My house of full of boxes and my daughter and I are living at a friend’s house until closing/dispossession.
I loathe moving. I really do. The sea of boxes stresses me out more than I can even express. We hit the road for Ontario on Wednesday.
Commiserations and congratulations.
Before I (finally) bought a house at 46 years old, I had lived in more places than I was years old. And because a deal fell thru and because the housing market here in Las Vegas was (and still is, to the best of my knowledge) challenging, I lived with nearly everything I own in boxes for 9 months. I don’t plan on moving again until I retire and hopefully that will be my last move.
Yep. Hate it and moves overseas really suck. I hope we’re in our last place.
As someone who is just about to go through the same thing, I can commiserate.
I wish you all the best.
I’m NOT looking forward to July 31! 
The only chore worse than moving is looking for a job.
My company paid for my last two moves, and it still sucked. Very luckily, I was at least able to delay arrival of my stuff until buying the current house, otherwise I would have had to manage another move way too shortly. Actually, there was still some stuff in the old house, and that little bit of stuff sucked, too.
As it is now, I plan to stay in this house forever just so that I never have to move again. If my job ever sends me overseas, it’s going to be a furnished corporate apartment instead of living on the economy again. I’m too old for this stuff.
We have moved 3 times in the last 5 years. I have way too much stuff in boxes. It is very tempting to just dumpster it all, except for the fact that I am still looking for things that I need. At some point, I will have to just buy things over again and give up.
When we moved into our current house, I told my husband my last move was going to be on a slab. Not going through that again.
When I next move, I take my toothbrush. I will find someone willing to clear the place out, and sign over any refundable part of the damage deposit to them, and let them keep or sell whatever they want… The better they clean, the more they get.
I think if I ever meet a person who claims they like moving, or even think it’s “not that bad,” I can safely and legally kill them, as they are obviously a Pod Person seeking to drain our precious body fluids.
Exactly what my wife and I said when we moved here 3-ish yrs ago.
ONLY good thing about moving is if you take advantage of the opportunity to ruthlessly purge. We got into the habit 3 years ago, and have made a few successive purges. I’m down to the point of reading the books I’ve kept on the shelves and deciding whether I want to keep them or get rid of them…
Oh believe me, we purged (or at least as much as the husband would allow, he’s a bit of a packrat when it comes to books, electronics and clothes). Moving wasn’t so bad when I was young, single and all my stuff could fit into the back of a large sedan.
Now, not so much.
Moved out of state two years ago, moved back for work a year ago, wife is retiring so we’re moving back out of state in a few months. Wayyyyy too much moving in a short amount of time. We’re leaving on vacation next week, when we get back I have to start packing the house… again.
Do yourself a favor and make sure you have one box that has the absolute necessities for when you walk into your new place and for the first night. Things like:
[ul]
[li] Toilet paper[/li][li] A few light bulbs[/li][li] Phone charger/cord[/li][li] Extension cord[/li][li] Paper plates / cups / plasticware[/li][li] Medications[/li][li] Small number of tools (screwdrivers, pliers, hammer)[/li][/ul]
Then, make sure you identify that box with something unique, like bright neon tape or a florescent Post-It note. This will help you keep that box immediately accessible in your car seat or at the back of the truck.
Nothing is worse than trying to find all that stuff in a sea of boxes the first night at the new place, or even if you are between places for a few days.
The only way I’d move before being carted off to Sunshine Acres in my dotage would be if I hit a big lotto jackpot so I could buy the home I want, then hire a crew to pack and unpack for me. I’ll move the dog and the cats, but the rest would be up to paid labor.
However, since I don’t generally buy lotto tickets, chances are I’m where I am for good. And that suits me fine. In fact, even if I did hit the big jackpot, I’d probably just raze our current house and build a better version of it in its place. But I’d still hire others to stow our stuff in the interim.
As the DW (“dependent wife” - that’s what we used to be called) of a retired army officer, I can state with absolute certainty that there are boxes that remain unpacked from two moves ago. And we have been in our current home for 25 years now.
I don’t know what to do if we move again.
You missed a few things.
[li] Coffee cups, coffee and sugar[/li][li] Big bottle of vodka[/li][li] Valium[/li]
how long do these toothbrushes last? Can’t you just buy a new one?
Darn tootin’ it sucks. I moved sixty feet to the east six months ago, and I still have boxes in my kitchen needing emptying. Also some in the living room, and I don’t seem to be able to find storage space for about 300 CDs and DVDs.
I feel your pain! I’ve moved many times and it’s always stressful but I relocated out of state twice in two years and that was a huge mistake.
I’ve been here for over 2 1/2 years now and I feel like I’m just starting to recover.
the purge part of it does feel good, however, but in theory we could do that without moving. 