Please take a look.
0My son, for reasons I still don’t understand, decided to move to Detroit a few years back. Since then his life has been a mess. He was working at an old theater downtown. His dream had been to work stage setup and tear downs, but he finally realized that it wasn’t going to keep him fed and a decent roof over his head.
He has taken a job as an apprentice plumber. His current problem is the tools he needs were stolen and are expensive. He has set up a Go Fund Me. For every $17 that is donated, he is going to work an hour of community service that he will document and post.
If you can please help. I know most of us are pay check to pay check. Please pass along.
https://www.gofundme.com/2rn9rvr4
Thanks.
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You should suggest to your son that he consider making use of Craigslist and eBay for his tool acquisitions. You’d be surprised how many new or like-new tools make it onto those sites. For example, I was able to pick up a like new (literally, not even a scratch) Milwaukee right angle drill I use for running lines through wood studs for 40% off on eBay. Granted some of the larger items aren’t practical to have shipped but the sad reality of the world we live in is that businesses fail daily, both startup operations and long-standing ones, and their tools end up needing to be liquidated. I’ve bought everything from a $1000 generator for $100 to shop equipment like our band saw which I picked up for pennies on the dollar compared to buying new at retail.
@jbartus Yeah tools show up there regularly and some are really really nice, like my entire toolbox that was stolen when I moved everything I owned into the storage unit when I ended up homeless. I saw them on craigslist, called the police and pretended I was going to buy them back. Trouble is they were a no show for the meet up and the ad was pulled from craigslist. I still don’t have any tools, none of the parts from all my furniture that I took apart to put in storage nor the parts I was going to fix on the family 1862 melodeon. All of that was in there. Good luck to your son getting work tools again. Renters insurance is pretty cheap, although in my case my deductible was so high nothing was covered but it sounds like in his case once he replaces everything it would be worth it in case the stuff “walks” again.
Garage sales are also a great source of used tools. One more suggestion: Check yelp for plumbers that are no longer in business. Oftentimes the contact information will still be available, and they may be interested in selling.
He should scout the pawn shops around and buy back his old tools.
@cranky1950 That actually is a good idea. Plus since they have to prove who they are to pawn things then the thieves can be arrested.
@Kidsandliz If you have the serial numbers of the equipment that was stolen, you might be able to get them back for free. But if you cannot prove it’s yours, you’re stuck.
I had tools stolen from me when I had a contractor do work on my house. I had a video camera setup too. The police were called, the company hired a lawyer for their employee, and I gave all the serial numbers. Got nothing back. Did find out that the employee has been accused of stealing items in the past.
The detectives were specialists in this sort of thing and frequently go to pawn shops looking for stolen goods. Apparently there are laws that require pawn shops to hold merchandise for 30 days or so just so the police can check them if needed.
@cengland0 My stuff was hand craftsman like hammers, screwdrivers, etc. From the list on gofundme his son’s list of tools was pretty extensive and expensive and likely would have serial numbers.
Am I missing something? If he will work an hour of community service for every $17 dollars contributed, he’s making $17 dollars an hour. If he just did his plumber apprentice job, he should be able to make $17.33 an hour – at least that’s what the lowest 25% of people make in that job. http://work.chron.com/pay-scale-plumbers-apprentice-2341.html
The Gofundme website will take a percentage of what people donate. So it seems he could just work his regular job and get the money to replace his tools. If he needs them before he can work as a plumber, he could just put those tools on a credit card or get a bank loan for the bare minimum of tools to do the job.
@cengland0 He tried. His credit is too bad.
@cahuston Right now he is not making near that. He is learning, only been at it a couple of months.
Before he was robbed, he was basically homeless. Sleeping on couches and floors. He had just gotten into the place he was robbed in. When the police came, they told him they were ticketing the owner because the house was uninhabitable and he had the next day to leave.
He has debts that he is trying to pay, behind in his rent…
The list of tools are expensive. He hopes to get the best so they will last.
I was just hoping to share it for him.
@cahuston I noticed that the list was almost exclusively high end stuff and chose not to comment as it’s not my business but for what it’s worth the fact that he was seeking to buy all of the creme de la creme was actually off-putting for me. He’s 100% right that a quality Milwaukee tool will last decades if well cared for but at the same time they’re the Cadillac of the tool world.
