12 Moving Tips from an Experienced Mover

I have more moving experience that most, having moved on average of every 2.5 years since I was 17.

The following tips were accumulated over my lifetime of moving experiences and I’ve included some of my daughter’s experiences as well.

I once scheduled a week ahead of time to have two strong fellows to load my rented truck. Unfortunately, a one week notice is considered a rush; therefore I was charged and extra $75.

A few days before a scheduled move, I received a confirmation email. The loaders were to show up Friday, March 7, 2009 between 9am and 10am.

Friday morning around 10:30am, I began to wonder why the loaders hadn’t showed up. Of course, I wasn’t in THAT big of a hurry, given that I still hadn’t emptied my desk drawers or packed up the piles of junk from my office.

At 11am, I decided to call to find out when they were coming. I open the email to get the phone number of the moving company providing the manpower and realized that March 7^th was on Saturday. That’s tomorrow. Today is Friday the 6^th. Well, that’s just great.

I considered just waiting until the next day...for about one second. You see, I lived in a condo complex ruled by what Bill and I commonly refer to as the “Condo Nazi’s.” They are mainly successful retired business men and women who have nothing better to do than make life difficult for the tenants by making up ridiculous rules. The rules affecting me that day were:

• No Deliveries Allowed on Saturday or Sunday (yeah, I know, but this includes “un-deliveries” as well)
• Delivery trucks may only be parked on the property between the hours of 8am and 5pm Monday thru Friday

I frantically dialed the number, Argghhh, voice mail. I looked up the number of the place that had scheduled the move for me. Ah, I got an answer. “Hi there, listen, I had scheduled some guys to come load my truck for today and I just read the email that indicates the move is for Friday, March 7^th. March 7^th is tomorrow...Saaaaturday. So am worried that they aren’t going to show up until tomorrow. “

The calm and pleasant young lady on the other end, “Yes, I see it looks like there was a mistake. Let me contact the movers and see if they can come today. I’ll call you back within the hour.”

She called back about 30 minutes later and told me that the movers just happened to be available that afternoon. They were just finishing up in Miami and would be there in about 1.5 hours. I was relieved. They wouldn’t be there until 1pm, but that still left us with 4 hours.

They showed up at 3pm. Luckily they threw in a 3^rd guy for free, so they were able to get almost everything loaded by the 5pm deadline. Lucky for me, I own the place and it had not been listed yet, so I still had time to go back and get the rest of my stuff.

 See Condo Nazi reference in previous tip.

I really do plan to go back in the next couple of weeks. 

When I moved to Jax Beach, I enlisted the help of my daughter and her significant other; and, of course, the always helpful, never out-of-control, 5-year old twin granddaughters. I really just wanted the strong significant other, but you have to compromise sometimes.

After we made the 300 mile drive up to Jax Beach with the moving truck, I called my daughter to let her know we had arrived. She proceeded to inform me that her significant other was sick (a.k.a. hung-over) and that he wasn’t coming.

Luckily, she was able to find a babysitter for the twins; otherwise, we would probably still be unloading.

When the person you are talking to at the truck rental place tells you that this size truck will hold a 2 bedroom apartment, make sure that you understand they are talking about a normal non-pack-rat type of person. 

Whenever I am doing a local move, I always end up telling the movers, whether my friends or hired help, “Don’t worry about that, I can take that in my car.”

I don’t think there has ever been a time when it didn’t take me 3 or 4 times as many trips as I estimated.

Additionally, both the old neighbors and the new neighbors always managed to get in the question, "Didn't I see a moving truck here yesterday? Why didn't you let them move this for you?"

 My daughter has done this twice.  I don’t think there is any need to elaborate.

Yep, this was the daughter again, you guessed it.

 You guessed right again--daughter

I once moved from a one bedroom apartment to a two bedroom apartment in the same complex. In fact, the new place was right across the hallway from the old one. That was the easiest and most problem-free move I ever had, at least I thought, until about a week later when I couldn’t find the blender or the food processor or the crock pot or…. Luckily the apartment office let us back in to get the rest of our stuff.

I don’t think I have had a move yet where I had time to return the equipment to the cable company.

One time, I tried to return it, but the line was so long, it would have caused me to miss the delivery by the movers.  So I just walked up to a window, interrupted a customer and said, “Here I don’t have time to wait,” while shoving the pile of boxes and dangling power cords through the window.

I was charged $300 for that equipment.

Other times, I can talk a friend into returning it for me. Since they are doing me such a big favor, they usually decide to take their sweet time. On each of these occasions, I was initially charged for the equipment, but eventually was refunded the charge when my friend finally decided to return the equipment for me—after several nagging long distance phone calls.

I’m including this extra last tip, even though I don’t know anyone that still owns a water bed. None the less, this is what could happen if you try to empty a waterbed too quickly.

During one of my earlier moves, my sister and I had been sharing an apartment. We both had found our own places and were in the process of moving out. My sister was over at her boyfriend’s house to borrow his truck while I was draining the water out of my air-sided water bed.

It was a really cool bed. It had a frame that you filled with air that kept the bladder in position. You could put regular bed sheets on it. I loved that bed.

While I was draining it, I noticed that the water had gone down so far that it wasn’t deep enough for the hose to drain out as quickly as it had been earlier. So, I let some air out of the sides in order to get a better grasp on it. As I lifted the heavy plastic, all that water sloshed in one big water-balloon-like blob down to the other end, causing the whole bed to flop off of the platform, landing right on top of a metal bracket from the wall shelves I had just taken down.

The bracket had pierced a large hole right through the bladder and water was gushing out onto the carpet.

I panicked. I tried to grab up the loose plastic near the hole to keep it from leaking. I had to put all my weight into it to hold it up.

I held it for what seemed forever (probably more like 2 minutes) and realized, I couldn’t just keep holding it; I had no idea when my sister would be back, it could be hours. I had to do something, so I let it go, ran to the wall phone in the kitchen (before the days of cell phones) and called my sister’s boyfriends house. Luckily he answered, I didn’t even let him say hello, I just shouted, “Help me, I just poked a hole in my waterbed and it’s leaking all over the floor. I’m trying to hold it up. Come quick!”

I ran back into the bedroom and grabbed the plastic again. The carpet was soaking wet. About 5 minutes later, I heard someone knock on the door. I couldn’t let go of the thing again. I just kept holding on to the waterbed, hoping that it was my sister. But, it wasn’t. Then whoever it was started banging on the door. Oh God!  That is probably the people that live downstairs.  I didn't let go. Eventually, the banging stopped, then the phone started ringing. WHERE ARE THEY!

By now it had been at least 20 minutes since I made the phone call. I began to worry that they thought I was joking.

I had to start pushing my legs against to wall to give me enough strength to keep holding the bed up. My legs were starting to cramp and my fingers were turning white from holding on to the plastic so tight.

Finally, a few minutes later my sister and her boyfriend walked in and starting laughing hysterically. They helped me push the big sack of water back over so it could continue draining without leaking out of the new hole.

That was the last time I ever had a waterbed.

I hope you pay more attention to these tips than my family and I do.  You might consider having a little extra cash on hand, just in case.