Worst Moving Day EVER! Venting to follow...
So I hired a company called "Reliable Movers" off of Craigslist; one guy to come yesterday and help pack, and two guys to come today to help us load the truck. Dan's dad flew up for his going away party, with the plan being to help us load the moving truck and then he and Dan would drive the truck downt to Atlanta. We actually got a truck plus a trailer, and put Dominic's stuff in the trailer, and they'll stop off at Rob's on the way down, unload Dominic's stuff into his new house, return the trailer to UHaul, then drive the rest of our stuff to Atlanta, where we have a storage unit rented.
So I pick the guy, named, funnily enough, "Guy," up at the train station yesterday and he seemed nice enough, but maybe a little slow? Anyway, I had TONS OF SHIT to do of my own packing (still sorting what is going to Atlanta, what is going to New Hampshire, and what is getting sold/donated/thrown away) so I asked him if he was comfortable packing up fragile things like the kitchen, which was the biggest hurdle I had coming at me. He said he was good with that, and The "boss" of the company had promised me he'd send someone who was good at packing.
So for the most part, I checked in with him from time to time but whenever I saw him doing stuff it looked ok. We'd put red stickers on the things that were not to be packed, and additionally, I set some pots and pans (duplicates) that I wanted to take to New Hampshire to replace the incredibly crappy cookware that is in the cottage at the present time. I pointed it out and explained that he was not to pack that stuff.
In addition to going through all of my clothing and cutting down by probably... nearly half if you count the other recent clothing purges I've done...I also had to go through all of my art supplies and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. On top of that, I had Craigslist people coming in a constant stream, because I have a lot of stuff listed for sale or for free... So anyway,the point is that it would have been very hard to supervise him and also get things done myself.
Welll. He broke the glass on one of my framed prints, and then didn't tell me.
That I could live with. I took him back to the train at around 5pm and paid him his $20/hr in cash. He and another guy were coming the next day, and I said I'd see him tomorrow. That night we discovered that he'd packed several of the things he wasn't supposed to, including the pots and pans for New Hamsphire (and he DIDN'T pack the pots and pans for Atlanta!), the drawer with all of the appliance manuals (that obviously GOES WITH THE HOUSE) which also contained the original thermostat that came with the house--we replaced it with a programmable one that we bought, with the intention of swapping them back when we moved out--and various other things.
Saturday comes. I have to pick the guys up in Framingham because the train doesn't come all the way out to where I am except once every several trips. The new guy is Sean, and he's ex military and seems very nice. He's extremely polite. When we get to the house, I have them coordinate with Dan and his dad so I could go finish packing up my art supplies and my bathroom.
So we decided that we'd open each box before loading it on the truck and check for the various missing items. Well. It's a good thing that happened, because when they opened the boxes and saw how he'd packed... Oh. My. God. Here is an example...
That's what my father-in-law saw when he opened a box of "packed" wine glasses. No bubblewrap. No paper. Nothing. Just glasses, next to each other, and the box closed and taped shut. Holy shit, right? It gets worse.
I asked the guys to help me get two pieces of art down from the walls. One was the 5' x 5' "Being Art" painting that was hanging too high for me to reach, and the other was the "Climbing Out" sculpture that was hanging above the doorway into the kitchen--way above my reach. I helped them with "Being Art," and we put it in a box with two other same-sized canvases and taped it all up. I asked them to get the wall sculpture down and to "just put it on the dining room table."
A few minutes later I came back through the room and saw the sculpture face-down on the dining room floor. Which pretty much means it had been dropped. It's made of styrofoam. I was freaking out hoping it didn't get all dented and mashed in. On the up side, I didn't see any dents. On the way, way, way down side, however, the foot was snapped off. I asked them which one of them had done it and they both denied it. Guy just sort of shuffled out of the room. Sean adamantly said he hadn't taken it down and that he'd been down in the garage moving boxes. I didn't know who did it, but I immediately took photos and asked if the company had insurance. Sean said he thought they did. I emailed the picturse to Russ, the contact I had made the whole arrangement through, and told him what had happened and asked him if he had insurance. He said they didn't, and that he couldn't take responsibility for what had happened.
