Share moving day horrors

[anewvance]

Mine took course over 5 days. It is only supposed to take 3 days to move from Florida to Colorado. We rented a U-Haul and a trailer for our car.

1st mishap - got 60 miles away and notice smoke in the rearview mirror. Pulled over and got out, the trailer is on fire! I go running to one of those emergency boxes to call for help, dh is trying to go UNDER the trailer on fire to unhook the car. He manages to get it off and the whole trailer is on fire getting close to the truck. A group of teenagers heading to collage stopped. One uses his shirt to try to bat out the flames. The other ones are using all the soda and ice in their cooler to get the fire out. Finally an 18 wheeler stopped on the other side, crossed 8 lanes of 75mph traffice and put out the fire with his fire extinguisher. Took uhaul 8 hours at a rest stop to get us a new trailer for the car. Ended up in Ocala spending the night instead of Atlanta.

Mishap 2 - we get to the first night to spend the night and notice on the new trailer it says "trailer not inspected, do not rent". Spent 5 hours on the phone back and forth with Uhaul to make sure the trailer was ok to use. End up outside of Little Rock Arkansas instead of Oklahoma.

Day 3 with by without mishap - made it from Arkansas to west Kansas

Mishap 3 - we are driving on the 4th day and we notice alot of oil coming out of the truck. Stop at a gas station in the middle of no where and call uhaul. Someone needs to come out and fix the truck.. trouble is we are in the middle of NO WHERE. This little operation took 10 hours. Yes, 10 hours stuck in a gas station. They finally had to call someone to come out from Wichita. When it was finally taken care of, we didn't drive much farther and stopped somewhere in Kansas for the night.

5th day we finally made it to Denver!

 

[malibuconlee]

Dh's parents decided 6 MONTHS ago to move to the family farm because Grandma's eyesight had gotten worse. This was around the middle to end of Septemer.

They were in such a hurry that it was around Thanksgiving before they ever spent a night in the house. FIL even went ahead and took a two week trip to Colorado in October when it was still nice enough to do some of the moving.

DH's sister put her house on the market to sell so she could buy the IL's house. No offers for months. The IL's have all of this time to get nearly 30 years of junk packed up and moved out of the house. All winter long. Not much happens.

About two weeks ago FIL had surgery on one arm for carpal tunnel with surgery on the other arm for three weeks later. The same week he has his first surgery SIL get's an offer on her house and they have to be out by the end of April.

FIL is frustrated because in his words "he sat around all winter, and now when they have to get out he can't do anything". He even told me he's not good at planning. What a shock!!

They have to combine two households and decide what to keep (MIL doesn't want to get rid of any of her stuff) and what to sell in an auction. DH had to save Grandma's vanity that she bought on her wedding night 64 years ago because they were going to store it in the barn.

 

[mickeyboat]

We moved every two years while I was growing up, so moving was no big deal for our family.

But the move we made at the end of 9th grade broke my heart.

My boyfriend of 9 months had spent the day with us while the movers were packing up the truck. When it was time for all of us to load up into the station wagon, he and I walked down the road together to say good-bye. We faced each other in the middle of the road with tears streaming down our faces and said our good-byes. We turned away from one another and went our separate ways. Just as he rounded the corner he turned back and hollered "I love you!"

I think I cried all the way from VT to NC. (To be honest, 20 years later I am sitting at my desk with tears in my eyes just thinking about it.)

BTW - We have been married for almost 14 years now, and have two beautiful DD's.

Denae

 

[Sylvester McBean]

we rented the biggest Penske truck and a dolly to tow one of the cars behind it. the day of the move I backed the truck into the driveway and hit the suspended phone lines. pulled them down and ripped out a nice chunk of vinyl siding from the house. my dad came over and fixed the siding while we were packing. as we pulled away, I forgot the parking brake was set on the car we were towing. after a couple of blocks I saw the smoke from the tires. they were ruined, and the trail of black lines are still on the street.

 

[TheRatPack]

I think I cried all the way from VT to NC. (To be honest, 20 years later I am sitting at my desk with tears in my eyes just thinking about it.)

BTW - We have been married for almost 14 years now, and have two beautiful DD's.

