I think DKMC and Cal have their finger on the pulse there. I would get rid of everything he lays claim to. Have your attorney contact his and do whatever it takes to get things wrapped up. Avoid the temptation to stick it to the guy. Just keep it simple.

I had a nut job working under me once and my pistol fit fine in my tool box...no knew except me. I was not going to become another sad news story.....I took my pistol home after they fired the guy for failing a drug test....

Later on I discovered two other guys had also brought in secret varmint repellent....great minds think alike I guess...

Its getting weirder. They responded, but not the "VP" of their company, but the guy who loaned them the money. I dont think he has a clue about the guy he is dealing with. He also stated that Johns case was vacated. How can he be in jail for parole violation if that happened? Not like it really matters, his contract is with them, not us.

Then she (Johns wife, VP of their "corporation") replied by email and showed up today. She says they have a signed lease with us that states where ever their stuff is is their area. and that the lease is $1 per month and if paid in advance $10 for the year. You have got to be kidding. We have never heard of such a thing nor would we ever agree to such a lease. The only thing we can come up with is John made something up and signed his own name to it.

She really hates me. With a passion. She believes that I am "altering and molesting" their equipment. (Interesting choice of words) Wow, first time I have been the source of someones persecution complex!. She thinks I am out to get him. He seems to be doing a good job going after himself. She does not believe he has done the things he has done like threatening me and others. She really got pissed when I told her I had already filed a police report about the first incident. Calling me "Slimy" for spreading rumors about him.

She also said John does not run the company and that he is a consultant. Funny, he is the one that claims the equipment is his. Wonder if they dont want people associating a felon with the company?

In the end we told her that the stuff will be out of there in a week wether they move it or not.

We will put the equipment into secure storage. But what do we do with the vehicles and trailers? Have them towed?

Fortunately she does not have the money for an attorney and unfortunately neither do we, at least not officially.

I just want them out of there and never see or hear from them again. Ugh!

Propose the following, for your consideration. Check with your lawyer friends to verify this is ok:

Register a lien yourself, for storage charges and moving charges.

Verify that the loan guy who called is who he says he is, and that he has a lien on these machines. If not, I'd find the actual lienholder and contact him and see if he wants to repo the machines. If it's the loan guy who called you, he may have fallen under the spell of the rain-forest protector rhetoric. You may have to get with lienboy to "ask him the facts aggressively". That is, don't say that "this guy's a sleazo", but say "it's my understanding that John is in prison on felony parole violation charges. I believe that because of this weblisting. Did John tell you something different than what this documentation shows? We have filed a police report regarding verbal and written (in email) physical threats John made to our staff." Might get him to realize that he's been dealing with a fruitcake. Then you can work with the guy to see if he wants to take possession and remove the machines. Lienboy may offer them to you at an attractive price, and he may choose to move them. I'd make sure that any sales contract has in it that the money he agrees to is net all liens and debts.

I would also get a court order to keep John and his Mrs. (and their friend, Bob, too) off the property as soon as the one week expires. These guys seem to want to make money in the old-fashioned divorce attorney's way: The want to be so obnoxious that you end up willing to pay them anything to go away.

For that reason, I'd expect them to show up when you plan to move the machines to try and stop you. With a court order and a sheriff, maybe. So if they contact you, you may wish to feint a moving date. "If you don't move them by the deadline, that settles the matter. I'm having the riggers come as soon as they are available, I think Thursday, and move these things." Then have the riggers come in Monday so that the stuff is gone when Mrs. Bozo shows up.

I respect the sentiment expressed here that having a "Vermin-B-Gone" in .45 caliber may be better than having your survivors read about you in the newspapers, but be careful to obey all laws regarding this. It might be worthwhile to have an armed, trained, bonded security guy on site when you are actually moving these machines, for security and liability purposes. You'd hate to have to pay John's widow's retirement because of the messed-up legal system.

Golly, though, it seems mean to be persecuting someone who can, with three machines in a small shop in Oregon, save the rainforest.

J

Don't have enough money for an attorney? Isn't that what got the shop into this situation?

If it was me, I'd run as fast as I could away from this whole mess.

Intereresting topic, but from reading this thread it's obvious that the equipment is at tech shop in Portland. Now that Techshop is apparently folding; is it possible that your boss has not been forthcoming with all the information as well? As always there are 2 sides to every story, and whilst you may think you know all that's going on, unless you are a principle in the business, that's not always the case.

Since you have stuff of your own in the facility I'd suggest you get it all out before it's gone, as should everyone else associated with the project. Once the receiver locks the doors it's going to be tough to get your stuff back.

Too bad, it was a cool idea. But leasing 30,000 ft2 to run a techshop was maybe just a bit more than could have been chewed off in the Portland area. Certainly at the prevailing lease rates.

Let's hope someone tried the idea again.

Good Luck,

Steve

Folding ?? Macona, what say ye ?

