I’m going to be doing some short-term temp work assignments in a few different cities over the next few months, and hopefully accepting a permanent position after that. Once the first temp assignment starts, I will have no reason to hold onto my apartment in the city I’ve been living in. However, I don’t know where I will ultimately be moving to.
What I’d ideally like to do is have movers come and put all my stuff in a storage unit. Then, upon my request, I could have them move the contents of that storage unit to a storage unit in a different city. Ultimately, when I knew where I’d be settling permanently, I could then have them move the contents of the storage unit to a facility in that city.
Yes, they’re called PODS. I know that U-Haul offers them, and there are other companies too. It’s basically a big box (something like 4’ by 4’ by 8’, sometimes double that size) that they keep in a big warehouse, and once you’ve filled it, you tell them to move the entire box to another big warehouse in a different city.
PODS Moving & Storage will let you put all your stuff in a box and move it and store it for you. I don’t know that it’s economical long term, though. There are other companies offering similar services.
I don’t think PODS would work for me, because there isn’t room to park one at my current apartment. I need to hire movers to move my stuff into a storage unit.
I had a similar situation and did exactly what you suggest. I hired a regular moving company and had them move everything to a storage unit, then when I had a new place, they picked it up from the unit and moved it to the new place. You don’t need any special business for it, I think any moving company will do that for you.
I currently have a small apartment’s worth of stuff stored in a Ubox (U-Haul’s version of a storage pod) out in Arizona. I had taken a job out there, but I was not sure if the position would be viable long-term (turns out it wasn’t), so just wanted to rent an apartment. I decided to move one Ubox (approximately 8’x5’x7.5’) of belongings out there.
The local U-Haul dealer put one of the boxes on a trailer that is specially designed for the purpose. I picked up the trailer (they can deliver it if you don’t have a vehicle capable of towing), brought it home, loaded it up, and drive it back to the U-Haul dealer. They have a network of semis which move these boxes around the country. About 2 weeks after I dropped off the Ubox in Pennsylvania I picked it up in Arizona (again on a small trailer), emptied it, then returned the box and trailer.
Fast forward one year. The Arizona job did not work out. I rented another Ubox, loaded it up, and took it to the dealer. This time instead of having it delivered, I had them put it into a warehouse for longer-term storage. The monthly cost of this storage is similar to the rent on a similarly sized self-storage unit. Once I decide where I want the Ubox delivered, I will give them a call and they will ship it to my desired destination. At no time does any Uhaul employee have access to my box, I put my own lock on it.
I believe Uhaul can also arrange for some muscle to help you get the Ubox loaded. If you need more than one box they can bring multiple units to your location, but I think they need to take them off the truck and leave them somewhere like a driveway. With one box it stays on the small trailer, so it wouldn’t be any different than renting a U-Haul trailer.
A moving truck can be, and was when I moved in, temporarily parked in the driveway (where it’s blocking other residents’ cars) just for loading/unloading. If someone needs to get in or out, it can be moved in a pinch. A POD can’t be left there overnight. I suppose I could inquire with the city into the possibility of parking a POD on the street, but I’m not optimistic.
All major moving companies will do this. When we moved from Alaska, our stuff went into storage for about eight months. We knew we would be settling somewhere in the PNW, so had them store it in Tacoma, WA.
We did this 35 years ago when we moved from a house to a smaller apartment, long before Pods. Pods (or the UHaul equivalent) work great. We’ve used them to get stuff from my father-in-law, but also as a place to store stuff when we were getting our house remodeled. The Pod never left our driveway, but it was damn useful.
Loading yourself is a feature in my book. You can get the movers to do the heavy stuff and do the small stuff yourself.
Why would the OP want the stuff moved from city to city before having a permanent location? Pack it, move it to one storage location, and when you have a place to settle, move it one more time.
If you pay enough, they’ll take pictures of everything (down to the spices in the cabinets), pack and store everything and then reassemble it all in the new location. But it won’t be cheap.
Any name brand national moving company will do exactly what you want: pack it, pick it up, store it locally indefinitely, then move it once to any new city nationwide, deliver it, and unpack it.
Depending on what sort of stuff this is, it might be cheaper to craigslist the whole lot today and buy replacement stuff a year or two later.
I’ve seen a lot of people pay $10 per pound for packing, long term storage, and cross-country moving of goods they originally bought at a garage sale. Far smarter to have left the stuff at the curb and attended another garage sale 2 years later in their new city. The vast majority of most people’s possessions are well-worn junk. Equivalent junk can be had cheap from second hand stores wherever you end up.
I’m going to be in one location for 3 months, and I’m inevitably going to be pressed for time when sorting and packing. I’m not likely to think of everything I’m going to want to have with me during those 3 months, so I’d like my belongings to be accessible, so that during that time, if I think of something I want, I can go to my storage locker and get it out.
You’ll be incurring a lot of extra cost for the luxury of getting a missing item from a storage locker. I can totally relate having gone through it myself, but I recommend you reconsider. There are probably very few (if any) items you can’t either do without or replace for a lot cheaper than moving all your stuff multiple times.