Denae

To the boyfriend? HOW SWEET! So you stayed in touch? Hope I'm not misunderstanding... LOL

 

[ceiligh1]

I want to start by saying that I do not get sick very often but 2 days before I was to fly to Philly to see my sister graduate and move to DC I came down with something. Fever, sore throat cough, it was horrible. Now my sis went to one of those colleges back east that have a 3 day graduation event. Family tea, talks ect. in addition to the graduation. Well we got there and it was very cold we are talking 40 degrees in May. Coldest it had been in years for the graduation, my sister had not packed and I found out that she didnt have an apartment yet in DC. My parents are older and my dad and my sister do not get along in stressful situations. So in between wearing my one and only sweater that I brought for 5 days, retreating to the backseat of our rental van to sleep, I tried to get my sister to pack. I also tried to find us a hotel to stay at in DC while we looked for a place for her. She refused to pack until the night before graduation, but we eventually packed up or gave everything away. The day we were to leave for DC we packed up the van. There was no extra space, we had laundry baskets filled with things on our laps and we closed the side door and then packed things in around us. Nothing more would fit into that van.
Once we found our hotel in DC we discovered we had been booked into a hotel that was renovating. Chemical fumes everywhere, sister and Dad fighting, I am playing peacemaker. Lots of fun. We pick up an apartment guide and try to get my sister to look as we only had 3 days now to find her a place to stay. Every place we looked she said no, too dirty, too old, too small. Finally we found a place on the last day and she was able to store her stuff at a friends appartment until she could move in. It was the longest 5 days of my life. Now she is getting ready to move to grad school. We are optimistic that she will stay in DC so that we dont have to move her again.

 

[mickeyboat]

To the boyfriend? HOW SWEET! So you stayed in touch? Hope I'm not misunderstanding... LOL

Yes, to the boyfriend. We stayed in touch for a bit, but it was awful hard being so young and so far apart. So we let it go after almost a year. When I graduated from high school, I went back to VT to visit my friends, and even though he had another girlfriend, he asked me out. We had a great time together, started keeping in touch again, and he came to visit during my Spring Break from college. We were engaged (at DW) the summer after sophomore year and married after I graduated.

And to think my parents thought it was just puppy love.

Denae

 

[Chicago526]

It wasn't the moving of furniture so much as the drive from IL to FL and the near disaster that happened with my friend's new apartment.

My best friend decided that she wanted to move to FL (still not sure why, but okay). I volunteered to take a few days off and drive down with her and her mother to help, then fly home again. Aren't I a great friend? Or maybe I'm just a crazy person with a death wish...

After moving myself the year before, advised her to rent a u-haul one size bigger than she would think she needed, since we often underestimate how much space our junk ...err... precious possesions takes up once packed. Does she listen? Heck no! So we lose an hour of loading time when she takes back the small, brand new never ever used u-haul to get a bigger one. This one is just the perfect size, but seems like it's 20 years old and has seen better days. Oh well.

Packing goes okay, she lived with her mom so no one's breathing down our backs to be out, we just need to be done so we can get some sleep before leaving at 4:30 AM the next morning to beat rush hour traffic around Chicago.

Normally, a drive from IL to FL should take about 20 hours or so, meaning 2 days of 10 hours of driving each. I'd advised my friend to make the halfway point between IL and FL the actual physical half way point of the journey, so we aren't traveling a ton on the first day, but can still make the trip in 2 days. Nope. Friend's aunt lives in SC and they have another friend in FL near Orlando, and she and her mom want to visit both of them (and save $50 on a hotel), so we drive ALL THE WAY to SC the first day, then on the 2nd day drive to Orlando where a friend of the mom's lived, THEN on the 3rd day finally get to Ft. Lauderdale.

1st day, Friend and I were in her Saturn, Mom was driving the u-haul. Over moutains. Through rain and wind and dark of night. We didn't get in until almost mid-night! Oh, and did I mention that my friend is the world's worst driver? I honestly thought we would both die when we crashed into the back of the u-haul because she was tailgating about a foot off the bumper the whole way down (at 65 MPH). And there was no telling her to back of and drive more carefully, she would start yelling and shreaking at me (I think it was the stress of the move that made her over react to my driving suggestions, or maybe she's just a stuborn shrew...).

Day two went better, it was a shorter drive and the friends house was very nice and had a pool and a hot tub, and he made us a GREAT steak dinner! Her driving was as bad as the day before, but otherwise it wasn't as bad.

