I hate moving

The BBQ Pit
1

Argh ! I hate moving. Usually I don’t, I’ve done it often enough, but this time …

My plan for December was to finish a draft of my thesis, give it to my friend to revise, move, then chill out over Christmas. Here it is Christmas eve, and the draft is handed in, but the chilling out has not yet begun. Here’s why …

Our friend C agreed to help us. C is a good friend, and my husband has on more than one occasion gone to help him out with various endeavours, like carrying things and landscaping and so on. Often this required taking the bus across town, or out of town, at my husband’s expense. He was happy to do it because he enjoyed spending time with C and didn’t mind helping out now and then.

But no more …

C, who owns a big car, has promised a number of times to help us, and then left us waiting, surrounded by boxes, while he was off Og-knows-where. The first time it happened, we waited for about four hours (we couldn’t go out, in case he called). We left a number of “Where the hell are you?” messages on his voice mail. At around 7 someone else called, and for that brief time when we were on the phone, C called and left a message saying “So … do you still want to move tonight? If so, call me at 5 mumble mumble 659 mumble …” We couldn’t figure out what the number was, so of course we couldn’t get hold of him, so no moving. (Yes, we should get a cell phone, or at least call waiting. But for those few days a year when we may actually need it, it’s not really worth it.) Growl.

Same thing happened last night. So now all our stuff is in the new place, and all our furniture in the other. Most annoying. Luckily they’re quite close together, about ten minutes walking, but that’s not really the point. There is still no chilling out possible. The old place (with furniture but no stuff) is kind of a squat, and I’ve been too busy moving and my husband too busy working to clean up properly, so it’s really nasty.

The new place is clean and tidy but filled with boxes and there’s nowhere to sit !

So last week I called the phone company to get our phone connected. Wonderful news, we can keep the old number and not pay any more (I was expecting to get messed around on that front). Problem: apparently Bell Canada knows better than I do how many flats are on the second floor of the building we’re moving into. One, says Bell Canada, and it’s already got a phone line. “Ha!” said I. “I’m quite certain there are two, in fact I was just there today.” Did they believe me? Not likely. So I was charged with the task of finding out the number of the woman in the other flat. Which I did (to the dismay of the woman, who wasn’t happy giving her number to a complete stranger, for the purposes of rectifying a fuck-up of the phone company which had nothing at all to do with her). Called Bell just now, and they told me (a) that the phone in the 2nd floor flat was going to be disconnected on Saturday and (b) that they still hadn’t heard of the other 2nd floor flat, that there probably has never been a phone there before (although there are jacks in it), and that I would probably have to do the wiring myself, although they would send a technician out sometime on Saturday. Argh ! So at my request they called the woman in the other flat to make sure that she wasn’t moving (I feel bad for this woman, I should get her flowers or something, although it’s in no way my fault), which she confirmed she wasn’t, which is a start. But I still have to wait around all day Saturday for someone to come and potentially tell me I have to do the wiring myself because Bell only does stuff that’s outside the house.

I feel another angry customer complaint letter coming on …

So anyway, it’s a lucky thing it’s Christmas and we’re spending three days at the folks’, where furniture and stuff is in the same place, and the telephone functions.

grumble grumble … I need a vacation.

2

Hey- you’re lucky you have a place to move to. One of my co-workers was supposed to be closing on their new house today. They were supposed to have closed a few weeks ago but their builder is an ass.

Everything was set- movers, boxes packed, cable shut off, plans made, moving out of apartment on the 31st, etc. They get a call on yesterday that oh, the inspection hasn’t been done yet, so sorry no closing. The ass of a builder forgot to call the inspector’s office. The builder played it off as the inspector’s fault saying they had a backlog. My coworker called the inspection office 3 times and they said, no, the builder just called Monday. They had known about the closing since December 2!

So now, the closing is scheduled for the 30th IF everything goes ok. If not, they’re shit out of luck and have to stay in a hotel. They were supposed to have hosted Christmas in their house too. Forget that. Everything’s packed and all the phone, cable, etc, is shut off. I feel so horrible for them.

So be glad that you at least have a place.

3

Ooh ! good point. I just spent an hour trying to change my newspaper subscription. (Fuckers. That’s one angry customer service letter already …)

But knowing that I do have a place (and a cool one!) when I could be shit out of luck is a comfort. Thanks !

4

Yeah, could be worse but it still kinda sucks for the OP.

That’s Bell for ya. They don’t do all of the tech. service stuff themselves anymore, haven’t for quite some time now. There are people who do though, for a fee of course. Look in the Yellow Pages for ‘telecom consultant’ or something along those lines.

OTOH, you could ask Bell for a schematic of the wiring and it might not be that hard to do it yourselves.

Merry Christmas anyway, and here’s hoping things start looking up soon.

5

I moved from a rolled up newspaper down by the train tracks to a rat infested sewer near the slaughter house. Try writing that change of address form.