Background: I live the New Mexico. My girlfriend lives in New York. We have decided that within the next couple of months, I am going to move to New York to live with her, and when her lease is up we will get a new place together. Job situation during that time will either work out or it won’t, but I’m not too concerned either way as I have plenty of savings.
But this will be the first time I’ve made a significant move while owning more than a carload of “stuff”. Not huge amounts of things, mostly a queen-size bed and some nice shelves, and maybe a desk and chair – Things I’d like to keep, but throw a wrench into any “stuff it all into my car and take a road trip” plans.
But, I have heard many bad things about moving companies. Like multiple, independent stories of, “in the middle of moving my stuff, they called me up and told me it would be a whole bunch more money to complete the move and held my stuff hostage until I paid up”. I know that this can’t possibly be a universal mover practice, so does anyone have any recommendations on how to avoid that?
Also, what I’d like to do is some kind of “combined storage and moving” thing, since we won’t have space for my stuff until we get the new place anyway, which won’t be right away. I’ve heard of some companies that do this, but have no personal experience. Has anyone had a good experience with that kind of thing?
What I really want is my mailbox from World of Warcraft, so I can mail myself my bed from Ironforge and pick it up in Darnassus whenever I feel like it, but I somehow don’t think that’s an option.
I had good luck with ABF U-Pack Relo-cubes for a move from Los Angeles to Portland a few years back. We stored the cube for about a month. It was about half the price of Pods, but they don’t include insurance on the items and if your furniture gets damaged, they handle it like freight and pay by the pound. This is fine if you don’t have unusually expensive items. All our stuff made it in one piece though, so I guess it would depend on your risk tolerance and how well you pack. I would buy tarps to lay on the bottom of the cubes and over the top of your items though, in case of leaks.
Their customer service was unusually good. I e-mailed and spoke with about 6 different people at their company to coordinate our move and everyone was courteous and walked me through their process professionally.
Don’t even ask for a moving quote over the internet. I made that mistake recently when I was stuck in Colorado because of Hurricane Irene yet I was supposed to be moving while I was stuck there so I had to do it the second I got back. I had to make hasty arrangements from afar so I signed up for some online quotes.
My cell phone starting ringing about 10 minutes after I posted it and didn’t stop for two days. I picked one blindly and it looked like they had a good reputation. It was horrible. The three movers showed up on time and then proceeded to tell me a list of off the record fees I would be giving them as cash as a favor (they were independent contractors) to take care of a whole bunch of stuff the real owner would charge much more money for. Then, two of them got into a horrible fistfight outside. I would have called the police except they had half my stuff loaded at the time and I really needed to move right then. It turned out they were brothers and had a bad history of working together. The one who got hurt in the fight left never to return.
This was a five mile move so I told the remaining two to follow me to the new place. They said they had to make a quick stop so they would meet me there. One hour later, they still hadn’t shown up. I assume they were carefully going through everything I had somewhere but I didn’t care because I already moved everything valuable myself. They finally called me telling me that the father of the two that had gotten into a fistfight just had a heart attack and they may have to abandon the job. Oh what to do! Money made that problem disappear. They eventually got everything inside and only did major damage two pieces of furniture.
At the end, I felt like I was buying my way out of hostage situation. They were three big guys and all convicted felons according to what the non-brother me as I chatted with him. That is pretty typical for the industry. Who else wants to move people as a job?
Be careful about that type of thing. Move it yourself if you can even if you have to rent equipment or get someone to drive your vehicle. It will probably be cheaper and less stressful.
Since you don’t have a ton of stuff, why not rent a moving truck, drive your stuff out yourself, (you can tow your car if you can’t find a driver) and store it in New Jersey?
My brother actually did something similar when he moved temporarily from Canada to NYC. Storage in Jersey was much cheaper. Actually he didn’t have that much stuff either, so he borrowed my van for the move - with the seats taken out, there was plenty of room for his stuff.
Depending on where in NYC you and your gf will be, it may make more sense to store your stuff in Westchester than in NJ.
If you decide to move your stuff into an NYC apartment later, there are some very good local movers you can call. (I really like the guys I used when I moved into my place this summer. Let me know if you want me to give you their number.)
Just don’t make the mistake of hauling all your stuff directly to the NYC apartment. In NYC, moving is a specialized skill, and trying to do it yourself can lead to real misery.