Day three was when disaster struck. She had rented an apartment, and signed a lease with the exact unit number she'd be given. She'd already changed her address for everything, set up utilities and all that fun stuff. She'd be very insistant about having a ground floor apartment and getting a certain unit floor plan. About 2 hours before we get to Ft. Lauderdale, her cell phone rings. Turns out they made a mistake, the current tenant had told them he'd be out by the day she would be moving in, but the management office never got that in writing, and he legally had until the end of the month, and that day was the 28th (or something). They had a differant unit available for move in that day, on the 2nd floor with a differant floor plan, would she switch to that?

She. Fliped. Out. Using all of her will power not to curse (she was still yelling though, can't say I blame her...or maybe I'm just happy she isn't yelling at me for a change...) she told them in no uncertain terms that she wanted the unit she was promised. So, a few phone calls back and forth, they agreed to put us up at a hotel until they could get the guy out of there and get the unit cleaned. Fortunatly her mom and I weren't scheduled to fly home until after she'd be able to get in to the unit, we'd taken off a few extra days to help her settle in and maybe go to the beach one day before flying home. Oh well, so much for that! So we stayed at a hotel for two nights, all her stuff still locked in the u-haul.

Finally we were able to move in, the poor assistant property manager had to clean the apartment himself, they couldn't get a maid crew in time! Except Friend had a lot of very heavy furnature, and it was just us three girls. Friend had thought we could handle moving everything in ourselves since it was a ground floor apartment, and we'd handled packing the u-haul okay, didn't we? What she didn't consider was that we had 3 additional people help her move her stuff into the truck! Thankfully, she remembered she had a cousin in the area, and the cousin's boyfriend (a real sweety, I told the cousin to hang on to him!) got a group of his buddies together to help us un-load and move in, we only had to buy them pizza and beer.

No more disasters after that, although sometimes I'm amazed our friendship survived all of this. She ignored every bit of advice I gave her, then wondered why everything was going wrong (although the apartment snafu wasn't her fault, I'll grant her that much!).

 

[ducklite]

We moved into a house with no gas (ie no hot water), no cable, and no phone as the outer bands of Hurricane Frances was fast approaching.

Backing up a bit--it took us about six hours to load the truck--we had planned on two. We got started late to begin with because DH had grossly miscalculated how long it would take to run some errands. (NEVER EVER EVER believe your husband when he says a trip to Home Depot will only take half an hour.)

We got to bed after midnight and were up at 3:00am. We still had to pick up my car where DH had left it at the truck rental place, and I needed to stop for bread because all the stores in FL were sold out. While in the grocery store I slipped and fell because they were mopping the floor and didn't have a wet floor sign out.

We finally got on the road, and ran smack into DC rush hour. On the way down every time we tried to put gas in the truck our Visa was declined. It took about five calls to Bank One to get that straightened out--what a nightmare.

We had a generator and gas cans with us, and DH filled the gas cans in GA just before we went over the state line into FL. At the Ag checkpoint they made DH open the back of the truck. The Ag Officer asked why he was carrying full gas cans (illegal--especially with DH having a class A CDL) and DH pointed to the genny and said he wasn't sure if we'd be able to get fuel as we got closer to "home", and pulled out the reciept where he has just filled them. The Ag guy cut him a break and sent him on his way.

We got a little further down the road and "Flo" unexpectedly came to visit, and I was caught very unprepared. We found a grocery store open to take care of that problem, but it added that much more time to the trip. We finally got to a hotel just north of Orlando around 4:00am, and were supposed to be at the house around 7:00 to unload the truck. We slept through the alarm and our friends called us at 7:10 wondering where we were. We got up and showered and dressed and topped off the gas tanks and drove to the house, arriving about 8:00.

As we got the last items off the truck the first rain drops hit. DH got some of the windows boarded and then had to give up. He was covered in sawdust and had to take a cold shower.

We didn't have a bed--it hadn't been delivered yet, and it didn't matter much because we ended up sleeping on the floor of the walkin closet due to tornado warnings. The second night we were there, we had a freak occurence where the smoke detector went off in the middle of the night, and then DH managed to set off the burglar alarm, and the only way we could turn that off was by cutting the wire.

By the time we were finally able to go to a hotel three days later, a hot shower never felt so good.

Anne

 

[binny]

well with as many moved as weve hd youd think Id have a ton of horror stories.

I really dont remember that many of them other getting caught in horiible snow storms and such.


The worst thing I remember was moving to the US from Canada.


My middle brother has always had a mouth and a half on him. This has come back to bite him in the butt more times than I care to count!

So he picks this day to mouth off and guess to whom? Yep the immigration officer. It was horrible!

He made some smart aleck comment and they made us unload the ENTIRE Uhaul right there at Customs. My dad was fit to be tied!!!


