Mighty Joe Young (the 1949 version, not the 1998 one) was very moving.
Poor monkey did NOT deserve the bad things that happened to him, and I choked up some when he saved all those orphans.
I’ve moved about 9 times the past 12 years although not in the past 2 years. I have recurring nightmares involving brown cardboard boxes and back soreness. Ahhhhhhh, I can’t talk about it…PTSD lite.
The situation: my best friend’s house is infested with bedbugs. The landlord is not helping to eradicate them.
The complications: In order to make sure we don’t track bugs in our clothes, we have to switch clothing as close to out of the house as possible. This is an unheated vestibule off the porch. In February. You have to boil or heat everything to kill the bugs. Also, she saves everything. We found a crimping iron. Really.
Total distance moved: five city blocks.
Time: Twenty five hours.
Verdict: She’s still my best friend, but she owes moving favors for the rest of our lives.
I moved to Florida from Maryland in 1987. The driver called Monday morning to tell me they were delivering that day. They never showed up so I called the company late that afternoon. They told me the driver quit and left the truck in Port St. Lucie. Just left it there. They had to fly a driver in from Chicago (company HQ) to finish the run.
Then when it arrived there were boxes missing. When they finally tracked down and delivered the missing boxes, they had opened and resealed. Items were missing from them. I had a small apartment, not enough to fill the whole truck, and so there were other loads on the same trailer. I think (but never confirmed) they delivered my boxes with another shipment and somebody decided they liked some of my stuff. The company said they weren’t responsible, though they made a “goodwill payment” to cover my claimed costs.
Reported spam.
Jeepers, twice in a thread.
Regards,
Shodan
Hubster is retired Army. That should tell you plenty.
And yes, I’ve got plenty of moving war stories.
We both retired from the State of CA at the end of 2005. We moved from SCal to our property in AZ. And I tell everyone: I’m NEVER moving again. Period.
The ONLY way I’ll leave the AZ house is (1) I win the lottery and can walk away with just the clothes on my back, or (2) I’m completely incapacitated, which doesn’t bother me because that move would be entirely SOMEBODY ELSE’S problem, or (3) I die.
~VOW
Last time we moved, the high point of my day was getting pulled over for running a red light. Seriously.
Up at 6, movers were supposed to be there at 8:30. They didn’t show until after 10, because they couldn’t manage to figure out how to get three blocks east of where they were to find our house. There was a bunch of stuff they refused to move that they hadn’t told us about, and they didn’t bother saying anything until DoctorJ had already left with one of the cats, so what I couldn’t cram into my car around me and the other critters and the stuff I’d planned on moving in the car, I had to leave.
While they were loading out the basement, they spooked the fraidy cat. I couldn’t find her anywhere after they left. I looked in every possible nook and cranny in that basement, under through all the bushes around the exterior basement door, through the neighbor’s yards. Did I mention it was the middle of July? In North Carolina? So there I am, alone in an empty house, sweaty, exhausted, freaked out because our declawed and not-very-bright cat is at large lord only knows where. I call one of my friends sobbing because I can’t leave without the cat, but I can’t camp out to look for her because I don’t have anything to sleep on and I can’t take a shower because I don’t have a towel or any clothes and and and…and here comes the goddamn cat up the basement steps.
Then, as I was attempting load everyone in the car, the stress gets to the shepherd and she starts horking. While climbing over my seat. Because, of course, she’s riding up front, never mind that there’s already a cat carrier in her intended seat. I finally managed to drag her out, scrape a few dribbles of dog puke out of my seat, stuff her and the other dog into the back, and take off on the 7-hour drive. The drive itself went swimmingly, right up until my Mapquest directions gave out and I couldn’t find our house.
We were moving to a town I’d only been in once, when we were house shopping, so I was totally reliant on the directions I’d gotten from the internet. I got to town fine, but then the mapping fell apart and it wanted me to turn onto streets that didn’t even exist and I don’t know what all. I couldn’t call the house, because the bleeping phone company had given us the wrong number, and while I was turning around to look for a gas station to ask directions, I ran a red light and got pulled over.
