Moving Companies Suck, part II

So, after the packing drama from the previous day, we really didn't know what to expect when the actual movers showed up. The driver of the truck was stoned, I think...his eyes were all glazed over and and partially crossed. He reminded me of Brian Wilson... like maybe he did so many drugs in his younger days that he was permanently high or something. But he could drive an 18-wheeler like a mo fo and I guess that's what's important.

Anyway, the movers were actually way better than the packers, though it still took way longer than we expected. The only real drama on this day was that the packers from the previous day had left a bunch of random stuff laying around, and they had told us, "oh, don't worry. The guys tomorrow can take care of that." And of course when the movers came they were like, "Uh... we don't have any boxes or anything for that stuff..." Otherwise it was pretty smooth on that end of things (little did we know what we were in for on the other end!)

So, as soon as everything was loaded onto the truck, we took off to go pick up our new car (having previously sold our other 2 vehicles). Then all we had between us and the west coast was the open road!

The moving company told us the delivery estimate was 7-10 days... not bad in my opinion. As part of our agreement, we had to be immediately available as early as the 7th day in case they called for delivery. But, we were also told that we would have the driver's cell phone #, and we would get updates along the way so we could plan accordingly. Incidentally, we never did get the guy's cell #... one of many broken promises (amongst many other broken personal belongings). So, we grabbed Oliver the orange monster and hit the road, planning to stop and stay with family along the way. (Don't worry, I'll blog about our road trip later.)

My dad and evil stepmother (who's really not evil at all) happened to be on a cross-country road trip this summer in their RV, and happened to be in Salt Lake City the same night we were. So we decided to shack up with them for a couple of nights, and then get back on the road to meet our delivery deadline. After Salt Lake City, they were going up to Yellowstone which we really wanted to do also, but there was no time. So we parted ways, and about 8 hours later we got a phone call from the moving company that our stuff was going to be delayed at least another 4-5 days.

The reason we were given was "mechanical difficulties", which to me means they found someone else who wanted to move and they wanted to combine the trucks to save themselves some cash. The worst thing about it, is that by this time we were seriously having some laundry issues (and by "issues" I mean it was all dirty). Luckily, we had pre-rented an apartment in Portland that was just waiting with our name on it, so we figured we'd go ahead and scope it out, and sleep on the air mattress for a few days. No big deal, right? Wrong.

We arrived in Portland, found our apartment, and went to check it out. But whoa, Goldilocks. It was way too small. (More details on the apartment fiasco to come in a later post also.) Suddenly, there we were, homeless, jobless, and alone. So we got a hotel room, dropped off the cat, and started the mad dash to finding another place to live. Suddenly it seemed quite serendipitous that our furniture was delayed...

We finally found a new apartment and the movers finally came, 5 days later than planned. We had already notified the moving company of our new address, and when I did so, I said, "there are some additional stairs that we weren't aware of...is there an extra charge for that?" and she said "no, there's no extra charge for stairs." Great. Perfect. All is well.

The truck driver had a different opinion, and it just so happened this was one of the few 95+ degree days in Portland, and there was a lot of "hemming and hawing" about 2 extra flights of stairs (which, by the way, were all outside, which in my opinion is easier than trying to maneuver inside a building when there are walls and stuff you can hit, but I guess what I think doesn't matter too much). The driver stands there shaking his head and says "I'm going to have to call this in." So it turns out they want to charge us $200 extra labor for the stairs. Well at this point they haven't unloaded any of our stuff, so we tell them we'll work it out later, and let's just get everything off the truck. Once again, Justyn helped them move everything off the truck, which they admitted NO ONE ever does. But do we get any credit for that? No... just good karma, I guess.

Remember how the packers forgot to box up the bathroom and hall closets before we left our house? Yeah. We came across a box that looked like this:

Hmm...that doesn't look good, right?

Ewww.

And so we opened it and Ta Da!

Yes, friends... those are glass bottles banging around with a metal trash can, full of liquids, unwrapped, unpadded, leaking onto my brand new shower curtain.

Not to mention we found about 25 boxes labeled "Misc Items".which of course all got dropped in the living room because we didn't know what was in them. WTF? (Thanks Darell and Darell. You guys were awesome, and my life has been so much richer since you came into it.)

So, to keep a long story from being longer... we ended up with an antique wooden box that was cracked into 2 pieces, a Salvador Dali woodcut print with a hole punched through the mat, among many other things. Oh, and guess what? If you don't have receipts, don't even think about making a claim for the damages.

The moral of the story, here, kiddies, is that moving companies don't care about your shit. No one cares about your shit because it's your shit, not theirs. Pack your own stuff, and rent a freaking U-Haul.