately, he lost the house, but only after I, being the husband of his sister, had to deal with sheriffs and bail bondsmen and one of his ex-wives/girl friends and a sheriff, on a cold rainy morning around 6 am.

NEVER LOAN TOOLS TO IN LAWS.

Recapping Ask helpful questions Offer helpful suggestions - like lets go over to The Borg and get you the tools you're gonna need Need the tool(s) back by sundown - the OR ELSE can be implied as subtly or as forcefully as you feel necessary.

charlie b who just got his four, four foot bessys back from his eldest and his youngest still has his hammer drill and masonry bits.

[Doug Miller]

In article , [e-mail] wrote: [...]

[a truckload of tools]

Wrong lesson from the experience, IMO -- correct lesson is never loan tools to

*jerks*.

I have *zero* problem with loaning tools to *my* brother-in-law. He knows how to use and care for tools properly, and he and I lend each other tools freely. Neither one of us has ever refused to loan a tool to the other for any reason besides "I'm using it right now myself." Same goes with my father-in-law. He's welcome to borrow any of my tools, any time. He's a retired tool and die maker; he knows what it means to have good tools. I'm honored to be one of the people that he allows to borrow *his* tools, and even more honored to be one of the few people to whom he has *given* some of his tools.

On the other hand, I have other relatives to whom I wouldn't lend a screwdriver...

[Me]

It seems like this problem is world wide and i bet it goes back to the cave man days . just Me

[djderringer]

I have HAD the problem, but no more. The next time I was asked to loan tools, I simply stated that I had recently loaned some tools that didn't return (when promised -or- in my case functional) and when I needed to use them they weren't available to me. Therefore, UNFORTUNATELY I have had to take a "I DON'T LOAN TOOLS" stand.

BTW, when I purchased my roll-around Craftsman tool chest(s), I also purchased for $10.00 a decal pack of assorted Craftsman decals of which one reads: I DON'T LOAN TOOLS. I have it conspicuously located upon entering my work area... but a sign generated in MS WORD will work as well. The great thing is, you can invite the neighbor over to just chat for a few minutes while you linger Under the sign :) (Why wait to be put on the spot?)

DJ

Darr> I need a bit of advice. I recently moved into a new house with a big

[Swingman]

Want a good deal? Loan a tool to me ... _IF_ you can get me to ask, that is.

I learned at an early age to return tools that "we borrowed in better shape than they were before we borrowed them. I can't tell you how many tractor box blades I painted after "we" (Dad) borrowed it, or how many shovels I cleaned and oiled, how many hay cutter blades were sharpened and oiled, how many horse trailers were polished to a show room shine, tools with edges sharpened, etc., ad infinitum, before they were returned.

Not only that, if a tool broke when it was under loan to us, we fixed it, had it fixed, or bought the loaner a new one. I borrowed a riding lawn mower from my Dad at one point and the transmission went out before I finished the job ... you can bet your sweet ass it had a new transmission when it was returned to him.

It's one of the reasons I rarely borrow a tool. AAMOF, on a job site I'll walk out to my truck to get a screwdriver instead of borrowing one from a worker that is standing right next to me, just to tighten a screw on a receptacle.

Not a bad way to be raised, and although I didn't always appreciate it when "we" were doing the cleanup/sharpening/painting, I thoroughly appreciate the response it instilled with regards to borrowing tools ... Thanks, Dad!

[Charlie M. 1958]

Like the old saying..."neither a borrower nor a lender be."

Your Dad sound a lot like mine, Swingman. I have a neighbor who has offered more than once to let me use his old planer (he rarely uses it himself), but I know with my luck the thing would give up the ghost while I was using it. Then my conscience would force me to spend my money on a new planer for HIM when I could have spent it on a new planer for ME in the first place.

Sw>

[Joe Gorman]

Be sure you put the blade on backwards first:-) Joe

[NuWaveDave]

I had to start buying my own tools as a young adult to understand why my dad would get so pissed when me or my mother or one of my brothers failed to put one of his tools back. Unless he found it rusting in the backyard, he never discovered it until he had need for that particular tool. For years now I've been fighting the same battle with my wife and my 21 year old (who I [often] think doesn't know which end of a screwdriver to hold. Paybacks are hell.

[mrmjr]

I would have to say that I agree with L. Loaning tools really is a tough call and I don't normally loan them out to neighbors unless there a friend and I've known them a long time. With a neighbor, I'll offer to bring the tool over and help him myself and I use the tool or ask him if it is something that can wait till I can help if I can't immediately. I would think that my labor would be more valuable than the tool and more often appreciated by the neighbor. This way I have the opportunity to get to know them and decide if they're a friend as well as a neigbor. Otherwise, I have to view it as there's not much I can do to help this time. Loaning isn't something I usually do unless its a friend I've known a very long time (many years) or a family member.

As far as getting it back, I'd simply go to the neighbor and ask him how it went and say that I needed the tool back. If this caused a problem with the neighbor, at least then you'd know what kind of neighbor you have and whether you'd be loaning them any more tools. I suppose I'd also seek some legal advice just in case before I went over there.

[Robatoy]

Swingman wrote: [snipo]

It was 'teary' moment when my oldest daughter admitted to me that she had adopted my catch-phrase "think of others, you are not on this planet by yourself" When she goes camping, you would never know she had been on that spot after she left. Her bathroom mirror is full of Stik-Um notes, all of which seem to deal with 'other people.' My youngest still believes that she is the centre of the universe....she's 13 and is starting to watch how I handle my fork and knife when I eat, so there is hope. LOL. My parents made me take dance lessons 'cuz "you never know". Both parents taught me about accountability and to stop and smell the roses. (That one has been the most difficult as I suffer fromk work-a-holism.)

I think I just figured out why Swingman's views (and others') mesh with mine as much as they do. Good dads go a long way, right Watson?

(What makes thing difficult is when you're a dyed-in-the-wool conservative but know that Bush is an asshole. Just watch the motherfarker squirm at the SOTU tonight.)

Never shy, I remain,

r

[Swingman]

LOL. Even if you did let a fat girl take you, sometimes you gotta dance with who brung you!

Besides, I would just a cheerfully jail a politician on general principles as to look at him ... ANY politician.

[Charlie Self]

imes you gotta dance with

I may start a movement: all politicians, once elected, immediately serve a prison sentence, the length and severity of said sentence depending on the damage the position allows them to do. A minimum of three months (local office), maximum of 15 years, say, though that sounds a touch low for the damage some presidents do.

[Brent Beal]

1. Don't loan any out.
2. Go and get them.

[George Max]

:)

[Charlie M. 1958]

Clubs...spears.....wives.....

[Lew Hodgett]

Remember the political cartoon after the 2004 election showing a picture of Uncle Sam with the caption below.

"Elect him once, shame on me" "Elect him twice, shame on you"

Lew

[fredfighter]

There is a whole assortment of alt.politics newsgroups. If you don't like to read those because of the flame wars maybe you folks should think twice before playing with fire here.