A & B Tool Rentals

I signed up to Unilocal to warn everyone to not to use these guys. Customer service is below bad. I picked up concrete breaker, and as I was rolling out, the guy says «oh and if you want, here are the metal jumbo things for the breaker, if you want you can pick up one or two». When I return this stuff it turns out they are 20 $ a piece.
I rent a ladder and need to tie it to the roof. Never done anything like that before, don’t have a rope (my bad); I go back inside and ask them what to do. The guy says sure we can give you a rope. I ask them how would they recommend tying it, they say «it’s your problem» and walk away. When I return the ladder it turns out they charge for the rope as well. It’s not a big money and I would have paid it, but don’t be slimy, be upfront about stuff like that!
You’d think chain stores like Home Depot would the ones with bad customer service but whenever I rented with them they were polite, very helpful. On top of that, they open earlier, close later, work on Sundays and are cheaper. There is literally no reason to use these guys when you can go to Home Depot or United Tool Rental.

I work in property development so i’ve dealt with my fair share of equipment rental companies. A & B are the only ones that have such poor customer service that I would not only ever deal with again, but felt the need to share. You’d think the big guys like United Rentals would be the ones to not care about the customer… but these are the guys that take the cake.
They took my credit card, and made a copy of it, wrote down my cvv number. The very next day, the card was compromised and they claim its impossible that it could have been their store… yeah when the guy copies down my number and my cvv code on a piece of paper — in case I run away with their machine, yeah right. Then they tried to tell me the parking meter I used a few days prior that copied my cvv code.
Anyways, they aren’t even polite about it. Coming from someone who has rented everything from belt sanders to boom lifts, take it from me. Avoid these guys. Even home depot is better.

Sent packing from Home Depot because of my debit visa ways, I deposited myself at A&B Tools, desperate to get my hands on a decent belt sander for the day.
The pros to this spot: They accept Debit/​Visa no problem. No traditional credit card needed. Leave a deposit and poof — you’re renting. No hoops to jump through, which is nice.
And they had what I was looking for (more or less) without having to call ahead and reserve.
The rates are reasonable — so long as you read the fine print.
The odds to this spot: As Crystal H noted — this isn’t the most esthetically pleasing little nook on the Main St stretch. But I don’t find it unbearable. It’s kind of like an old garage workshop… a little bit musty, s%$t everywhere, gasoline smell out the wazoo and sawdust wafting at your heels. I grew up with a handy family, so i’m pretty used to this sight. But the belt sander I rented was pretty out of date so if you’re looking for something new and fancy, you might be better off hitting HD.
The fine print. The belt sander was $ 12 to rent for the day plus sand paper. Pretty darn nifty price. Except they failed to inform me that a «day» meant it had to be returned before 9am the next morning. The over charge was something like $ 8. Not enough to break the bank by any standards, but I was a bit miffed that I wasn’t told this when renting. It took the price from dirt cheap to on par with Home Depot… which makes the age/​quality of the equipment a little more disappointing.
If you live in Riley Park/​Mount Pleasant, rent from this place purely out of convenience. But if you’re thinking of driving cross town to rent? I’d say there are better options in town for those with wheels.

What do you get when the only other choice, is their other location? You get screwed. Well, almost screwed, as my case may be. I needed more power, and with that I called these guys to rent a generator for a weekend (yes, for the Unilocal RV). I told them what I needed and thought that it was all pretty clear. Until I went to pick up.
When I arrived, I had to force myself to open the door to the dirty, dingy and smelly mechanic shop with a coffee station that gave me the heebie jeebies just looking at it. Shudder.
Me, obviously out of place, wearing street clothes with clean hands, said I was there to pick up an order I had made over the phone. The problem — they didn’t have what I ordered because either A) I had ordered from the wrong store or B) I had ordered the wrong sized generator.
Hmmmm… well, I know for a fact that I was supposed to pick it up from this location, since I didn’t know there was another one until that moment and since I told THEM to tell me what I needed on the phone meaning, it would be pretty difficult for me to order the wrong size.
After a few minutes of phone calls and some head scratching the crisis was averted. Soon, I was loaded up (appreciation for the help with getting this into my car) with a much bigger generator than I had ordered, but at least they charged me the price of the smaller one. The thing was heavy and huge, dirty and filled with rocks that left marks all over my trunk. But none of that bothers me more than the lasting smell of gas in my car that reminds me of that grubby place. Yick!