Not doing anything with your power tools, carpet cleaner or fancy dress costumes? Try hiring them out. Or you could rent out spare storage space in your loft or garage to make spare cash and participate in what’s been dubbed the “sharing economy”.

Many people are familiar with the concept of making money by renting out a spare room to a lodger, or your driveway to a motorist looking for a place to park. However, a new wave of websites are taking this much further.

When Yosef Salameh saw a TV programme mentioning websites that helped people rent out little-used items, it set him thinking about the Raleigh mountain bike and large portable barbecue gathering dust in his shed.

“I’m away a lot playing cricket and use the car for that, so I don’t tend to use my bike or barbecue much. Renting them out looked like a good opportunity to stop them going to waste and make a bit of money,” says Salameh, 29, of south-west London. He signed up with a company called RentMyItems, and says that since listing his bike for rent at 50 per weekend (plus a 50 returnable deposit) and the barbecue at 20 (plus 20 deposit) per weekend last September, he has made 240, and is hopeful that better summer weather will encourage more rentals.

“There’s a lot of trust involved but so far I haven’t been disappointed,” he says. “The barbecue has come back immaculately clean both times and it’s going out again this weekend. The bike, too, has come back on time and in good shape from four weekend rentals. I’m thinking of adding my satnav to my listings soon.”

Meanwhile, in Bath, Andy Fuller is making money from renting out his garage for storage while the woman using it to store her belongings is almost certainly paying less than she would to a specialist company.

Fuller, a graphic designer, used the detached garage that came with his flat for storing items and rehearsing music. But when he moved house and rented out his flat, the garage, which was fitted out as a secure, dry room with a side door, lay empty. “I tried renting it out for storage the traditional way by putting a card in a newsagent’s window, but the only interest that prompted was from a builder who offered me 40 a month, which I didn’t think was worth it.”

Then someone handed him a promotional postcard for StoreNextDoor, a company that connects property owners with spare space to rent out with people looking to store items, such as books or furniture.

Fuller listed his garage at 100 a month on the website, and decided to rent it to a woman who was between houses in Bath and needed somewhere to store her belongings until her new house purchase went through. She is still using it five months later, generating 500 in income for Fuller so far.

Six websites that are part of the trend in the UK include rentmyitems.com. This week items up for rent included several lawnmowers, tents and carpet cleaners, plus a sea kayak in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, at 4 a day; a Spiderman adult fancy dress costume (“only worn once”) in Reading, Berkshire, at 7 a week;.

Storenextdoor.com, lists space for rent; Parkatmyhouse.com, which helps people rent their driveways to motorists; Spareroom.co.uk, is a specialist site for finding a lodger; Gocarshare.com is an online marketplace for empty car seats, connecting drivers and potential passengers to save money on petrol and save on CO2 emissions; Taskhub.co.uk connects people who need assistance with jobs and errands to those in their area who can help.

Guardian News and Media 2013