Anyone used Door to Door Moving and Storage (or similar operations)?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’re moving this summer, from the east coast to California. We want to keep the cost of the move down as much as possible, and we also need a company that will store our stuff for a while, because there will be a month to six weeks between leaving Baltimore and finding a place and starting to live in San Diego, during which time we’ll be in Australia visiting family and friends.

We have quite a lot of books, clothes, personal stuff, and some (but not a huge amount of) furniture. We’re leaving behind both of our old couches, as well as some very cheap dressers, desks, etc. that have seen us through grad school.

My wife’s new job has given her $4000 for moving. That seems like a lot of money, but moving is expensive, and it probably won’t be enough to use a regular moving service, where they load all your stuff at this end and then unload it at the other end. If we have to go over the budget and use some of our own money, we will, but we’re a bit skint right now, and there’s no money coming in until September.

We’re thinking of using one of those companies that drop large containers at your place, then you fill the containers with your stuff, and they then store the containers for you, and drop them at your new address when you’re ready. This is one of the companies we’ve been looking at, and there are other similar operations.

Has anyone had any experience with outfits like this? Are they worth using? Any problem? Costs? etc. Any other experiences or advice would be most appreciated.

2

I just did a cross-town move using the Pods system. They dropped a 16-foot container at my apartment, stored it for a month, then delivered it 10 miles away. I have no complaints.

Here’s my original thread before I did it, there’s comments from other posters there.

My advice is to be aware that 8x8x16 feet sounds huge but isn’t compared to bulky house stuff. Pack densely, pack it to the roof with the heavy stuff low, light stuff high. Tie it all down inside the container. My container had eyebolts inside it and I used nylon tie-down straps, the kind with a ratchet, to keep it all tight. I only lost one box that toppled down and landed on the up-ended metal legs of my wrought-iron outdoor table.

Storage was the expensive part for me when I went to another month. Pods charged time from drop-off to final pick-up. That first month was free with my smokin’ deal but the second was nearly $200. A phone call after the fact, though, and they returned the pro-rated unused portion of my month. I had to ask for it, though.

You’ll probably have to pay for the transport, though.

Still, a good deal for me - really fit my need.

3

I haven’t personally used it, but my friend used it here in New York City and it was fabulous. It’s the best method of storage available IMO and the cost is mitigated because it doesn’t matter what neighborhood the storage is in, so they can defray the cost of the extra infrastructure by being in an undesirable area.

4

I’ve never tried them for a cross-country move, but I have used them twice for local moves.

As Belrix mentioned, storage is the expensive part. That adds up quick. So make sure you have someplace ready to move into fairly quickly on the other end.

I’ll second the advice to pack tightly and tie down. They have eye hooks like every 4 feet. Use them. Criss cross back and forth…up and down…side to side. Once you think you’ve gotten it all secure…use more rope. I would usually pack to a point just past the eye hooks. So that way I could pull back against the ropes and provide tension. Not just put the rope in front of stuff.

Also as was said in that other thread, they look really big when you get them, but once you start packing them up they fill fast. So try and plan out how to maximize your space. Can you put boxes inside things? under tables? What needs to be flat against the walls to keep from being crushed?

While I liked the PODS idea the main advantage was the storage. If I was doing a point-to-point move that didn’t require my stuff to be stored, I’d go with a moving company. Why? Because that way at the end of the day unpacking stuff, I’m not exhausted and unable to do anything else. We hired movers from our first apartment to our first house. It was great to be able to start unpacking boxes and organizing stuff in the evening after they left. Rather than just collapsing in a heap and sleeping on the floor because I didn’t have the energy to do anything. So I’d suggest getting some quotes for a moving company. It may be within your budget.

5

I’m thinking about a long distance move. I’ve looked at PODS, but was very leary about using them because of my 42 inch plasma tv. Am I safe to assume you would not put a plasma tv inside a pod?

6

If you’re worried about theft, you lock it, you keep the key, the box is steel clad. I think it’s pretty safe. If you’re worried about breakage, well, it’s going to get transported on a truck. Packed right, it’s no problem - it’s how it got to the store in the first place.

7

Thanks for the replies, folks.

We’ll probably have to store our stuff for close to 2 months, so i think a pod operation of some sort is the best way to go. While storage fees are likely to really bump up the cost of an in-town move, i think the bulk of our costs are going to come from shipping the container/s all the way across the country.

My wife was on the phone last week to one company that uses smaller containers (about half the size of the PODS 8x8x16), and the rep said we’d probably need three for our place, and that getting three containers across the country, with two months storage, would be about $3,700.

The real issue now, i think, is exactly which company to go with. A friend of ours used the company i linked in the OP, and was very happy with them. I’ve looked up a few of the companies on consumer sites, and they all have some complaints, but i guess that’s inevitable. It’s very hard to tell what percentage of their total business is represented by the complaints.

dalej42, we don’t have a plasma TV, and if i shipped one in a pod, i think i’d pack it extremely well. We have a 27" CRT that weighs about 90 pounds, and we’re thinking of just leaving it behind and getting a new TV in California.

8

Belrix, did you have a convenient space like a driveway where they could place the pod?

We live in a Baltimore row-house on a fairly small street, and any container would have to be placed on the street itself.

9

I used something like that for a cross-country move.

I can’t remember which particular company I used, but I do remember that they made their ‘pods’ by putting blue tarps over wood pallets. I wouldn’t use that particular pod type again, I would recommend the completely solid type of pod.

