Rent Things You Need Only Temporarily

There's been plenty of times where we've needed a tool, gadget or appliance...but just for one or two uses. It's a frustrating dilemma when you've got a need, but neither the space or money to purchase that 20' ladder or chainsaw to trim a tree. Now you can tap into peer-to-peer style online renting for those short time use needs....

Zilok offers a free peer-to-peer forum where you post can any item you own to rent to others. Sort of like eBay, except you eventually get back what you send. Price, rental region, and the conditions of your rental are all determined by you, with Zilok playing intermediary.

Rental item can be found by users via a search engine (site performance seems a bit slow currently), a directory with items as diverse as power tools to works of art, and a Google map showing geographic locality. Transactions are handled similar to Craigslist: payment is handled and determined directly between the two parties involved:

...rental fees (price, method of payment and the dates) is a transaction between the renter and the owner exclusively. All information about these fees have already been provided in the item description (to be paid at time of pick up, through wire transfer, by credit card or other means).

Further explanation of Zilok's rental service site here.

Comments (4)

Another good option for apartment dwellers are tool lending libraries. I used to use the Berkley one when I lived in the Bay Area. Here's a list of tool libraries on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tool-lending_libraries

I wish more cities had them!

posted by midmogirl on June 4th 2008 at 1:50pm
view midmogirl's profile

They need to come up with a toy library--my cousin's kids in Perth, Western Australia used it. My parents' neighbors have enough toys that the entire town of Thousand Oaks could borrow from them and their kids wouldn't notice.

posted by kaanswfm on June 4th 2008 at 4:10pm
view kaanswfm's profile

kaanswfm -

There is a toy program similar to netflix but you get toys.

http://www.babyplays.com/

I don't know anyone that has used it but the concept is great.

posted by JessG on June 4th 2008 at 9:01pm
view JessG's profile

All these sites are good. Everything is for rent now a days. I went on a vacation and I needed a high chair and car seat for my 2 year. I found this site called Rent It Today. The baby stuff was delivered to my room. I got the baby stuff and then I went ahead and rented beach chairs and beach toys from the same place. The address to that website was www.rentittoday.com

It was easy to use. I could contact the rental company directly.

posted by classyj on October 7th 2009 at 4:03pm
view classyj's profile