I replied back that he most certainly COULD take responsibility for it. [In actual time, it was about then that Andy found the box of wine glasses and I took the photo of it, and sent that to Russ. He never responded.]
So we keep going. I'm peeved that my sculpture was broken, but I don't have time to deal with that so I go back to packing up my art supplies (sorting all the way, putting lots of stuff in either "give away" or "trash" piles/bags/boxes). Then someone--I think it was Andy--came in and said I needed to go down to the garage, that he thought that the glass top to my grandmother's antique dresser had been broken. The dressers (and nightstands) along with the glass had been one of the first things moved out of my room when Guy and Sean got there. We'd wrapped the glass in blankets and everyone was being very careful with it. I said that the safest place for the glass was to be put (wrapped in the blankets) right back on top of the dresser that it came from (I have two--one was my grandmother's and one was my grandfather's. They both had glass tops. And they're not rectangular, either--it's a fancy specially cut shaped piece of glass that fits the fancy, special shape of the top of the dresser).
So I went down to the garage. I immediately spotted one of the pieces of glass, wrapped actually not in a blanket but in a mattress pad--whatever. Anyway, I looked around and didn't see the other one. I asked quite loudly so that everyone could hear me where the other one was. Nobody answered. I demanded to know where the other one was. Sean said he had no idea, that the one that was there was the one he brought down. He hadn't seen where the other one went.
Guy was in the truck, so I walked up the ramp and into the truck and asked him where the other piece of glass was. He shrugged and said he didn't know. He was fiddling with something behind some of the furniture at the front of the truck. I walked closer. Would you believe that that lying son of a bitch was standing there, telling me to my face that he didn't know where the glass was, while he was busy hiding the many, many broken shards of it by wrapping it in a blanket and stuffing it behind shit in the truck!
We immediately called them out and had them stop what they were doing. We had a brief discussion about what to do and Dan, Andy, and I all agreed that Guy had to go back to the train station. We also all agreed that Sean was doing a good job and could stay if he wanted to. We asked for Russ's phone number, but conveniently neither of them knew it. Fortunately I had it in an email and I got it and Dan called him. We explained that we would be taking Guy to the train station, and that if Russ wanted to pay him for the hours that he worked, he could do that, but that we would not be doing so. We also said that Sean could stay, and that we had no problem paying him. Russ was pretty useless, and in the end Sean said he couldn't really stay if Guy was leaving, so I left to drive them to the train (20 minutes each way), but not before retrieving their lunches that we'd just bought and had delivered for them. I figured we weren't going to eat them, and they were already paid for, so they might as well take their damned food.
From the car I frantically called my friend Cheryl, and asked her if she could do a quick survey of our various friends and see if anyone was available to come help load the truck, since it was now down to just the three of us and we still had most of the house to load. I didn't have time to track down everyone, especially since I was driving and I didn't have everyone's number. She was an angel and called around for me. I told her that I'd pay $20/hr just like I was paying the guys we'd just fired. In the meantime, Dan got the resident one year behind him to come over and help, too. In the end our friends Mark, Matt, and Vuso along with Dan's co-resident Winston all came over and loaded all the main stuff onto the truck, while my friend Karyn helped me finish packing the stuff that Guy didn't pack in the kitchen, and then helped me go through stuff in my room, sorting and packing.
If you thought it couldn't get worse, you were wrong.
It started to rain, and that was when we discovered that the rental truck (UHaul*) had not one, but TWO holes in the roof. Andy climbed up on top of a ladder and managed to get some caulk in the holes... but my god...
Anyway, once the bulk of the stuff was on the truck, the extra help left to go their merry ways and we took a breather to eat something. I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was getting dark. I'd gotten a sandwich delivered along with everyone else at lunchtime, but hadn't had a moment to eat any of it yet. Eating felt good. Sitting down felt good. I'd broken most of my nails by that point and was developing an array of bruises from carrying stuff around. After our break, we finished loading the truck, just the three of us. We finished around 12:30 and Dan and Andy decided that rather than figuring out sleeping arrangements in our now mostly-empty house, they'd just leave and get a few hours on the road instead of waiting until morning to get started. So we said goodbye and they drove off. I went back to the house and kept organizing things (donate/craigslist/ebay/trash/etc) and posting craigslist ads and stuff until way too late.
