For the moment I just need some recs for moving companies. I have a fairly small apartment with minimal furniture, heading from Florida to Ohio. Then what kinds of ripoffs to avoid, unnecessary fees, and so on. TIA.
I had good luck using U-Haul’s U-Box service. I was able to fit a small apartment’s worth of stuff into a single U-Box on a trailer; drove it to the local U-Haul place; they removed it from the trailer and shipped it to my destination city; put it on a trailer at the destination and I drove it to the new place.
If need more than one U-Box or are uncomfortable/unable to pull a trailer for short distances they can bring the boxes to you and pick them up.
There are other container-based moving options.
Glad this thread popped up. I will be moving from one part of Texas to another (which is basically an interstate move in terms of time/distance) and I am already intrigued by this “U-box” suggestion.
I moved from Texas to Michigan for school 3 years ago, except I didn’t really move, I just put everything into a storage unit (about a dozen trips with my sedan) where I was staying in Texas, and there it all still sits, apart from what I’ve been driving around with in my sedan these past 3 years, living out of motels. Hence the need to move from Texas (still) to elsewhere in Texas, rather than from Michigan to Texas.
So I guess you can put that into the “don’t” category. Don’t move everything into a storage unit thinking you’ll just figure it out later. In my defense, at least as mitigation, I will note this move of 3-years ago was peak pandemic, and I wasn’t sure what impact that would have on being able to identify movers at my point of origin, much less at my destination. I was also still holding out hope I’d get called off the waitlist for my preferred school in Texas, as indeed I was still on the waitlist until my second day of orientation in Michigan, at which point the Texas school finally put me out of my misery and delivered a final decision: rejected.
Oh well. All’s well that ends well (Michigan is a better school anyway, and I got the kind of job I wanted, in Texas).
Oh, but right, this is still about the move. That I still haven’t figured out, but this U-box thing sounds about right for me…
A friend used PODS and was happy with them. Similar to U-box I guess.
Any chance your car has a ball hitch set-up? You could rent a tow behind trailer for your furniture and stuff the “soft” items in there. Then stuff your car with the remainder. HELPFUL TIP: if you go this way, put the mattress in the trailer dead last – if you’ve been driving all day and get to your destination very late, you pull out the mattress and throw it on the floor and catch some Zzzzzzz.
I’ve heard only a few stories about dirtbag companies withholding delivery until further fees are paid. Read the comments (all of them) on their website(s) and hopefully that will give you a feel for their reputability.
Probably not useful in this situation, but was a big help in my last move…
My wife and I sold our house in WA and moved to a furnished rental in CA as sort of a trial relocation. We brought a few things with us in our car and had the rest sent to a storage unit near our destination. We used a traditional mover because while I was ok packing boxes and shuffling them around, I was not OK with manhandling furniture or other of our bulky, heavy items.
Someone gave me a tip for managing the stuff sent to storage. Any boxes packed that we thought we’d want at our rental, we closed up with red duct tape. We had the movers put that in storage last, so it would be up front. That was a life-saver once we settled in and had a better idea what stuff we owned that we’d need at the rental.
For moving companies, check the reviews and go with a recommendation from someone you know if possible. We were flat out ripped off by our moving co going from the SF to DC. They charged us 3x the estimate and then only about 50% the stuff we actually sent arrived the other side, the rest just disappeared and the company was not taking calls (number no longer connected 
), we lost loads of stuff including many irreplacable personal effects.
We had a very bad experience with PODS when we used it to move my daughter from Albuquerque to Minneapolis, but that was ten years ago. They didn’t deliver the container on the date they’d promised (with no notice), and that meant that the permit we’d gotten for putting it in the street had to be changed and the people we’d hired to help her unload everything had to be rescheduled and paid a fee because we couldn’t let them know in time. They did ultimately deliver the container, but they didn’t reimburse anything until I threatened legal action.
We used U-Pack to move the things we emptied out of my brother-in-law’s house in Illinois when we sold it, and those things are still sitting in a storage facility, despite our best intentions. I’m told that we can empty the container in stages at the facility if we don’t want it delivered anywhere, but it never seems to be a top priority. So I’d say don’t give in to the temptation to store things unless you know you’re the kind of person who’ll follow through.
PODS has both moving and non-moving box options. My brother’s friend accidentally rented the non-moving type when he wanted to move. He got it all loaded up, called them to come move it, and they said no dice. He had to rent a moving type box, move all his stuff from the one to the other, and go from there.
Be sure to get the right kind of box if you go that route.
Be extra, extra sure that you are contracting directly with a reputable company. The best prices you’ll find online are often from “brokers” who then hire the cheapest possible movers to do the work, often separate entities for loading, shipping, and unloading. Then each of those entities will try to find as many extra things to charge you for as possible. So that’s my advice: Whatever you do, make extra-extra sure you’re not working with a broker.
Pod-like options sometimes allow dropoff at a depot. If that’s nearby, you can save on what you pay them, but make sure your direct costs for taking care of the last mile(s) and time don’t negate that.
This worked for me when I wasn’t certain there was a suitable location to drop off the container. I did have to rent a van for a day to get my stuff.
My last interstate move was a corporate relocation and I don’t know if my employer got ripped off or I just had too much stuff, but it cost nearly $15k in today’s dollars for one person’s stuff. They packed the boxes. I probably could have replaced all my crappy furniture with newer crappy for less.
My car is a subcompact sports car, no real way to tow anything heavy, and not going to risk damage to the suspension or something, so that’s out.
The Pods/Uhaul options aside, what national moving chains have you all used that you felt satisfied by?
My brother just moved from Michigan to Colorado. He used Two Guys And A Truck. They supplied boxes, which he packed and unpacked. They loaded the truck and unloaded it at his new home.
He was very satisfied, but he told me they weren’t cheap.
Granted, so maybe consider the reverse: rent the smallest Uhaul truck that can tow a car dolly with your Aston Martin secured to it and off you go.
Also, consider selling or donating as much stuff as possible before you move and just buy comparable replacements when you get to your new destination.
I commented on a similar thread. Be forewarned that the moving company will only insure up to $100/item unless you declare something a high-value item. We got screwed when they broke an artwork worth $2K. When I asked them about insuring items at the outset, they said “oh, your home insurance company will cover it.” NO THEY WON’T. My bad for not checking, of course.
With a small apartment with minimal furniture, I’m wondering how much you really need to take with you. One option is to get rid of most everything and jam pack your car with what’s left. Furnish your new place with buys from Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, and thrift stores. If you have more stuff you want to take, a U-Box from U-Haul would be about $1000 to do that move. I would guess it would hold just about everything in your apartment unless you have some really big items.
The cheapest way that I found was to rent a truck and hire a few guys off of marketplace to load and unload. We boxed everything, but they loaded the boxes, took apart the beds, and moved the large furniture. Reversed it on the other side of the move.
It was a slight pain but it amounted to around $6000 in savings.
This.
It will cost more to move a microwave oven than it will cost to buy a new one. Ditto for most things. Sell, donate, or trash everything that’s not specifically important to you. Mom’s heirloom teapot you love? Keep. A teapot you bought at Target or a garage sale 5 years ago that’s perfectly functional but otherwise indifferent? Pitch.