You might be on to something if you find an easy way for people to publish their inventory of stuff to a trusted group of neighbors, maybe with a smartphone app to take pics of the gear? That way you leverage the trust that already exists, and just make the publishing and discovery process easier.

We use Nextdoor and our street's email mailing list for this all the time.

EDIT: Nextdoor and email lists only provide the in-group communication solution, not the inventory solution. It would be interesting to see an inventory solution that worked with a variety of communication services.

But you know what, we actually have a highly efficient system for transporting packages from people's houses, it's called the trash and recycling network. I wonder if there's an opportunity there to leverage this network... Imagine if returning something was as easy as wrapping it in a special plastic bag and then throwing it in your recycle bin. On the truck, special sensors would detect the presence of the bag and shunt it to a separate storage area of the truck and, from the depot, it would be placed in the conventional mail stream and sent to where it needed to be.

Probably crazy unworkable but fun to think about :).

Harbor Freight is great for hand tools you'll use occasionally, or power tools you'll use rarely. There's a reason people who use those tools for a living shop elsewhere.

Yeah, if I were a professional, I wouldn't use HF power tools either. But we're talking about DIYers here, not pros. And even good-quality name-brand tools from Lowe's/HD are a better value than renting.

The only place I can see where renting a tool makes sense is for something pretty large, that costs at least $500. For instance, a ditch digger is something I would rent, not buy: it's big, needs maintenance, and probably costs several thousand dollars new. And it's not something I'd need to use much, probably only once. But power tool that costs $80? Just buy it. I'll come out way ahead buying it, using it, and then reselling it on Craigslist than renting it.

I have HF power tools, but there's something slightly off about each of them, whether that's a flimsy plastic body, a saw blade arbor that moves around, or whatever. I don't use any of them on even a monthly basis. If I did, I would upgrade. Everything my brother has borrowed for a job has quickly failed. He doesn't buy much at Harbor Freight.

I have a Craftsman cordless drill that has lasted forever; it predates the tiny b&w Makita drills all the contractors have been using for years now. Since the battery is old-fashioned dry cell rather than lithium, I just took it to Ellis Battery for a rebuild when it failed.

The HF socket wrenches and sockets I've used have been at least as good as any Craftsman competitor, even from over 20 years ago.

However, for chisels, if you're talking about for woodworking, that's something I doubt I would buy from HF. For proper woodworking, chisels have to be incredibly sharp and hold an edge, and that requires high-quality steel. I guess if you're just installing some door latch plates a HF chisel might be OK though, but I'd get something nice for doing any serious woodworking because having really sharp chisels is critical for quality work.

http://sharesy.co

(I'm hardly a Luddite; rather, I think there's a lack of appreciation for basic interpersonal communication as a powerful technology in its own right.)

I don't remember where, but in recent memory I saw an article about an apartment building where residents would mark their doors with icons representing appliances/tools they were willing to share - a simple solution for an easily solved problem. (See also: rideshare boards on campuses, bulletin boards and flyers in local shops, local community centers, etc.)

Actually there is a sorta famous example of a startup that tried to do just that -- or close, they tried to build a social site for people to easily borrow whatever (ladder, chainsaw, etc) from other people in their area.

Turns out, most people said it was a great idea and encouraged them, and they even got lots of signups, but people really don't like dealing with strangers for such things, and nobody used the service in practice.

A, found it:

>There was just one problem. As Adam Berk, the founder of Neighborrow, puts it: "Everything made sense except that nobody gives a shit. They go buy [a drill]. Or they just bang a screwdriver through the wall."

http://www.fastcompany.com/3050775/the-sharing-economy-is-de...

and

http://entrepreneurship.org/resource-center/lessons-from-fai...

Ah, the good old realities of consumer marketing.

What I want is a delivery version. I'd pay $xx/month for access to tools and other household items I rarely need along with $x per delivery and pickup to not have to go get them.

Plus, the rental company is undoubtedly going to charge you jacked-up late fees when it turns out you don't get your project done on time and need to keep the tool for another day.

When it's so cheap to just go buy a workable tool from Harbor Freight, or a really nice tool from Home Depot, why bother renting some beat-up, abused, crappy tool from a rental place? On top of that, when I need a tool for something, I sure as hell don't want to sign up and have to wait a week for it, I need it now to fix something. I may not use it often, but when I do need it, it's invaluable to have it immediately ready to use.

That said, I do think there's something off about my accounting. I live in SF - the tool may cost X dollars, but what's the yearly rent on the square footage that the tool occupies? Just to sit there unused 99% of the time.

I'm starting to rent things not because it's cheaper but because I'm beginning to understand the psychological effects of having too much clutter in a relatively small house.

But yeah, renting is really expensive with all kinds of little gotchas, and it's a surprising hassle, too. Almost as much of a hassle as having a lot of clutter around.

This reminded me of a startup idea that I have, I think one of the biggest items that could be rented out would be generators. Right before a storm hits deliver the generator and once power is back up, pick them up.

Maybe you could hire an Uber or a Task Rabbit to go pick up your tool.

So it was always getting it from a friend or a friend of a friend.

Consequently there were many cases where relationships would get tense because of late/non-returns.

I'm suspicious that an own-in-common club or organization would end up asking me to pay too much for old stuff. It'd be hard to avoid - they'd want to depreciate it all or whatever. A hard startup to invent.