That cop probably thought I was a complete loony-bird–it was nearly midnight, and I was in the sort of state you might imagine given the day I’d had, so he didn’t even get a chance to ask if I knew why he’d pulled me over when I was thrusting a bundle of papers out the window and asking if he could look at them when he was done writing my ticket. Once he saw the animals and got a slightly more coherent explanation of what was going on, he took pity on me and led me back to our neighborhood. Didn’t even write me the ticket.
This is one thread I’m happy to not “win”.
I do my own packing for moves (mild control issues about how things are packed and organizing same). This last move, we did hire pros for loading/unloading and they also helped with some packing (ran out of time before they arrived, I’m still amazed by how much stuff we had and we’d run out of work space until some boxes left). They were absolutely great. Bit of a tangle-up at the new apartment, with the new place supposed to be ready on the 21st. Get there the morning of to get keys, and it’s not ready yet. Revised ready date was the 25th, which happened to be the day we already had the movers scheduled (fortunately, they were planned for afternoon). Our phone service had also been shut off two days early (good thing I’d been giving anyone likely to need to call me my cell phone number).
Took a week or so to mine out to where most of the place was functional, well over a month to get the last few boxes unpacked. OK, so some miscellaneous stuff I can’t find better places for has been repacked, but I at least have been through everything. Still dealing with fine-tuning the organizing and don’t have wall stuff hung yet, except for a needed clock. The cat was thoroughly mental about the whole thing for weeks (she’s finally calmed down), and anyone who thinks driving 10+ miles in stop/go traffic on a hot day with dubious AC and a distraught Siamese in the car is at all pleasant hasn’t tried it.
Still, I found nearly everything (only missing a few minor cleaning items such as SOS pads and dish sponges, which are easily replaced), nothing got damaged in the move, services got straightened out, and the new place is a vast improvement in space and condition than the old, run-down, cramped place we were in.
I don’t have any horror stories. I hate moving, so I get a bit anal about it and use checklists and start planning/packing a month or sometimes more ahead of time if I can help it. Of course that doesn’t help anyone who had to move with little notice, but that’s a whole other thing.
Last time I moved was the first time I had to move with more than one cat. Best idea I ever had - before anyone was due to arrive to help, I stuffed each into a carrier and put the carriers in the bathtub. (4 cats) They were in their carriers for 6 hours total, but it was worth it for them and me. No one underfoot, no one to get lost, put them in the tub in the new place until everyone left and I had their litter/food/water set up. Just a little bit of stress eliminated.
The only truly awkward moment was also the last time I moved. I use my clothes as packing material for packing a lot of the boxes. Another thing I do is use my bras/socks/underwear to pack and secure the contents of my jewelry armoire. The idea is that it’s light enough to move intact, and all the movers have to to is wrap it in plastic to keep everything shut, and I don’t have to worry about how to pack the contents in another way.
This moving crew was three guys, one older and the “captain” if you will, with these two young 20’s guys who were perfectly nice and polite. One even complimented me on how well packed everything was. But then the two disappeared into the bedroom for what seemed a little long, and it was really quiet back there. I went in to see what was up, and they were both crouched over the jewelry armoire, delicately pulling open a drawer and looking sheepish when I walked in. They were trying to figure out whether they needed to try to pack my bras and things separately - I think the setup was new to them. So I explained my idea about just wrapping the whole thing up and they were so relieved. Awkward but kinda cute in the end.
Not a horror story per se, a neighbour of mine was moving, and [presumably to save money] her family (siblings and their spouses/other halfs) decided to help. One of them had a van, which was going to be used to transport her stuff.
Simple logic would have told them they weren’t going to fit everything in the van. So it took several trips. The last trip she put her cats into a box and gets her younger brother to hold it on his lap. He either did like, or was frightened of cats, so when one of them started to crawl out of the box he sat there and started screaming “Sarah!! Sarah!! Your fecking cats are getting out of the box!!” he made no effort to try to stop the cats whatsoever, I’m yelling “put your hand on the top of the box!!” he ignored me and just kept shouting to his sister that her cats had gotten out of the box, they had to drive to her new house with at least two cats running around in the back of the van.