Saying that, for a low-cost move with people to help at the packing end, I think it was a pretty good idea. I did the other kind of move (with movers and a truck) this most recent time because I had back surgery ten days before my move, and I am currently in mover’s hell. [They want more money, they have my stuff, I have turned the matter over to a lawyer for whose time I have to pay at a very high hourly rate, but at least I don’t have to listen to them yell at me any more.]

The good thing about a pod move is that it is possible to know in advance exactly how much it will cost (or almost exactly). Much more so than a regular moving company.

The bad thing is that you have to do much of the work yourself. If that doesn’t bother you - go right ahead.

There are often different sizes of pods, so it might be helpful to get an opinion from either the pod people (I love saying that) or another moving company about how much space you need. This involves knowing what you’ll be bringing with you, especially how many boxes. I always guess low on boxes, so I’d recommend doubling your guess, or at least multiplying it again by half.

I found it very helpful to have a pro pack my pod. My packer was a friend who occasionally did packing professionally. I hired professionals to unpack my pod and bring my stuff upstairs to my apartment, since I knew no one in the area I moved to, and could not possibly carry my shit up to a 2nd floor apartment. This was all complicated by Hurricane Ivan, which is why I recommend solid as opposed to porous pods. They were impressed with my packer - they cursed him quite steadily as they kept getting more and more and more stuff out of my pod.

So, costs you should be aware of (not all of which may apply):
initial rental or deposit or activation fee
delivery fee to your home
fee if the pod stays at your home longer than they think it should
(usually no fee to pick the pod back up)
storage fee at the local warehouse
delivery to your new home (there must be an appropriate space for it!)
fee if the pod stays at your new home too long
a really good padlock
-this is the part the local folks often don’t mention, so ask-
transportation of the pod to the new location
fees for storage at the new location

I found better padlocks at self-storage places than the ones that the pod company sold. I also got boxes and other moving supplies at the storage company.

Good luck with the move!

10

I’d put a plasma TV in a pod. Preferably in the original packaging, otherwise packed very carefully (like a painting) and then carefully placed. With moving rugs wrapped around the box.

This is where hiring a professional mover for an hour or two (usually ~$80/hr) really makes a difference. They know how to put fragile things into rigid spaces.

11

I had this problem to, I was moving out of a walk-up in Queens, no yard no alley. I used U-pack (see every other moving thread) and I chose to ship to and from the ABF terminal. So basically I rented a local u-haul truck to get my stuff between the apartment and the terminal. It sounds like a pain in the ass but loading and unloading at the terminal goes quickly since it’s all ground level. and even after truck rentals and cash-in-hand movers it was still cheaper than full pro service.

12

I moved from an apartment to a house. The pod just fit in a standard parking space at the apartment, I had them drop it in the driveway at the house.

The biggest pain for drop-off and pick-up was they needed extra space on either side of the Pod for the lifting mechanism.

Pods has this hydraulic frame that wraps and lifts the pod (there’s a video on their website). It’s weird but it does mean the pod stays level at all times.

The truck pulls up, a frame expands off the back end like a Transformer. It’s kinda like a four-corner fork lift. it takes 13-feet, they said, to use their gizmo but after they drop the pod, it stays in 8-feet of space (wide). It’s a bit of a pain to have the extra spaces on either side of the pod at drop-off and pick-up but I had them arrive when most apartment dwellers were at work and the parking lot was very empty.

The pod isn’t much bigger than a bit SUV, though, so I think it’d be pretty easy to put on the side of the road. With a ramp, they might be able to walk the side of their lifter up onto the sidewalk and drop the edge of the pod right at the curb with just a little gap.

13

We did it. The hardest thing was getting labor to load us. We thought we had it all set up but our guys didn’t show up on moving day, leaving us to scrounge Craigslist for help. The kids we got were nice enough but had no idea how to load for a long haul. So, everything that could break, broke.

Never again.

14

We used PODS for a cross-country move (upstate NY to Portland, OR). It worked very well for us. The final cost wasn’t cheap ($4500ish, I think). But no cross-country move is cheap.

Things in our situation that made PODS great:

  • We had a huge driveway for drop-off in NY, and a street with plenty of parking for the POD in OR. This would never have worked for our move out of NYC.

  • We really had very little stuff; the house we were renting was furnished, so we only had enough stuff to furnish a 1-bedroom apt. … and we left half of our stuff behind, since much of it was crappy post-college stuff.

  • We’re both able-bodied, and could actually lift everything we wanted to take

  • We were both home for an entire month before the move, so we could pack boxes in the house and then load up the POD in dribs and drabs. If we had been facing any sort of time crunch, we would have hired professional movers to get us out of there in a single day.

  • The drop-off (and city permits) gave us a solid 2 weeks to unload the POD at this end, which was nice–no mad rush.

That said, some caveats/tips:

  • PODS are not climate controlled. We moved in winter, and we have a sizable wine collection, so we shipped it separately and quickly so that it wouldn’t freeze in the POD.

  • Pack tightly and tie off often, as others have said.

  • Buy good boxes. Don’t use leftover cardboard boxes you find at the grocery store, etc. Buy some actual moving boxes, and then only pack them to their specified capacity–heavier boxes are not only tough to move, but they split open more often.

  • If you have a sofa, you can move that 27" CRT on it. We put our own 27" TV on the sofa, face-down, packed some blankets around it, and it traveled just fine.

  • Make sure you get any required permits at the destination; we needed one to block off our POD street parking

  • Beware of moisture. Condensation was an unexpected issue. Even though it feels like some little treehouse in there, don’t put anything into the pod that’s not well-wrapped; keep clothes, etc., in plastic containers. We had a few boxes that got soaked when the condensation dripped off the ceiling.