No, these tents probably won't hold up well with careless renters who don't care about taking care of stuff and abuse stuff. So why should I pay the same amount as a brand-new nylon test for some crappy old canvas tent with mold, which weighs 10 times as much, just so I don't have to own a tent? It makes no sense at all. I'd rather have a nice, clean tent that I own, and I can grab any time someone wants to go camping with me. Tents don't take up that much space when folded up. And even if the Walmart tent only lasts 3 trips, you'll still be saving money over the crappy rental tent.

Oh! I see - yes those tents were fragile and high-tech and would have probably lasted less long in general use. So that's part of the problem - rental to the public is hard on equipment. Again, its hard to see a startup model here that would work.

    > I wish there was a startup in this space.

You can hire tools, protective clothing, etc. from many DIY/trade stores.

https://www.beomni.com/

I have re-bought tools/parts I was fairly certain I already had, but simply did not have the time to sift through things to find. Especially for home projects that I had a small window to work on and I did not do my due diligence ahead of time to look for them.

http://www.homedepot.com/c/painting_and_wall_equipment_renta...

They do. I rented one several months ago to change some can lights on a 15' ceiling. They have basic power tools as well, though the selection is spotty from store to store.

Need a middleman "broker" with accurate local data and up to the minute stocking data. There's two "close" home depots and a local lumberyard with rentals and a regional contractor supply and a local contractor supply. Which of those five rental agencies has a stump grinder for rent tonight? Check back with me in 30 minutes. Would be nice to have an app that could tell me instantly...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich#Tools_for_Convivia...

Dougald Hine had a great talk I saw on Vimeo, I believe (it was ~7 years ago), where he went in depth on Ivan Illich's life and work, and he also mentioned how monks used to keep books hidden in nooks and crannies spread about, and they shared their locations and movements with one another in a p2p fashion after hiding them, using them, and getting more info about them and their users.

Also, before couchsurfing.whatever, I head from a very early adopter, that in his youth, his community kept notebooks of who had a couch, where, and how to reach them. Then you could find hosts with the same algorithm as a DHT-like PageRank kinda thing (friend of a friend of a very good friend... said ___; is it true, can we ___?).

So, I guess that for Derek (and other people who already have what they need and have comfort in life), a good gift from these people he mentioned would rather go to someone else, directly, who he would in some way see a benefit, indirectly or very indirectly.

Tools, for instance: if something breaks in your house, you need a tool right now if you want to fix it. Your toilet stops up? You need a plunger, NOW. You sure as hell don't want to sign up to borrow or rent one and wait a week for that. And do you really want to use someone else's plunger? What if they didn't clean it after using it?

There's all kinds of problems with the borrowing and renting models. People don't take care of stuff they borrow/rent (and some people don't take care of their own stuff). People don't return it on time. They break it. And what kind of stuff can you borrow/rent? A lot of times, it's substandard junk, or otherwise not up to your standards. What if you want to rent a table saw instead of buying your own, but the only model available is some plastic piece of junk with horrible accuracy? You might as well not even bother with a crappy saw like that if you're trying to do any real woodworking. This is typically the case with tool rentals: the tools they rent out are barely usable, and if they ever were, they're so abused when you get them that it's not worth the rental fee. Better to just buy your own, so you can get something good, and with so little use it'll stay in good shape for a long time, and be ready to use whenever you need it. Sure, it means you have to haul around more stuff when you move, but it also means you can do a lot of things without going through a lot of logistical challenges, or having to pay a lot of money to rent stuff, of having to wait.

You said you have a bag of mountain-climbing gear you rarely use. That stuff is, I presume, gear that your life depends on. If a carabeener (sp?) fails, you can fall to your death, right? Would you want to rent some ropes and other gear that you don't know how it's been treated or maintained, or could be some cheaply-made junk? What are you going to do after you fall to your death when something breaks, sue the rental company? And how much money would you actually save by renting this stuff instead of owning it anyway?

Although I can't help you out with the ladder problem. My company is working to help people like yourself live more and own less, with experiences and services to fuel your lifestyle.

Eventually, we may move into the problem you described of renting out gear that you may only use once or twice a year. Which was the main problem, when me and my roommate were staring at a very expensive kiteboard and mountain bike that was just collecting dust, and never getting used. So I feel your pain on that note.

To start with we are offering a range of products and experiences which you never have to think about owning (or collecting dust) Some of these include - skiing, golf, camping and tennis.

We are launching March 10th in San Fransisco, and Bay Area. If you are outside of this, you will be the first to know when we expand to your area, and you can always download the app for free- this is us - http://share-hub.launchrock.com/ Sorry can't solve your problem right now. Hopefully one day we can :)

Give me a "house improvement standard kit" and a well thought-out place to store it. A well-organized compartment, decent-quality tools that actually make sense, some extendability, and make it take up no space space at all whenever I don't need it. Charge $1000 (€1000) for it, and everybody will buy it along with their house once you've built a brand.

I can't think of any other way to efficiently and cost-effectively handle this.

There are so many tools that I own, that I really only need once in a blue moon. I would totally buy a subscription to a facility that allowed me access to these kinds of tools.

There are probably a lot of legal implications with renting power tools out to the public. But I still think it would be awesome.

http://www.techshop.ws/tools_and_equipment.html

We were discussing just this at a Cleanweb event last night.

On third thought, maybe Amazon could just do this ...

http://us.zilok.com/