Long story short, my father is dying, probably in the next few days, which is a subject for a whole other rant. He lives in Queens and my sister and I live in the Chicago area. We (mostly she) are interested in a bunch of stuff from his apartment, which my brother (who is executor of the will) is hoping to put on the market ASAP. My brother seems inclined to do professional staging (which is insane because if the personal items were removed, honestly the place is very tastefully and neutrally decorated and would look professionally staged), so I have no idea what the timing will be, but it may be relatively quick.
So what’s the best way to move a couch, a couple of armchairs, a bedroom set, and a few other smaller items (TV, small file cabinet, some electronics and other odds and ends) to the Chicago area in a reasonably economical way? I am not sure what the timing will be exactly, but I think there will be some flexibility. The only non-local moves I have ever done involved me and a U-Haul truck, and I don’t think my sister or I is up for a drive that long - and we are definitely not up for loading and unloading a truck including large furniture. I know some good local movers on our end, but that’s about as far as it goes.
If you have personal experience with a move like this, I’d love to hear the particulars (amount of stuff, distance, cost, specific long-distance mover recommendations, etc.) I really don’t have the bandwidth at the moment to research a billion options, so anything that can narrow it down is helpful. My sister doesn’t have a job so she can do the legwork of calling and pursuing further. She is the one who wants the bulky things, mostly, but if she is hiring movers I will probably kick in part of the cost and just consolidate the smaller things I want with her shipment.
Speaking just to money, it’s probably cheaper to sell, donate, or dispose of Dad’s furniture in NYC and buy corresponding new items in Chicago. Certainly you could buy used items of a similar vintage in Chicago far more cheaply than you could pay to have Dad’s moved to you.
Of course Dad’s stuff may well be about (much?) more than just money.
Last time I made a half-country move (St. Louis to Miami), we took a kitchen of dishes and utensils but no large appliances, a bedroom, a living room, and an office. Not much bric-a-brac and very few heavy things like books. Was mostly furniture, and not huge heavy pieces either. Cost ~$15K for professional movers to box, load, transport, unload, and unpack. That was 9 years ago.
You sound like you have much less stuff. And are going a somewhat shorter distance. But there have been 9 years of inflation. IME/IMO hiring this job out will not be cheap, and especially not paying NYC prices for that end. If his apartment is located where an elevator is needed to get the stuff from apartment to truck, that will add 50% or more to the labor cost to load out. Elevators are major bottlenecks to moving.
The one item of advice I’d give is be darn sure you / Sis really want something before paying to move it. I have paid to move things I got rid of 6 months later just because I couldn’t be bothered with the decision at the time, or was engaging in ridiculously wishful thinking. That was economically dumb. If money’s tight, that may not be a mistake you want to pay for.
Good luck. Seriously, not snarkily. I’m sorry you lost Dad and that you’re having to go through this under time pressure from a distance. None of that is easy.
It is, plus it’s high-quality stuff that my sister could never afford new. I briefly looked into a Pods-type option that some friends just researched for themselves, and it looks like it would be under $2k for everything we would both possibly want. We will be flying out there anyway at some point to clear out his apartment - much of it will go to other nearby relatives and his friends, I think, but we won’t need to pay anyone for packing. Anything that family and friends don’t want will be sold or donated locally. The stuff I want is mostly either small things (like the file cabinet or a TV, which I won’t bother with if my sister doesn’t do a truck shipment, or thinks like books, records, framed artwork, etc. that we can ship any way we want but would rather pack and load ourselves on a truck that will go from point to point if that’s an option). Anything else that I want could be shipped UPS or USPS. We just aren’t really in a position to drive a truck 700 miles or do heavy loading and unloading.
