Be careful who you lend stuff to

I’m sure many people will see this post as just a rant, and hell, it probably is mostly that. However, it’s also a warning to others and a wake up call to some on lending things to others.

So let me back up to October 2019. My uncle was living with us for a month, and we were driving him and his stuff home. Along with his stuff was a ramp that my husband had built (my uncle purchased the materials). So we had to drive both our vehicles up there and it was a trip! (tire blew on the truck, tow truck took forever, paid a lot out of pocket, etc).

Anyways, while up there, the truck sounded strange. We thought maybe low on oil or maybe a belt messed up, but we felt better leaving it up there for a bit so it can be inspected by a friend of my cousins.

Things went around in circles, until my cousin decided to check the belt (which we THOUGHT was checked prior). It turned out it was the belt. So we sent the money, and they purchased the parts, fixed the truck and then asked if they could borrow it for a little bit. My cousins girlfriend’s dad’s car broke down and they needed to play musical cars. Again, not a huge deal, we didn’t have plans to come up within the next month so we were fine with them borrowing the truck.

Now at this point we are LENDING them our truck.

When my sister needed another vehicle for a short time while her husbands car was at the shop, I called my cousin’s girlfriend to make plans to get the truck. And she FREAKED. Yelled at me about how they aren’t finished with it yet. It was a nightmare. And honestly, at that point, I was just about done with this. We hadn’t had our truck in MONTHS. I missed Tank and I know James did too.

Then my cousin claimed he wanted to buy the truck. So James and I discussed it at great length and decided that sure, he can buy it if he pays us in full (only charging about $2,500). He said fine, but not until tax time.

Holidays go by, tax time comes, and stimulus checks have gone out twice now. Yet, he still couldn’t find the money for it. So we decided that we were just going to pick it up and figure it out from there. It just so happened that we were in Florida with our friends while talking about this and they jumped on it. They wanted to give Tank a home!

In April we planned a trip up to Jersey to pick up a few things of my grandparents that I bought (yes I had to buy them), and to pick up Tank. When we got there…the words still escape me and I’m an author!
I couldn’t believe that someone would allow a vehicle that they were BORROWING to be returned in more than less than shape than it was lent to them.

James takes great pride in his truck. It is always clean, tires always good to go. When we got it back, it looked as if it were dumped in garbage. Two of the tires were completely dry rotted and it was on LESS than empty. James barely made it to the gas station that was less than two miles away.

Getting it home was an adventure on its own. But once it was home it took us THREE hours to completely clean the truck. It’s not perfect, but it was WAY better than the condition we got it in.

When someone lets you borrow something for as long as we did, return it in the same condition it was lent. Now I understand normal wear and tear. And I also understand that up until April we had planned to sell the truck to them, but we gave them more than enough notice that we were coming up to get the truck. Enough time for them to run it through the car wash, put SOME gas in it, and at least check the tires. But you know what that tells me? It tells me they weren’t using it like they claimed. Either way, Tank is now enjoying sunny Florida (again), and being used ALL the time. Soon we’ll be back in Florida as well where we belong. <3

Here are some photos of the truck, before and after.