That's it for Moving Day. There's more to tell, but I will write it later. It took me this long just to be able to write that out. Three days.
*The last time I rented a truck from UHaul, it had to be towed out of my driveway.
So I pick the guy, named, funnily enough, "Guy," up at the train station yesterday and he seemed nice enough, but maybe a little slow? Anyway, I had TONS OF SHIT to do of my own packing (still sorting what is going to Atlanta, what is going to New Hampshire, and what is getting sold/donated/thrown away) so I asked him if he was comfortable packing up fragile things like the kitchen, which was the biggest hurdle I had coming at me. He said he was good with that, and The "boss" of the company had promised me he'd send someone who was good at packing.
So for the most part, I checked in with him from time to time but whenever I saw him doing stuff it looked ok. We'd put red stickers on the things that were not to be packed, and additionally, I set some pots and pans (duplicates) that I wanted to take to New Hampshire to replace the incredibly crappy cookware that is in the cottage at the present time. I pointed it out and explained that he was not to pack that stuff.
In addition to going through all of my clothing and cutting down by probably... nearly half if you count the other recent clothing purges I've done...I also had to go through all of my art supplies and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. On top of that, I had Craigslist people coming in a constant stream, because I have a lot of stuff listed for sale or for free... So anyway,the point is that it would have been very hard to supervise him and also get things done myself.
Welll. He broke the glass on one of my framed prints, and then didn't tell me.
That I could live with. I took him back to the train at around 5pm and paid him his $20/hr in cash. He and another guy were coming the next day, and I said I'd see him tomorrow. That night we discovered that he'd packed several of the things he wasn't supposed to, including the pots and pans for New Hamsphire (and he DIDN'T pack the pots and pans for Atlanta!), the drawer with all of the appliance manuals (that obviously GOES WITH THE HOUSE) which also contained the original thermostat that came with the house--we replaced it with a programmable one that we bought, with the intention of swapping them back when we moved out--and various other things.
Saturday comes. I have to pick the guys up in Framingham because the train doesn't come all the way out to where I am except once every several trips. The new guy is Sean, and he's ex military and seems very nice. He's extremely polite. When we get to the house, I have them coordinate with Dan and his dad so I could go finish packing up my art supplies and my bathroom.
So we decided that we'd open each box before loading it on the truck and check for the various missing items. Well. It's a good thing that happened, because when they opened the boxes and saw how he'd packed... Oh. My. God. Here is an example...
That's what my father-in-law saw when he opened a box of "packed" wine glasses. No bubblewrap. No paper. Nothing. Just glasses, next to each other, and the box closed and taped shut. Holy shit, right? It gets worse.
I asked the guys to help me get two pieces of art down from the walls. One was the 5' x 5' "Being Art" painting that was hanging too high for me to reach, and the other was the "Climbing Out" sculpture that was hanging above the doorway into the kitchen--way above my reach. I helped them with "Being Art," and we put it in a box with two other same-sized canvases and taped it all up. I asked them to get the wall sculpture down and to "just put it on the dining room table."
A few minutes later I came back through the room and saw the sculpture face-down on the dining room floor. Which pretty much means it had been dropped. It's made of styrofoam. I was freaking out hoping it didn't get all dented and mashed in. On the up side, I didn't see any dents. On the way, way, way down side, however, the foot was snapped off. I asked them which one of them had done it and they both denied it. Guy just sort of shuffled out of the room. Sean adamantly said he hadn't taken it down and that he'd been down in the garage moving boxes. I didn't know who did it, but I immediately took photos and asked if the company had insurance. Sean said he thought they did. I emailed the picturse to Russ, the contact I had made the whole arrangement through, and told him what had happened and asked him if he had insurance. He said they didn't, and that he couldn't take responsibility for what had happened.
I replied back that he most certainly COULD take responsibility for it. [In actual time, it was about then that Andy found the box of wine glasses and I took the photo of it, and sent that to Russ. He never responded.]
