This is surreal & I can't believe things have suddenly spiralled like this.
Last winter I used a moving company for the first time ever, because I was 6mo pregnant (and single) & moving house all by myself was Too Much. The chief moving guy on the day was a helpful Kiwi who worked his ass off, and I gave his team a huge tip for their effort. He explained that he was setting up his own moving service and gave me his card for my next move.
For various reasons I (plus new baby) had to move again this September so I booked the guy directly this time. All went smoothly, and I gave his team another good tip.
As he was leaving, he said that he had to move house himself in two weeks' time and asked if I would give him any of my boxes. Although I wasn't going to unpack much because I had builders starting the next day, I wanted to help him out. So I did as much as I could and he came back the following day to collect about 15 boxes, and then the following week to take another 20 or so.
Cut to two months later. The guy texted me out of the blue to say could he come and get the rest of my boxes - but only the ones in good condition (he left behind several last time on the ground they were apparently not in good enough condition for him).
One hand, my building work is about to finish so I am starting to unpack the rest of my boxes and will need to get rid of them at some point soon.
On the other hand, I really need to get rid of them all, including the ones in "bad condition" too. I have about ten rejected ones from last time still cluttering up my flat, and no doubt he would reject a whole bunch more. I have a small baby and no car so it's hard for me to take them down to the tip myself.
So I replied to say Yes, you can have them, but would you kindly take away ALL of them in your van and dispose of any you don't want.
To which he replied Yes, but I will charge you £76.
I didn't reply to this. That was a week ago.
Then yesterday, I received a really horrible text from the guy, saying he can't believe I am refusing to give him "his" boxes back.
I was a bit upset by this. I think I paid him £120 for boxes when I moved, plus I had about 20 of my own, and my sister ordered 30 brand new ones for me too. So as far as I was concerned, they were my boxes, to unpack whenever I feel like, and to do with whatever I liked.
I replied very simply to say that the boxes were not "his". He replied, very nastily, to say that "as always" the boxes were provided on a buy back arrangement, ie I had only rented them from him. If I had bought them from him, he would have charged me three times as much.
I replied again to say that this was the first I had heard of this arrangement (which is the case- in my move last year there was never an issue about this) and that anyway, many of my boxes were acquired through other means.
I've now received a whole string of very nasty texts implying that I am a very unreasonable person. AIBVU?