Do's and don'ts for a cross country move

[commasense]

Seconding the recommendation of U-Pack (not PODS).

Here’s a thread I started a few years ago about my last move, with a link back to a thread about my nightmare move with Colonial in 2018. (DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE COLONIAL!)

For the 2021 move I started off looking for a conventional moving company, but based on recommendations in that thread, went with U-Pack. It went well. I was more in control, there were no unpleasant surprises, and I saved a lot of money over a conventional mover.

From that thread, here’s the problem with conventional movers:

@Icarus

… we are just now starting to get quotes for an interstate move. One thing every web site recommends is to research the moving companies and what I have found is that each one has many multiple horror stories in review sites. I am certain that satisfied customers don’t tend to post lengthy reviews, so there is that self-selection bias. But, how does one move past the feeling that every moving company is a flaming shit-show at least 80% of the time and that I am bound to want to shoot someone before I am done?

@commasense

It’s a real problem. Movers can talk all they want about customer service, but for the most part, few people are repeat customers for any given company, so they don’t have much motivation to build up customer loyalty. And once they have all your stuff, what can you do?

@commasense

That nightmare move was why I was dreading this move, and why I now feel a lot more relaxed and comfortable about having selected U-Pack instead of a conventional mover. I’ll have to hire local laborers at each end, but we have three days to pack and three to unpack the four cubes I’ve ordered. (I only expect to use three, and won’t have to pay for the fourth if I don’t use it.) I know exactly what I’ll pay for the cubes and moving ($4,400 for three), and have a pretty good idea on the labor (probably less than $1,000 total) and storage costs.

Conventional movers wanted about $10,000, so I should end up paying only about 50-60% of that.

We ended up using all four U-Boxes, although the last was only partly full. Because we were not moving immediately from one house to the next, we had them store the boxes for about 10 days. They delivered them on our schedule, and we packed and unpacked them at our own pace.

The one thing I will strongly recommend about using U-Boxes or the like is to be VERY careful about how they are packed. You need to put everything into very strong stackable boxes that won’t be crushed by the weight of things stacked on top of them. Pack as tightly as possible so things don’t shift in transit. If you hire laborers, keep a close eye on them, because I’ve found that they generally don’t read or don’t understand things written on boxes like “FRAGILE” or “NOTHING ON TOP.”