Still makes me laugh 20+ years later.
I am getting ready to move on Tuesday, and will be moving into the house of my new spouse. He’s already there, so I’ve been packing up and sorting everything out on this end on my own (especially after my last move where the movers managed to wreck or break or misplace just about everything I own). I’m also bringing my cat. Seems pretty ordinary and mundane so far, I would imagine.
I’m on the East coast of the US; he lives just outside of Portsmouth, UK.
I’ve spent almost a year packing, because in sorting things out, I have been binning stuff, selling stuff, giving things away to charity. Every box has had a list of its contents (photographed but also written up in a Word file so I can cross-check where everything is); a general list of contents has been written on three sides of every box. Some boxes have gone air freight directly to the house. Everything else is up in New York awaiting the arrival of the container ship (which I’ve been tracking online; it’s in South Carolina right now). 3/4 of that stuff is going to a storage unit; the rest to the house. All boxes consequently have little colored stickers on them so the movers know where to put what. The movers took about 3 hours to get everything loaded up (and they firmed up the boxes with extra padding, wrapped the few bits of furniture, &c) because I had everything packed.
I’ve had to fill out two sets of customs forms, insurance forms, and shipper forms, all of which have to have itemised lists of contents.
As for the cat, she, too, now has her own form of a passport and a visa; she’s had to be chipped ‘n’ pinned, then a health certificate, all of which has been over-night expressed to the USDA offices in Richmond and back – I usually live about six months in the future, but most of this by necessity has been at the ‘last minute’ because of very tight scheduling and restricted time tables.
There was also my own visa (as I have a job lined up in the UK) which was a bit tense to begin with, but then became a certain amount of hurry-up as we had to beat the new immigration laws Britain put into effect ahead of the Olympics.
It has been a bit hectic, and not a little costly.
I fly out Tuesday; cat’s on the same flight as I am. She’s got a luxury suite with a couple other pets below decks; I’m flying first class on BA (I usually upgrade to business on the trans-Alantic flights, but first is really nice on the newly refurbished 777 fleet, and with my miles I bought I single/one-way ticket for about $400).
I have certainly discovered who my friends are (as with when I was divorced, my xmas card list has been pared down even more nicely) – not that I have actually asked people for help, but several people in my acquaintance have stopped speaking to me because how dare I move to England. Obviously there’s more to it than that, but Fuck’em.
I have moved since this thread. It went well, but the movers took apart our coffee part and put 3 different pieces in 3 different boxes. I didn’t have a cup of coffee in our new house for a week!
That reminds me of one of the all time travel coups: I know of someone who was moving cross-country, and so when they flew to their new city they had a lot of luggage. At that time airlines were still giving unlimited luggage with first-class tickets, so it worked out cheaper to fly first class than coach!
These kinds of stories warm my miserly heart. When I was researching the tickets for this flight, I thought, ‘You know, one-ways are far more expensive than returns, so I’ll just get an economy return, and ignore the second leg.’
This was about two months ago; the round-trip economy, 1 bag allowed for free, 23kg weight limit, was $1500.
Then I thought, what the heck, let’s see what kind of a horror story a single first class would be – so I plugged in 1st class, one way (three free bags, no weight restriction --‘If you can close the case, you can bring it on board.’) - $400 plus 20K miles (out of the 80K or so I had saved up.)
I couldn’t click the ‘HELL YES’ button fast enough!
I have spent a lot of time over the years on BA’s website noodling around to get crazy deals, and this is probably the best one I have ever got.
The frigging cat’s ticket (as it were) cost $1100! For all I know she’s flying the plane.
The nice thing about flying first, at least on BA, is since London is the hub, there is a separate immigration lane so arrivals go way faster. Between stopping at the stand on the ground and scooting through Heathrow on 1st is about 15 minutes (my best time); in steerage or eco+ it can be anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours, depending on the time of year, &c. I arrive the same day the Paralympics begin, so the airport will probably be pretty busy.
