The Severed Cortex

If we knew up front that it would be possible to close the sale of our home one day and close the purchase of a new home the next, we would have never moved our stuff the way we did. We really expected to be 'homeless' for a couple of weeks. Homeless in the sense that we did not own a home. To save money I suggested we sleep in a doorway near a vent with hot air, but executive privilege was invoked and my suggestion was quickly poo-poohed. Because we didn't know how long we would not need our furniture, we needed some storage alternatives. PODS seemed to be the answer. A cheaper answer, and one that probably would have worked better had we known the back to back closing scenario, was ABF UPack. The problem was that our stuff would have been stored outside. PODS are stored inside. Or so we are told. They're pretty mysterious on where those PODS go once they leave your house.

To jog your memory from a previous episode, you'll remember we had to resort to UHaul. Moving the stuff off the UHaul truck the night we closed was easy. We even took a break for several hours and drank beer. The following conversation ensued.

Me: I'll have a Guinness
Nancy: I'll have a Fat Tire
Waitress: (looking at me) That will be $7
Me: I'll go ahead and pay for both
Waitress: It's $7 for both
Me: Seriously? Sweet!
Nancy: Dude!

I may have made up the dude part.
All told, after emptying a couple beers, the two of us emptied a 26 foot truck in about two hours. The next day I dropped the truck off. Again, I can't say enough good things about UHaul, especially the guy at the West Alton store. The guy at the Springfield location was nice too. In case you wondered.

Eight days after that we got our stuff from PODS. Yes, you heard me right. Eight days. If you've come this far with the moving story you know that we packed the last POD another 5 days prior to that. Meaning, of course, that we've slept on a floor for two weeks now. Well, slightly less. We stayed in a hotel a couple of those nights. And on the 6th day after the hotel stay, Moses came from upon the mountain and he brought with him 2 PODS trucks. 'Yon holy trucks dropped two PODS and surprisingly both were filled with our glory of God. And by glory of God I mean our stuff. That night we unloaded most of the POD that I originally packed. I was pleased to find out that none of stuff I packed got damaged. I damaged them well after they were moved into the house. We're going to fast forward past that part. Moving on. This POD was loaded with boxes and it took a good solid 3 hours for the two of us to unload only 3/4 of it. And we were tired after doing so.

The next morning I started attacking the remaining 1/4 and in an hour or so I was done. Some of it I just moved in the garage so our hired help could deal with it. The movers showed up right on time. We only asked for two movers instead of three because unloading takes far less time than loading. It took the two of them a solid three hours to unload the POD full of heavy stuff plus move most of the heavy stuff out of the garage. They managed to get all of it moved with only minor damage. A heavy entertainment center had some damage that I had to fix, but then again this was the fourth time it had been moved. Stuff happens. All in all I have to say Sims Awesome Moving Company did a pretty good job. They were reliable, didn't look like Johnny Methhead (credit to Jane Poiter for the descriptive name), and for the most part they were careful with our stuff. If you want a no frills, get some guys to move stuff, Sims can take care of you. I tipped them heavily and bought them lunch, which we ate while watching Sportscenter.

PODS picked up the empties the next day, just like they said they would. No more driveway eyesore, which is good since I live in a hoity toity neighborhood on a somewhat busy street. I'm destined to live on busy streets.

It would take several more days to get the bulk of our stuff put away, and there are still a number of things laying around in boxes. I hope to get them squared away this weekend. Finally getting the unfinished part of the basement clean was a big step in getting that project moving and this weekend I'm dedicated to making it happen. I'll post a before and after picture. The before pic will be titled, Box Mountain.

We did have a full service company come in and give us an estimate of moving us from Edwardsville to Springfield. For them to pack, load, move, and unload the cost was $8500. That's quoted in American dollars, not Italian Lira. We managed to do it for slightly less than half of that, but that has a couple of caveats. One, we had to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Two, the full service quote did not include any storage time, which as it turns out would have been very little. We didn't know that at the time. To tie up one of their trailers for two or three weeks would have been another $1500 at least. PODS I could have left in storage for another 2 weeks past when they delivered at no extra charge. For another month it would have cost a small fraction of $1500. All in all, despite the long wait to get our stuff and the snafu with them unable to accommodate us last minute during the load process, PODS was a good solution for us.

Next time we move, and as far as I'm concerned that can be a very long time from now, we are hiring full service movers. And we're getting rid of a lot of our crap.