Serious question about that neighborhood tool library I joined last month

I signed up for a tool library in my neighborhood about 4 weeks ago. Paid $50 for the year which seemed like a steal. But now I've been waiting 6 days for a chainsaw that someone has checked out and I'm stuck watching my downed tree limb rot in the yard. The whole idea is great on paper - sharing expensive stuff so nobody has to buy their own. But in practice I'm seeing the same 3 people hoarding all the popular tools for weeks at a time. Is this just my local branch being bad or does the tool library model actually work for anyone? Curious if other folks have this same frustration.

2 comments

2 Comments

jesser795d ago

Did you see that story about the Portland tool library changing their late fees to a dollar a day? That might help with the hoarding problem if your branch did something similar. It worked for them because people stopped keeping stuff for weeks just because they could.

jamesf265d ago

Yeah I see this ALL the time in my neighborhood too. People treat community resources like they're their personal storage units until there's a real penalty attached. @jesser79 hit it right - a DOLLAR a day is just enough to make you think twice without being punitive. I swear half the stuff at my local library that's always "checked out" is just sitting on someone's shelf collecting dust because there was never a reason to return it. It's like how those shared lawnmowers at the tool library would disappear for months until they started charging.