FWIW, back in the early 80's I was a member of a cooperative woodworking shop in Raleigh, NC. Seems like we had about 8 members, but shop was only 2,000 or so sq ft and total building rent was maybe $150 a month. So, not much financial pressure...but for whatever reason the interest sort of fell off after a couple years, the founder moved away and put control in my hands. And then I got more involved in running an actual business making furniture and it came down to just me and one holdout. And since the lease was in my name at that point I had to make a decision whether to let the remaining hobbiest piddle around or kick him out. Eventually he decided that he didn't want to be paying half the rent and utilities and it was all mine.

So in that case I don't recall any actual tension between members but it is curious the interest in it fell off so much looking back now.

It's over here...
Techshop Portland Going Under - The Home Shop Machinist & Machinist's Workshop BBS

Wow - sounds like a big stinky mess to me. Jerry - if you need a place to store a few items, I can make some room, we can unload items to 7000 lbs without too much difficulty with a loading dock and drive in capability. Holler if you need any help.

Ken

Old English saying applies here,

"Buckingham Palace is too small for 2 families".

I think he was honest about this the part with that guy. I saw all the paperwork myself.

The website and email says "We are moving" What a load of BS. From what I have found out in the last couple weeks the place is in so much debt it will never find investors to pull it out. On top of the 2 months back rent there are employment taxes, utilities, construction liens, and materials-man liens. TechShop in portland is dead and not coming back. Plain and simple. It was mismanaged in to the ground. Any help I had offered was pretty much ignored. The owner tried to take everything on his own shoulders and it crushed him.

As for the rest of it he outright lied to me and I am pretty pissed. I will not forgive him.

I got all my stuff out. Though I cant even step foot in my garage now. One of the other members had rented a couple storage spaces for his plasma and router and he is letting me store some stuff there as well. I took the Gorton mill and BP over to my dads shop. I gave him the BP.

I ended up taking the 9x32 BP, Gorton 8D, Dynasty 300 Tigrunner, cuttermaster, oxy-acet set, Max spindle sander, and 20" Max disc sander in trade for back wages.

But I am not done with this idea yet. I and others are sure it can work. Having on of these small laser cutters alone could support a small office. We had probably 1/4 of all the members who only had a TechShop membership to use the laser cutter. Thats $3000 a month right there. Me and some of the other equipment owners are going to do a lean and mean version of this. More of a co-op as oregon has very favorable laws for co-ops. Not sure if I will be able to get a job out of it though. One of the guys who is writing up a business plan as we speak and he is going to try and write me in as well. Before it even gets to a point of getting a building there will be a cache of funds in line to make sure we always have 2-3 months of operating expenses. If it dips below this point then we clear out.

Ugh. Now I need to find a real job. Laika might be starting a new film in the next couple months so I hope I can get in there.

Macona,
You spoke of material-man liens. Do you know if the machines you were given for back-pay are free of liens?


JAckal

Wow, sounds like it's rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell. Too bad, I always liked the techshop idea, and even roled it over in my head a little about starting one around here. I hope you can get back on your feet, and it sounds like the laser cutter might do that. You know what to look out for now!

I wonder if these kind of shops have been successful anywhere.? Ive seen a number of woodworking versions come and go in the Seattle area.

The Menlo Park version of Tech Shop seems to be going...so far. But, that's a unique area. Dense population with high paying jobs. Extreme housing prices making at-home shop space quite a premium.

I used to spend lots of time at the San Antonio Hobby shop in the mall just off El Camino south of Menlo Park. World's largest hobby shop is what they advertised. Probably no other place in the country could have supported a shop like that (they moved, maybe the internet did them in?). I think the same situation that supported such a large hobby shop also is supporting TechShop there.

San Antonio HS is gone. Been gone for about 3 years. They were expensive and in the internet age that doesn't last long. As a matter of fact, there aren't many good hobby shops left in this area.

I bought my son an R/C short course truck (think lucas oil off road series). I looked around for a track to take him to. The nearest off road track is in Union City.

The local hobby shop is dying a slow death these days.

FWIW, there is a cool old time hobby shop in downtown Savannah, GA that seems to still be doing ok...probably because of the nearby Savannah College of Art and Design...and the occasional stragler like me.

Bull Street Station

Seems hobby shops, once established, thrive around here. Several I go to have been around forever.

I set up a time lapse camera when it was pretty certain we were not getting out of moving. I let it run till sunday night taking one picture every 10 minutes.

YouTube - TechShop Evacuaion 1 hour per second

As of posting it is still processing on youtube.

That is quite the picture show - you could see the trucks come in high and leave low and the water drying on the floor . . . a bunch of full garages after this no doubt.

macona,

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but there was a lot of wasted space in that shop. You could have probably had a much smaller ship with less rent that would not have required decisions such as making mistakes sharing rent with another entitiy. Sharing rent is a HUGE liablility as your company learned. With how challenging the MFG sector is these days, you cannot afford to have liabilities like that.

If the company survives, I recommend doing some studying on product flow, machine placement and resource saving activities such as 5s before setting machines in the new facility. This is an opportunity to move forward.

Just my opinion trying to help.

Best regards

Thanks for posting that.

Jay

In saying that, you are assuming that the beginning of the video showed the shop as it was before anything was moved out, which might not have been the case. You are also assuming that there were no plans to recruit yet more members/machines.