Yeah, that’s the kind of story I keep hearing. And not just once-in-a-while either. Maybe 75% of people who’ve used movers tell me something like that.
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Since you don’t have a ton of stuff, why not rent a moving truck, drive your stuff out yourself, (you can tow your car if you can’t find a driver) and store it in New Jersey?
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I’ve known people who’ve done cross-continent moves that way, but I doubt my driving skills in a truck for that long a journey. Besides, my girlfriend collects photos of herself at state high points and there’s a few she hasn’t done on the route so long as we’re driving something that can handle a little back-road driving. Somehow I don’t think a U-Haul can manage that.
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Depending on where in NYC you and your gf will be, it may make more sense to store your stuff in Westchester than in NJ.
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Yeah, I actually mean New York the state, not the city (although near enough to a train line to let me commute in if need be). Westchester would be the likely place.
Agreed that no one should ever drive any vehicle into NYC unless they’re a professional driver.
“…Not huge amounts of things, mostly a queen-size bed and some nice shelves, and maybe a desk and chair – Things I’d like to keep…”
Unless these are priceless antiques, or have special memories from grandma or something, I think the wiser idea would be to have a huge garage sale and be done with it.
For all the aggravation and cost and time it is going to take to get this stuff to NY, you could just buy a new bed, shelves and office set.
Plus, not even knowing the size of your next apartment (will everything fit?), nor if it is a five story walk up or has tiny elevators that won’t allow your stuff to fit to move upstairs anyway, are you sure those items are worth schlepping cross country? They do have nice, inexpensive stores in the NY area that sell the same stuff.
As you can see from my location, I have made many drastic moves to far locations and learned how easy it is to start fresh and get some new stuff once you get there.
So again, unless these are priceless family heirlooms, just sell it all and be done with it. Starting over from scratch is not all that difficult, and you buy what you need and as a couple, it will be kind of fun to just get stuff that will then have special memories for the both of you.
Sell or give away. I’ve move many times and there is no way I’d want to haul that kind of stuff across the country. It will cost more to move it than to replace it.
I’ve known friends who have moved of IKEA level furniture across the country and it blows my mind as to why they’d want to put up with that hassle.
When I moved from Dallas to Phoenix the only large thing that I brought was a 42 inch plasma TV that had recently been purchased. Thankfully it fit into the SUV. All other furniture was given away to friends or left for scavengers at the old apartment complex.
The bulk of my furniture will not be moving with me. In fact I am one-upping you on most of it and sending it straight to goodwill under the premise that it’s not even worth the effort of a garage sale. The bachelor pad shit is going out the door. What remains will be the good stuff.
And we have a good idea where we’re going to live, what size of place we can get, &c. We are not just out of school looking for a cheap dive any more. It’s not absolutely settled where we are going to live, but we have a good idea, and expect that all will fit.
Trust me that if my research into how to get this done leads to the conclusion of “getting this done is not worth it”, I will definitely act appropriately on that, but I would like to make that calculation for myself.
Just because nobody’s mentioned it yet (that I saw): how much would it cost to just ship your bed to the new address?
Honestly though, I really think a U-Haul is your best option. It’s not horribly expensive, you set your own pace, and you don’t have to deal with an unpredictable third-party. When you get to NYC, you can put it all directly into a storage facility for however long, then rent an in-town U-Haul to get it back out later.
Use one of the pack it yourself container companies. They’ll drop off a big shipping container, load it at your leisure. They will move the whole container to new york, and they can arrange storage until you get there.
The nice thing about pack it yourself is you can leisurely pack up your storage container over a few days time and then have it shipped directly into a storage unit at your destination, where you can leisurely unpack it. Obviously some fees are involved but it’s so much cheaper than paying professional movers or renting a moving truck to drive across country.
Another option is to pack everything up and ship it as freight on Amtrak.
I did U-Pack several years ago and I found it to be cheaper than renting a U-Haul after you add in all the gas, plus I didn’t have to deal with driving a U-Haul, parking it somewhere at night, etc.
That said I agree that I can’t imagine it’s worth shipping your list of items unless maybe it has sentimental value. I shipped my cheap furniture for my last move because otherwise I’d be arriving to an empty apartment with no bed or sofa, I wasn’t moving in with anyone. If I knew there’d be a bed to sleep on and something to cook with when I got there I wouldn’t have bothered. But of course you’ll figure it out on your own as you price everything.