To me going for the high end it’s more than just asking for a leg up, it’s asking to be set up for perpetuity. I don’t have money to share around right now but if I did I would be a lot more motivated by someone looking to get their hands on some Craftsman/Ryobi or even lower end DeWalt stuff as I’d know they were just trying to catch a break and work their way up from there. This isn’t meant to cast aspersions on your son or his motivations, just to let you know how it came off to me and perhaps others. I do think his commitment to do volunteer hours for every $X earned is admirable and wish him the best, my advice on Craigslist/eBay was most sincere.
@cahuston Suppose this is none of my business but I’m curious. If he was basically homeless before the stuff was stolen, how did he purchase $10,000 in equipment the first time before it was stolen? Is it possible that he had just a couple tools stolen but wants to replace the few tools with an entire gamut greater than what he had before?
Like some people have stated, we all started with the basic tools that are the minimum required to do the job and, as time and money permits, we upgrade and grow our tool collections.
@cengland0 The tools he had at that point were what he had that he bought in high school and what my dad left him. He didn’t have anything better than an old Skil table saw that Dad had.
I guess it doesn’t matter now. He said he is taking it down. He has had a lot of hate mail and the like. He is dejected. He has been trying to get a better life and he just hits walls. He has been trying for 5 years. It was just this year that he had a stable place to live. I don’t know what he is gonna do.
I haven’t told him, my other kids or my mother, that I may finally have to have open heart surgery. I have an aneurysm that was stable for 10 years. That’s life I guess.
@cahuston That’s a shame about the hate mail. Too bad we cannot all be civil like the meh community here. From what I read so far, nobody here has given any hate speeches about it – just questions and many suggestions.
@cahuston I’m really sorry to hear about your health issues, don’t you go dying on us! I sincerely hope he didn’t take anything I said as hate speech, it was not meant in that way at all.
@jbartus I don’t think he did. He’s just searching for a way up. Getting tired of
getting knocked down.
Whew! What a ‘dream tool’ list, and all cordless!
Having been a commercial building maintenance mechanic for decades with my own tools, I could only dream for Santa to bring me that list of tools (though I burned up a cordless Milwaukee hammer/drill in under 1 yr). I worked plumbing, low & high voltages (to 3phase 660v), construction, remodels, HVAC & refrigeration, institutional security, the list goes on…
I started with the basics. Not new stuff. Craigslist, swap meets, newspapers, asking around others in the field, I was able to kludge together a nice list of items, always upgrading when possible. No one cares if your tools are shiny! I actually kinda made my tools ‘ugly’ with orange spray paint on purpose. Less chance of anyone stealing or paying attention to those ugly orange tools… LOL…
Good luck with your endeavor. Thieves really suck!
ps… I have not been able to damage my DeWalt 20v hammer/drill no matter how I treat it!
@daveinwarsh the $120 low capacity cordless shop vac threw me for a loop.
This robbery happened a few years ago? How has he managed to work as an apprentice since then? Or do I misunderstand?
What are the reasons for staying in t Detroit? Nothing against Detroit (liked it the few times I traveled there), but if he hasn’t been able to pull his work life back on track after several years, might there not be better locations or more promising directions to take a swing at?
If he is going to keeping the GoFundMe appeal going, it would be nice if he told everyone more detail about what work he’s managed to get for the years since the robbery, what work he could have gotten if he had tools, and where he is in his apprenticeship and what he would do to move himself forward professionally with new resources. What have his options been? Why has he made the decision to pursue a certain sort of work, in that city? Could he switch the sort of work, or move elsewhere, and do better? How does he view all this?
If he is determined to buy top of the line stuff, people who might donate and can’t afford the expensive stuff themselves will notice that.
Those are not the tool he needs those are the tools he wants. Each could be had for half that price. Also lets assume he really wants all the expensive tools rather then begging money and saying he will work charity pick up some extra part time seasonal work at home depot or lowes. Use the pay plus employee discount to buy the tools. Buy on sale with discount. Harbor freight I saw today was hiring.
I wish him luck but 2 years later buying him high end tools he has made no progress or effor on himself is not a gift I am willing to give.
He hasn’t even done a good job of looking at prices. The absurdly expensive flood light he wants for example he lists as 180 is it 99 at home depot right now same model. The cheapo harbor freight model that would do the job is 14 dollars.
@cahuston I saw he’s already posted two updates and it looks like he does quality work and is quite serious about doing the volunteer work he committed to. doing. I still think he should consider more economical options but I hope he keeps his campaign up, he truly seems like he wants to improve his lot in life and do good for others and if he keeps updating his campaign people should see it and respond.
