Poll on Moving

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m working on an article about gardening if you’ll be moving soon. A lot of my suggestions are premised on the hypothetical move being fairly local, such that you could move x, y, or z yourself, rather than paying someone else umpty ump per pound to lock it into an unheated van for several weeks. I had been pretty oblivious to this premise till my collaborator pointed it out.

So I need some completely unscientific anecdotal data on moving.

If you’re adult who owns furniture (sorry, college kids, if you can get everything you own into an SUV, I don’t care) –

[ol]
[li]How far, in miles, was your last move?[/li][li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li][li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li][li]If so, what? [/li][li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li][li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li][/ol]

My answers:

  1. Less than five
  2. Hired a mover (first time ever! quelle indulgence!)
  3. Moved a fair amount myself
  4. Stereo, houseplants, a few other fragile/beloved items
  5. Quite a few – there was a period of about a month after closing on the house before the lease on my apartment ran out and I was back and forth quite a bit

TIA!

2

  1. 1,700 miles

  2. Hired movers (our first time!)

  3. We did move plenty of stuff ourselves, before and after the move

  4. We had to move: The various junk we sold at our garage sale, then the stuff which is still in storage since the move

  5. From Denver to here was one trip. Most of our major stuff is still in storage. (Long story.) But we’ve moved from rental to rental since then, never more than ten miles if that, usually about 4 trips worth of stuff.

3

How far, in miles, was your last move?
1.4 miles

Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?
Do-it-myself

And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?
12 back-and-forths with a large van

Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.
Do it useful cost: $30 a vanload, or $360

4

I moved last month, and my home is still “After Katrina” style.

How far, in miles, was your last move?
Less then five, I moved within the same city, from a rented apartment to my own bought house.

Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself? If so, what?
Everything that fit in boxes, I moved together with the help of my fiance, my brother and his GF, and a friend of mine, Angie. Angie is rather weak, physically. She couldn’t carry a box loaded with books down the stairs and into the car to save her life, but she was great at making tea and sandwiches. She also took care of all the myriad little unforseen errands that turned out to need doing. And she was worth her weight in gold when it came to keeping everyone’s spirits up and comforting me when I broke down crying from the stress and the temporary homelessness. If I can give you one tip: try and get someone like her on you moving team.
All the bigger furniture, that would have been too heavy or too cumbersome to move down the stairs, or that wouldn’t fit in the car, I let move by professional movers.

And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?
Just one trip, but the movers had a big van. I forgot to arrange a temporary parking permit for the mover’s van, though, and I narrowly escaped a parking ticket worth half the cost of the move.

There are lots of checklists on the Internet with all the things you should be thinking about before, during and after a move, like this one.

5

Thanks for the answers, all!

I just remembered one other question – how old are you, or how old were you when this move occurred if it was a while ago. (This might help sort out some info on “pay someone” vs. “move yourself.”)

6

[ol]
[li]1600 miles[/li][li]We had a trailer delivered to our home. We hired Larry, Moe and Curly to load it and then had the company who owned the rig drive it to our new home. Then we hired 3 nice guys to unload all the broken stuff. [Hint: Don’t do it this way, it ain’t worth it.][/li][li]We wound up hiring 3 sets of movers altogether. See hint above.[/li][li]We moved a cat, a dog, 2 fish and a few plants ourselves. We boxed and had some other plants moved on the truck (cactus, African violets and, incredibly, a big bougainvillea in a wardrobe box. They all survived the week in a hot truck, they were well watered and packed in garbage bags).[/li][li]One trip, one way, thank Og.[/li][li]As a reader, I would have loved some advice on which plants to move and which to sacrifice. We nearly rented a U-Haul just so we wouldn’t have to give up our plants but wound up selling 95% of them at a yard sale. Man, I miss my 12 ft Norfolk Island Pine. :([/li][/ol]

7
  1. How far, in miles, was your last move?
    1,814 miles, give or take
    2. Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover
    Did it ourselves. Had friends to load the truck, unloaded ourselves, just the two of us.
    3. If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?
    N/A
    4. If so, what?
    N/A
    5. And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?
    Necesarily a single move. Took the cats and dog with us in the car and cab of the Ryder, and only really what they needed to survive and some clothes were packed into the car we towed behind the truck. It was a three day trip.
8

27 and 31 respectively. Poor. We’re saving now specifically so when we’re out of this apartment in July, we can hire movers.

9

[ol]
[li]How far, in miles, was your last move?[/li]About 8 miles.
[li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li]I hired a mover. I’m 36, and have a fair amount of furniture. It seemed like a good investment to hire movers, which enabled me to keep my friends. :wink:
[li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li]Yes.
[li]**If so, what? **[/li]Some paintings/art, a stereo, important papers, and “odds and ends.” The odds and ends – stuff I didn’t get packed before the movers showed up, and my cleaning supplies – took three car loads. I thought it would be one car load, but there really was more stuff than I expected.
[li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li]If I had planned better, I would have had more stuff packed up. Unfortunately, the morning of the move, I was still packing, but neighbors kept dropping in to chat (“good luck with your move! By the way, how much did you sell for?”) and I couldn’t keep packing while they were chatting. Which meant that the movers showed up, packed up what they could, and I ended up making several trips that night and the next morning to get stuff out.
[li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li]Be realistic about space. The woman who bought my place apparently wasn’t; she brought an entire garden’s worth of plants and garden furniture with her when she moved in, and was apparently perplexed that it wouldn’t all fit in the postage-stamp sized patio. She should have gotten rid of a lot of it.