So we keep going. I'm peeved that my sculpture was broken, but I don't have time to deal with that so I go back to packing up my art supplies (sorting all the way, putting lots of stuff in either "give away" or "trash" piles/bags/boxes). Then someone--I think it was Andy--came in and said I needed to go down to the garage, that he thought that the glass top to my grandmother's antique dresser had been broken. The dressers (and nightstands) along with the glass had been one of the first things moved out of my room when Guy and Sean got there. We'd wrapped the glass in blankets and everyone was being very careful with it. I said that the safest place for the glass was to be put (wrapped in the blankets) right back on top of the dresser that it came from (I have two--one was my grandmother's and one was my grandfather's. They both had glass tops. And they're not rectangular, either--it's a fancy specially cut shaped piece of glass that fits the fancy, special shape of the top of the dresser).
So I went down to the garage. I immediately spotted one of the pieces of glass, wrapped actually not in a blanket but in a mattress pad--whatever. Anyway, I looked around and didn't see the other one. I asked quite loudly so that everyone could hear me where the other one was. Nobody answered. I demanded to know where the other one was. Sean said he had no idea, that the one that was there was the one he brought down. He hadn't seen where the other one went.
Guy was in the truck, so I walked up the ramp and into the truck and asked him where the other piece of glass was. He shrugged and said he didn't know. He was fiddling with something behind some of the furniture at the front of the truck. I walked closer. Would you believe that that lying son of a bitch was standing there, telling me to my face that he didn't know where the glass was, while he was busy hiding the many, many broken shards of it by wrapping it in a blanket and stuffing it behind shit in the truck!
We immediately called them out and had them stop what they were doing. We had a brief discussion about what to do and Dan, Andy, and I all agreed that Guy had to go back to the train station. We also all agreed that Sean was doing a good job and could stay if he wanted to. We asked for Russ's phone number, but conveniently neither of them knew it. Fortunately I had it in an email and I got it and Dan called him. We explained that we would be taking Guy to the train station, and that if Russ wanted to pay him for the hours that he worked, he could do that, but that we would not be doing so. We also said that Sean could stay, and that we had no problem paying him. Russ was pretty useless, and in the end Sean said he couldn't really stay if Guy was leaving, so I left to drive them to the train (20 minutes each way), but not before retrieving their lunches that we'd just bought and had delivered for them. I figured we weren't going to eat them, and they were already paid for, so they might as well take their damned food.
From the car I frantically called my friend Cheryl, and asked her if she could do a quick survey of our various friends and see if anyone was available to come help load the truck, since it was now down to just the three of us and we still had most of the house to load. I didn't have time to track down everyone, especially since I was driving and I didn't have everyone's number. She was an angel and called around for me. I told her that I'd pay $20/hr just like I was paying the guys we'd just fired. In the meantime, Dan got the resident one year behind him to come over and help, too. In the end our friends Mark, Matt, and Vuso along with Dan's co-resident Winston all came over and loaded all the main stuff onto the truck, while my friend Karyn helped me finish packing the stuff that Guy didn't pack in the kitchen, and then helped me go through stuff in my room, sorting and packing.
If you thought it couldn't get worse, you were wrong.
It started to rain, and that was when we discovered that the rental truck (UHaul*) had not one, but TWO holes in the roof. Andy climbed up on top of a ladder and managed to get some caulk in the holes... but my god...
Anyway, once the bulk of the stuff was on the truck, the extra help left to go their merry ways and we took a breather to eat something. I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was getting dark. I'd gotten a sandwich delivered along with everyone else at lunchtime, but hadn't had a moment to eat any of it yet. Eating felt good. Sitting down felt good. I'd broken most of my nails by that point and was developing an array of bruises from carrying stuff around. After our break, we finished loading the truck, just the three of us. We finished around 12:30 and Dan and Andy decided that rather than figuring out sleeping arrangements in our now mostly-empty house, they'd just leave and get a few hours on the road instead of waiting until morning to get started. So we said goodbye and they drove off. I went back to the house and kept organizing things (donate/craigslist/ebay/trash/etc) and posting craigslist ads and stuff until way too late.
That's it for Moving Day. There's more to tell, but I will write it later. It took me this long just to be able to write that out. Three days.
*The last time I rented a truck from UHaul, it had to be towed out of my driveway.
