The Cryptic Writer

Well, Jase apparently couldn’t take it any more so we moved early.

Sadly, we rented from U-haul. We rented a 17 foot truck and a car dolly on Friday. That evening we stayed up till 3 A.M. putting everything that I had packed, into the truck. Jase did most of that since I was worn out. We went to bed then woke up at 9 A.M. to continue packing. We didn’t get on the road until 1:30 P.M. Saturday.

We went from Klamath Falls, to Medford (Rt. 140), up I-5 to Roseburg, then cut from Roseburg to Myrtle Point, Coquille and Coos Bay. Now we are here in North Bend, a block away from the Coos Bay city limit. Go figure.

Anyway, along the way, we stopped 8 times checking the car and the dolly to make sure everything was in order. All of our animals were in the car, because we felt that that would be safest for them.

The Dolly was the front wheel loader type, which has these little ramps you pull out and drive the front wheels of the car up before locking the wheels in place. Then you lift the ramps and slide them back into their cavity. A little bolt thing will lock them into place so that they don’t pop out and drag on the road while driving.

Right outside of Coos Bay, that metal bolt thing vanished. Just snapped off. We couldn’t find it. The only reason we knew that the ramp was dragging was because this black truck pulled up just ahead of us on the driver’s side and started driving funny. If it hadn’t been for them… The ramp was showering sparks over the car, and the fuel tank was on that side.. put two and two together and there could have been a serious problem including the fact that we would have lost all the animals.

I am not happy that U-haul didn’t check their equipment before renting it out… but it gets worse. We took the truck and the Dolly in to the U-haul place here Sunday afternoon. We had cleaned the truck up and even filled up the tank. Plus we had driven forty miles under our allotted mileage.

So we told them what happened. And we lost our deposit. 200 dollars just down the tube because THEIR equipment failed. We had nothing to do with it. The guy who took the truck in wanted proof that the animals were in danger and the car had sparks being showered on it. He wanted PROOF. Then he told Jase that we could be faking it and have taken off the bolt thing ourselves.

The worst part about it is that we were depending on the return of the deposit so that Jase could go home and finish cleaning up and packing the house. Instead we were ripped off and will probably even be charged for repairs on the dolly.

Until that had happened, the plan was that I would return with Jase to help clean and fix the house, plus pack whatever was left. Then my brother and mom were going to come down and help from Thursday to Saturday. My mom and Bro even rearranged their schedule at the risk of loosing hours to help us. But Jase’s truck is in the shop and he needed whatever was left of the returned deposit to put back in the bank for that purpose. Sadly, we borrowed money from my parents just so that Jase could get home. So on top of needing money to pay for the truck’s return, possible repairs on the dolly that should have been well maintained, we also have to pay back over 100 dollars for Jase going back there.

My parents don’t actually want the money back, but Jase and I both feel that they should not have had to pay for our return trip. If U-haul maintained their equipment we would not be in this situation.

Bottom line: I will NEVER rent from U-haul again. Next time I could end up losing something extremely important. I do not recommend anyone using U-haul in the future.