Meanwhile, the place that I bought left a bunch of potted plants. They decided they weren’t worth moving, selling, giving away or really even dealing with. So they left them, which made me happy.
[/ol]

10

[ul]
[li]How far, in miles, was your last move?[/li]About 600km (373 miles)
[li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li]Friends and family - my mom and aunt and father-in-law came up to help us, and some friends gave us a hand too.
[li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li]N/A
[li]**If so, what? **[/li]N/A
[li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li]We did it in one trip, but using 3 cars and a 26-foot U-Haul. My husband and his dad followed each other in one (FIL’s) car and U-haul, and my mom, aunt and I (with the cat) took the other two cars (mine and mom’s). We loaded the cars/u-haul one day, and stayed in a hotel over night (hubby and FIL went ahead and crossed Toronto that evening, sleeping on the other side - we stayed in town, the hotel allowed cats!) The next day, we drove to Montreal, where one of my husband’s uncles met us and helped us unpack (thankfully, i don’t think we would have gotten the couch up the stairs without him!). All of our plants were succulents (do orchids count… we had two of those, along with the aloes and cacti) so they weren’t in too much danger of an over-night in a parking garage or 2 days in a car in July. We fit them all in a large drawer from one of our dressers and placed that in the trunk of mom’s car. They were fine, and are all still growing strong.
[li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li]We are young, no money to rent movers, especially across provinces like that. The move went well, though - my mom and aunt are unstoppable! Any more moves we might do in the future will be within the city/region, most likely.
[/ul]

11

My last move was just in August, when I was 34 (a month before my birthday).

[ul]
[li]How far, in miles, was your last move?[/li]Less than 1 mile: I looked at a bunch of rentals within a 10-mile radius, and wound up moving two blocks away from my old place.
[li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li]I hired movers (for the second time), but my best friend also helped me with a few carloads full. Even though my move was very local, hiring movers was definitely worth it: my friends (and I) are getting too old to be moving couches and desks and stuff up and down townhouse stairs.
[li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li]Yep.
[li]**If so, what? **[/li]My VCRs, DVD players, and stereos (because otherwise they would have needed to be packed); my digital piano (because I’m paranoid about it); my floor lamps; all of the food from my kitchen; things to spend a night in the new house with; almost all of my wall hangings/decorations; and a bunch of crap from the third bedroom that I didn’t clear out before the movers came.
[li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li]The big move was in one trip, but I made several car trips both before and after the move date.
[li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li]Nothing I can think of.
[/ul]
Just out of curiosity, what does any of this have to do with gardening? :slight_smile:

12

[QUOTE=twickster]

How far, in miles, was your last move?
~550

Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?

U-haul with family & friends

If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?
If so, what?
N/A

And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?

One trip - packed up one apartment, unloaded a the new one.

Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.
Don’t know of anything else off the top of my head.

13

Oh, and I just saw the how old were you addendum…it was 2004, but before my birthday so basically 2 years ago…I was 31.

14
  1. 100 or so miles.
  2. Got a new job so the company payed for it.
    3 and 4 Filled a Explorer and Accord completley with plants, rugs and stuff we would need the first night.
  3. 1 trip
15

  1. How far, in miles, was your last move?
    Less than 2 miles (we had some things in a storage unit about 6 miles away also).

    1. Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?
      Hired a mover. We also had them pack for us which was an extra expense but we simply did not have the time to do the packing.

    2. If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?
      Yes.

    3. If so, what?
      hose things that would be irreplaceable if lost. The computer, and some inherited crystal. Oh - and a couple months before the move, we enlisted a friend to help move some of our things to a storage unit to make the house look less cluttered, but I’m not sure that counts :slight_smile:

    4. And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?
      We did it all in one or two trips In addition. we were back and forth to the old place doing assorted cleanup / patchup tasks for the new owners

    5. Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.

How about “what would you have done differently?”

  • I’d have kept out some lamps. The old house had a built-in light in pretty much every room. The new house, not so much (none of the bedrooms). Around 7 PM that first day we realized “hey, it’s going to get dark soon!” and had a mad scramble to dig through boxes and find lamps.
    “Any unusual logistics?”
  • Well, there was the pickup at the storage unit, in addition to the pickup at the old house. And on moving day, we put my daughter on the bus at the old house, then she came home to the new house (we actually picked her up at the old bus stop and drove her to the new house).
16

Forgot to add: We were in our early 40s when the move described above took place.