They honestly don’t care if you bring a live kangaroo on board if you’re flying posh; they’ll make up his recling bed and get him a champagne. The last time I boarded a 777 and turned left, I had with me my Vince plushie
All sizes | Rex the Runt | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (not my photo; Vince is on the right)
The hostess saw him and remarked how handsome he looked in his bowtie, and took him and my camera up to the flight deck where apparently he helped the co-pilot land the plane, if the photos are anything to go by.
I just moved from DC to LA with a cat. She flew under the seat in the cabin for a $125 fee. Between getting to Dulles, going through security (I had to carry her through the metal detector then have my hands swabbed while still holding her), flying out to LAX, renting a car, and arriving at the new apartment she was in the tiny Sherpa bag for 13 hours. She caught a cold on the plane and was out of sorts for a week. She seems to have settled in now but I felt horrible about the whole thing.
The move itself was fine; I got one of those Relocube things (kind of like a Pod but smaller) and it arrived as promised and undamaged. The miserable part was that I moved in during the heat wave LA had a couple of weeks ago, and I’m living in a really hot part of the Valley. So we were hauling furniture and boxes while it was 112 degrees out. Never again, thanks.
The worst move I’ve ever had while living on my own was when I moved from Brooklyn to Harlem two years ago. I was living in this commune like situation with a bunch of artsy people (prior to my arrival members of the indie bands Ra Ra Riot, The Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend lived here- our house was mentioned in New York Magazine) and it was really fun until the girl who was running the show decided to let drug dealers move in. The situation was getting ugly and I had to move ASAP but had absolutely no time to pack because I was working 60 or so hours a week. So my dad came down on moving day and we just tossed stuff into trash bags, put it in his car, made the 2+ hour drive from Brooklyn to near the top of Manhattan and then came back and did it all over again. Half my stuff ended up in the basement of the house in Brooklyn and my roommates tossed the rest. I had too much junk though, I took the essentials with me including a lovely table I found in the house. But because I was so busy with work I ended up not even really unpacking until almost 6 months in and then I moved again to my current place (20 blocks up from the last one). This move went a lot smoother and I had time to unpack immediately so it feels a lot more “homey” than the other place. I’ve lived here a year now and am not planning on moving until I finally have enough money to live without roommates or at least substantially upgrade.
Another moving story is from when I was a kid- more of a bizarre story though than a horrific one. For some reason we moved over the Fourth of July- we moved from Illinois to VA so must have been on the road the 3rd-4th or something like that as was the moving truck. They were very nice people, even helped us unpack some stuff once we arrived and my mom made sure they were taken care of in terms of a generous tip, lunch, etc. A day or so after they left my mom got a call from the moving company asking if everything had went all right and if she’d heard from the movers. It turns out they weren’t getting paid overtime or something like that for working over a holiday and they were so pissed off about that that they just pocketed all the money from the move and stole the truck. At least they didn’t take it out on us.
I’d be looking where they put the backhoe—because they only find the bodies in the shallow graves…
Not too bad, but the worst was when I had the flu a few weeks before and was left totally drained and tired for a month afterwards. Had to do the packing up and cleaning through that, and deal with the 3 year old daughter. My husband had also figured on way too little time between the delivery of the home and when he told the landlord we’d be out. The finish up detailing (i.e. inspecting, hookups, and any replacement bits damaged in hauling) hadn’t even been done when we were forced to start moving boxes in.
OP wanted a happy story… I think I’ve told this one on the SDMB before, but here goes:
I was in college, and an acquaintance (pretty coed) was moving. I happened to drive by and found her sobbing alone in a sea of boxes. Apparently no one had shown up to help and she was despondent. It was a Saturday, I had a truck and wasn’t really doing anything so I spent the entire day packing and moving her. We finally finished in the evening and I had assembled her shelves and had just finished assembling her bedframe when I got a surprise (yeah, I know "Dear Penthouse… but it’s true). She grinned at me and said maybe the two of us should test my assembly, just to be sure. Happiness ensued for the next hour or so. We never dated, weren’t FWB, but for the next few years we would grin or wink at each other during college parties and such. It was sort of a secret between us.