I have thought a lot about the begging on gofundme issue. I have really mixed feelings. On the one hand it is incredibly embarrassing to essentially admit to the world that you have so failed as a self supporting adult that you are reduced to begging. On the other hand that is the only thing that kept me in medical care and health insurance when I finally broke down and created one. All sorts of people came out of the woodwork to help, many of whom I only knew on lists I was on whom I had helped over the years myself and were paying it forward. Very humbling.
Short version of my story (no there is no gofundme link here): I had been fired for cancer (#2 and #3 in one year, #3 has no cure). I had a fair bit of savings and lasted close to 2 years, some of that not really looking for a job as my bone marrow mostly got killed by chemo and I was dead tired all the time, (not to mention my kid - adopted at an older age and troubled - was having psychiatric and juvenile justice system “melt downs”, problems at school, some of which were not her fault as it had been an on going battle to get the school to honor her IEP, the sicker I got the more she fell apart and so any energy I had was directed at trying to keep her functional). My bone marrow has finally recovered but that took several years.
Then I had to choose between health insurance and rent (this state did not expand medicaid, I had to choose homelessness for almost 2 years - used the gofundme on health care only. I finally got into HUD housing 6 mo ago). Someone had pressured me for several months to start a gofundme and I finally did once I ran out of other options. Eventually I got some part time and temp work. The most steady of the temp jobs laid me off very recently and with that went most of my income. My other, more recent, part time job pays less than half of the other one. Having the same debate all over again about what to do (a job, any job, is preferable to living at 35% of the poverty line with food stamps and in HUD housing) while frantically trying to get whatever job I can made harder by age discrimination, graduate degrees, gaps in my vitae/resume - I am applying to any job, even minimum wage jobs, did manual labor in a hot parking lot the summer before last) to bail my sorry ass this time (complicated by a bunch of medical testing as I may have relapsed, if not then something else is going on that is similar, medical bills mounting and I am in a position to have to choose what to skip and what absolutely needs done).
When life has been hard for months and months on end, when sometimes it too much effort to throw yourself a pity party to justify crying because you can’t think of any other options/are out of options (likely that was some untreated depression in my case when this happened to me at one point), when it seems like an overwhelming challenge to put your life back together again, then sometimes you make choices you’d otherwise not make when you aren’t caught in that quagmire. I know I had to fight to not focus on what I had lost rather to focus on what I needed to do to move forward and dig myself out. Mentally exhausting at times.
My guess would be he is focusing on what he has lost and thinks that by replacing those things with what he had somehow that will “fix” it. Sure it will fix the loss of things he valued the most and likely make him feel a bit better, but it doesn’t fix the underlying issues; stuff is only a temporary fix anyway. But it can be hard to see that when you are buried under hopelessness, especially when there is emotional attachment to some items because of who owned it before you. All my tools got ripped off when I put stuff in storage. While it is PITA not to have tools, what I grieve for is the worn blue wood screwdriver with all the interchangeable heads, none were missing, that my grandfather gave my dad and he gave me. The only thing I have from him (he is dead). And the parts I had taken off that needed fixing so I put them in the tool chest so they wouldn’t be lost from my great grandparents’ 1862 melodeon. There is a special sadness in the loss of those two things. He is likely feeling that too.
Probably he needs two lists. Immediate, doesn’t matter if it they are high quality or not, basic tools needed right now, today, to move forward in what he is training to do. Then he can start to prioritize replacing them with quality tools as he can.
He also probably needs gently counseled on how some people view his gofundme and to revise it to meet immediate needs to get moving forward again. And then think about longer term goals with respect to what he needs. And yes if you use certain tools for a living having quality tools is cheaper in the long run, usually safer as well as they don’t break unexpectedly as much… The catch is that when you are essentially spending other people’s money, you have to be sure you are spending it in ways that seem reasonable to the donors and to spend it on needs and not wants. After all it is no one’s obligation to help us; that he is hoping people will realize how grateful he is by doing volunteer work, likely that doesn’t connect with the underlying reasons as to why people donate to being with. I actually found once I forced myself out the door and did volunteer work when I had little employment, that began to help my outlook on life and helped me start to dig out.
Wish I knew what to tell you. The last thing your kid needs is cruel comments right now as he is probably already really discouraged and beating himself up anyway. And as others have pointed out, he needs to be realistic about what he asks for when asking people to give him money. Good luck to him.