Our stuff in Florida - just about to be packed!Our stuff is finally here. The movers came two days ago and dropped everything off and although there were no major disasters, it was really quite an eye opener.
A sampling of our move - they damaged nearly every piece of wood furniture that we own in some way; gouging corners, snapping off molding, and adding various dents and scratches along the way. Our couch is fairly dirty. Things look like they were loaded with no padding at all, even though we were assured extensive padding would be done "at the warehouse". We are really lucky that more of our nice furniture wasn't destroyed.
All of our linens (towels, sheets, comforters) were merely wrapped in paper in Florida, then unwrapped at our new place and dumped unceremoniously all over the floor. Nearly everything is musty smelling after being in a container on a ship and in a warehouse for three months.
On the other hand, in the small amount of unpacking I have managed in two days, I have found large plastic boxes packed with 1) a solitary plastic stepping stool, 2) nothing 3) paper. And the worst part is that I had prepacked most of the linens ahead of time into plastic storage containers so that this wouldn't happen - they must have emptied them and done this instead!
And it looks like we might be missing several boxes. As many as 5. We're not sure because a large number of boxes were missing their numbers.
Besides a rant this is a GUIDE for all of you who are planning big moves in the future. I spent months, (a little bit at a time - you could probably do it in a week, but I was writing my dissertation) wrapping, organizing, and pre-packing my stuff, which really paid off. I can't imagine what things would look like if I hadn't done that. I highly recommend organizing your stuff because the movers descriptions on the boxes suck and you'll never find anything again.
On the other hand, I was way too nice with the movers on both ends. I thought I was being a pretty tough customers, but I wasn't tough enough (I think I was mostly exhausted by this point from defending my thesis). On the packing side, INSIST that everything is done in your vision. INSIST that the furniture is wrapped heavily before it leaves your house. Don't listen to ANYTHING they say about things being wrapped at the warehouse before making it to the boat. INSIST linens be placed in any plastic boxes you have, or DO IT YOURSELF and tape the boxes before they come. Be mean. OK, the movers won't like you, that's for sure, but you only need to live with them for a day, whereas you need to live with your broken stuff for years!
On the unpacking end, no matter how fast the movers want to go and no matter how heavy the boxes, make SURE you have them separate the boxes by room. Even if everything is going in one space - kitchen boxes should go in one corner, living room boxes in another, etc. Make SURE that if a box is unlabeled it goes in a special place that you can check before they leave. If your linens are wrapped in paper, DO NOT let them unwrap it. Tell them to leave the bundles as is. Make SURE that they go slow enough that you can check off every box and make notes about the condition of bigger items.
We do realize that overall we were pretty lucky (knock on wood; we've just started unpacking!) Most of the damage is fixable with a few good clamps and some wood glue. The organization that I did before-hand will hopefully save me from completely losing my mind and I've been able to gather up the linens and put them in relatively safe places. To put it in perspective, this stuff came from ~4500 miles away, it's really pretty impressive that your stuff can survive that. But a few simple things could have made it even better.
Hopefully, the advice will help you. The rant really helped me :)
A sampling of our move - they damaged nearly every piece of wood furniture that we own in some way; gouging corners, snapping off molding, and adding various dents and scratches along the way. Our couch is fairly dirty. Things look like they were loaded with no padding at all, even though we were assured extensive padding would be done "at the warehouse". We are really lucky that more of our nice furniture wasn't destroyed.
All of our linens (towels, sheets, comforters) were merely wrapped in paper in Florida, then unwrapped at our new place and dumped unceremoniously all over the floor. Nearly everything is musty smelling after being in a container on a ship and in a warehouse for three months.
On the other hand, in the small amount of unpacking I have managed in two days, I have found large plastic boxes packed with 1) a solitary plastic stepping stool, 2) nothing 3) paper. And the worst part is that I had prepacked most of the linens ahead of time into plastic storage containers so that this wouldn't happen - they must have emptied them and done this instead!
And it looks like we might be missing several boxes. As many as 5. We're not sure because a large number of boxes were missing their numbers.
Besides a rant this is a GUIDE for all of you who are planning big moves in the future. I spent months, (a little bit at a time - you could probably do it in a week, but I was writing my dissertation) wrapping, organizing, and pre-packing my stuff, which really paid off. I can't imagine what things would look like if I hadn't done that. I highly recommend organizing your stuff because the movers descriptions on the boxes suck and you'll never find anything again.
On the other hand, I was way too nice with the movers on both ends. I thought I was being a pretty tough customers, but I wasn't tough enough (I think I was mostly exhausted by this point from defending my thesis). On the packing side, INSIST that everything is done in your vision. INSIST that the furniture is wrapped heavily before it leaves your house. Don't listen to ANYTHING they say about things being wrapped at the warehouse before making it to the boat. INSIST linens be placed in any plastic boxes you have, or DO IT YOURSELF and tape the boxes before they come. Be mean. OK, the movers won't like you, that's for sure, but you only need to live with them for a day, whereas you need to live with your broken stuff for years!
On the unpacking end, no matter how fast the movers want to go and no matter how heavy the boxes, make SURE you have them separate the boxes by room. Even if everything is going in one space - kitchen boxes should go in one corner, living room boxes in another, etc. Make SURE that if a box is unlabeled it goes in a special place that you can check before they leave. If your linens are wrapped in paper, DO NOT let them unwrap it. Tell them to leave the bundles as is. Make SURE that they go slow enough that you can check off every box and make notes about the condition of bigger items.
We do realize that overall we were pretty lucky (knock on wood; we've just started unpacking!) Most of the damage is fixable with a few good clamps and some wood glue. The organization that I did before-hand will hopefully save me from completely losing my mind and I've been able to gather up the linens and put them in relatively safe places. To put it in perspective, this stuff came from ~4500 miles away, it's really pretty impressive that your stuff can survive that. But a few simple things could have made it even better.
Hopefully, the advice will help you. The rant really helped me :)