After that one, we had to move 2 rooms of furniture from my mother’s house; we did that ourselves using a rental truck, and didn’t draft anyone to help (except for the freecycler who was taking our old couch away, he helped us unload the truck at our house). We might have paid a moving company to take the things for us but for that particular distance (140 miles), DIY was feasible and substantially more cost-effective. If it were a whole houseful of stuff, we’d have paid pros.

Just thought of another question: “Why did you choose to move the way you did?” (DIY, professionals). We did the big move (to our new house) using pros because we did not have the time, physical stamina, or enough good soon-to-be-ex-friends to do it any other way.

17

How far, in miles, was your last move?
About 10 miles.

Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?
*I hired movers and packers. *

If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?
Yes, but not very much

If so, what?
I brought some emergency stuff just in case the movers were delayed/got lost (toilet paper, glasses and some beverages, snacks, change of clothing, toiletries, etc). I also moved my houseplants myself. Everything else the movers handled.

And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?
It was one trip to move plus one trip back to clean.

How old was I?
33

Any other info I should have remembered to ask about?
*Not sure what it has to do with gardening, but I did think about what to do with my pets (dog and cat) while moving. I decided to board them during the move, so they wouldn’t be underfoot. *

18

[ol]
[li]How far, in miles, was your last move?[/li]Under half a mile.

[li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li]Did it myself with the help of my bro and friends.

[li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li]N/A

[li]If so, what? [/li]N/A

[li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li]I know it was at least two (maybe three) with the truck. Then there was the extraneous stuff I hadn’t finished packing that I moved on my own in my car.

[li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li]*Age at last move was 35.

Under stuff done differently:
Finish packing. It’s embarrassing to have your friends help throw your unpacked crap into boxes when you should have had it done ahead of time.

Also, declutter and throw stuff out before the move. I always wind up moving crap I haven’t unpacked in years.*

[/ol]

That was the last move. I’m gonna be moving again in probably about four months (I’ve almost finished buying a house! Yay, me!) and below is my plan for this time. (I’m now 39, almost 40)

[ol]
[li]How far, in miles, is this move?[/li]Under five miles.

[li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li]*I’m gonna hire movers. I’m tired of taking advantage of my friends’ goodwill and I’m able to afford it. *

[li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li]I’m gonna do a lot of the small stuff myself but hire movers for the big stuff and boxes of heavy things like books.

[li]If so, what? [/li]see above

[li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li]I’m sure I’ll be making multiple trips. I’ve got a Cherokee which holds a good bit tho’. The movers should be able to do it easily in one trip, even with a small trailer.

[li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li]
*Gosh dang it, this time, I’m gonna get rid of stuff I don’t want before I move. I really have to, I’m moving into a tiny house without a lot of storage space so I need to be efficient. Plus, I’m so tired of owning so much stuff. :slight_smile: *

[/ol]

19

I will answer for both me and my business partner, who both moved within the past couple years but had completely different experiences…

ME:

  1. I moved a half mile
  2. Yes, myself, over many days, taking stuff from my parents’ garage to the new place for a week or so before I had my best friend come with his truck and we moved the big stuff at the end.
  3. n/a
  4. n/a
  5. See #2. Many trips over many days - but only over a block.
  6. Don’t buy stuff you need at the new place until you arrive at the new place. No sense in moving it or paying to move it.

I was 26 at the time.
MY FRIEND:

  1. Moved from Cleveland to Atlanta (approx)
  2. Hired movers. Movers did about 1/4 of the packing, they did all the rest themselves.
  3. They did help move large stuff once they reached their destination.
  4. The movers moved big stuff into the truck and packed dishes themselves for insurance reasons. The movers moved most of the big stuff out but I do remember that my friend helped move his large Hammond organ out of the truck.
  5. Just one trip, in one large truck because they were moving so far away. Also from an apartment to an apartment so they had deadlines to meet.

They are a family of 3 with a new baby, mom and dad in their late 30’s.

20

OP back again – to answer the “what does this have to do with gardening?” question.

As I said, I’m working on an article – the topic, specifically, is “short-term show” – what to do if you’ll be moving soon or if you’re living in a rental, have a gardening jones, but can’t/don’t want to commit to “traditional” gardeining in the spot where you’re currently living.

Several of the ideas I’m proposing involve container gardening – e.g., planting perennials in pots (so you can move the plants); planting annuals in pots (ditch the plants, but move the pots), or other ideas that involve your possibly taking stuff with you when you move (bulbs or corms, trellis or obelisk, etc. etc. – my thinking is that I personally am too cheap to lay out money that will just be totally down the toilet later by discarding such stuff rather than moving it.

My collaborator is saying no one would want to/be able to afford to/woud deal with the logistics of moving pots, plants, etc., because if you’re hiring a mover, it’s prohibitively expensive.

I’m trying to get a sense of whether people really rely totally on movers, or whether they’d be willing to move some plants and/or other garden stuff themselves.