It’s not that I have less stuff; it’s that his furniture mostly isn’t to my taste and wouldn’t fit in our house anyway. We have a 100+ year old house with small rooms; it isn’t going to fit a giant wall unit. And I don’t like the wall unit anyway. My sister has a motley collection of hand-me-down random furniture and would like matched sets of things for the first time in her life, and she also has sentimental attachment to Dad’s stuff, which is far higher quality than she could afford in any other circumstance. And as long as she wants to do this anyway, I am certainly willing to upgrade our TV, stereo equipment, etc. for the minimal cost of whatever I would kick in for shipping. We aren’t going to bother with most of his kitchen equipment; we both have better stuff than his anyway. He wasn’t a passionate cook like we both are and we probably have better kitchen stuff than most of his. (I may snag his Instant Pot and juicer and a few other odds and ends, though.) And we both want some books, CDs, etc. And I definitely want the framed copy of his engineering patent!
From bitter experience: if you hire one of the national moving companies to do this for you, make sure you specify that everything that is worth over $100 is a “high value” item. Everything. $100 is ALL those fuckers will insure anything for, and your own home insurance will NOT cover any of it. We have a $2000 piece of glass art that is in pieces after our last move. Bekins assured us that our homeowner’s insurance would cover the move, and we foolishly believed them. They also glossed over what “high value” actually meant. Of course, you likely don’t have receipts for any of it, so that might be an issue.
Doing this stuff in a hurry is going to be a problem. You might consider renting a local storage unit to make the initial move in a rented van or U-haul. Then you can take time to research the most cost-effective method.
The “pod” system looks good, but you need to be careful with the packing. It would also be a lot easier with all the stuff in one place with good access.
If you do use a removal company, use one local to you, not in New York. This means that if things go wrong, they will be much easier to deal with. I am not in America, but I have some experience of people moving household goods across Europe.
The most cost effective way is with a U-Haul trailer. No mileage charge. This depends of course on the car you have. If your car has the towing capacity (is strong enough) but does not yet have a trailer hitch, then get one installed. I have found over the years that a U-Haul trailer is one of the handiest ways to move things, runs to the dump, moving college kids, picking up furniture, etc.
Note, driving while pulling a trailer takes a little skill, mainly in turning corners and in backing up. But with a little practice that skill will come.
The cost of a trailer rental plus hitch installation would be far less than a U-Haul truck.
Oh, and Eva, I am sorry about your father’s condition.
Neither of us has a car with hauling capability and are not up for that long a drive anyway, particularly with a trailer. We are going to hire someone for sure.
Thanks for your good wishes. I just wish Dad peace at this point. Moral of the story: if you have a mass in your abdomen that looks like a 3rd-trimester fetus, MAKE THE F-ING DOCTORS EXAMINE YOU PROPERLY. It turned out to be a 20-pound (!!!) malignant tumor. But the doctors kept saying “Fatigue and shortness of breath? You’re 81, asthmatic, and you just had a hip replacement!” I will totally consider him a COVID fatality, because if my stepmother hadn’t died of COVID in April 2020, a) she would have pushed him to deal with it before it got to that point; and b) we would have been on an airplane visiting him.
My brother recently moved from Michigan to Colorado using Two Guys And A Truck. Everything went smoothly. He has moved many times and said that the cost has gone up considerably.
You might be surprised at how darn costly this has become for even small amounts of stuff. I recently paid UPS $150 to ship 3 file boxes of very lightweight stuff halfway across the country by slow truck. It could easily have been $400 if those boxes had been heavy like full of books.
ISTM UPS & FedEx are both so busy transporting stuff for Amazon at a steep discount that they’re gouging the ordinary occasional small shippers like you and me to make up the difference.
However you move stuff, do it all, do it once, and do it via a moving truck or a POD.
I have shipped smaller packages cross-country for other reasons, and I totally agree. As far as books, I think for me it will be only a handful and I could even bring them home in my suitcase. I don’t anticipate traveling for more than a few days and it’s easy enough to pack a spare duffel to use as a carryon and check a suitcase with books and other stuff. A checked bag one-way is a negligible cost. Or heck, for books and CDs, there’s Media Mail.