They inspected EVERYTHING we had. oh it was ugly.







then of course they make you load everything back up. Yeah it wasnt pleasant.

 

[redshoes]

We sold our house last August. We are currently in an apartment, awaiting our final move into our new home. Our last move from our old house to apartment was full of "fun" . We had a trip planned to Disney World months before we decided to sell the house. We put the house up for sale and joked with the realtor that knowing our luck the house would sale and the new owners would want to close while we were in Florida. That didnt happen, the new owner decided that she wanted to close the day before we left for our trip. This wasn't really an issue, because we had boxed up most of our stuff before we put the home on the market-to stage it. We had purchased, months before, a beautiful sofa and loveseat for the basement family room. My DH and I watched the furniture store guys take it downstairs, they had no issues. We foolish thought moving it out of the house would be a piece of cake. Wrong! The night before the big move, as I'm packing up the remainder of the house and also packing for our trip-I hear the worst language I have ever heard out of my DH's mouth. He and his friend are downstairs trying to fit the couch through any door or window available. It was ugly, so ugly that when they decided that the only way to get the set out the basement was to take it apart (this was not a set that was meant to do that with) and started to take out the saws -I left. We still dont know if the set will go back together, I guess we will find out when we move in the next month (and we have no idea how the guys got the set downstairs to begin with).
The lady who bought our home seemed very put together, but she fell apart on moving day (rightly so, it's a little stressful). She told us she would be by the house at noon to start to move in. We had worked through most of the night and were waiting for our family to help with the big stuff- the day of the move she shows up with the movers at 7 am and starts to unload. Huge mess, our stuff going out the door- her stuff going in. We scrambled and got everything out of there, but she sat in a chair and cried. She kept saying over and over again that the house seemed so much bigger than it was, yeah well when you to move 6 couches, 10 bookcases, and countless other pieces of furniture (not to mention four trucks full of boxes) into a 1400 square foot house it's going to seem a little small. She called my husband six weeks later and asked him if he wouldn't mind coming out to house and showing her how to turn on the sprinkling system (mind you I had put together a binder with every single owners manuel for all the appliances, heating systems, and sprinkling system. We even left her samples of the paint and tile in case she needed to replace it). My DH came home crying, the lawn, flower beds, and garden had completly died- no water in the middle of the hottest time of the summer does that to you. She had never turned the system on.
We have determined that this is why you should never became personally involved with the buyer of your house- she still calls and asks us how things work- 9 months later.
Thanks- I needed to vent

 

[mom2boys]

NEVER EVER EVER believe your husband when he says a trip to Home Depot will only take half an hour

Now Anne, did you really think he'd be back in half an hour. I have a husband - he can spend hours looking at litte medal washers at Home Depot.

As for the rest of you, you are scaring me. We are looking at a big move in year or two. We've been in this house for 17+ years. We are pack rats. We've never sold a house. And I WAS the sister moving out of college without being packed. My brother came to help because he was smart enough to know that I would kill myself trying to drive a manual rented UHaul truck in the mountains of PA. He kept telling me I couldn't drive the truck. I kept telling him I'd figure it out. Back then I didn't know how to drive a manual & all Uhauls were manuals. They have apparently wised up in the two decades since - hopefully I have too.

 

[ashjohnson80]

Ok we closed on the house that we sold the day before we moved and closed on the house we were buying. Well the morning of moving day when we were supposed to go to closing at 8 am the lawyers office calls and says that there will be no way we can close that day because our lender had not sent over the loan package. The girl that bought our house was moving in at no later than 3 pm. So we had this huge moving truck rented and most of our stuff in it, and we didn't know where we were going to go. After many many many phone calls to the lender and faxing them what they asked for and then them telling us that they needed something else and such and such wasn't good enough, ect. They finally faxed over the package and the lawyer had an opening for closing at 5 pm.

We were in such a rush moving and dealing with the bank that so much of our stuff was not packed up right, disorganized, and still in the garage. It was bad.

 

[DisneyDmbNut]

What do I get if I win??

So the movers pick up a extra hand on the trip from Florida to Hendersonville Tn...you may have heard of Hendersonville...Johnny Cash lived right down the street...anyway..about 1/4 way through the unloading of the truck, the extra guy is missing...look upstairs, downstairs..everywhere! He is finally found, ODing in the upstairs guest bathroom!

"HI, Thanks for the welcome to the neighborhood...pardon the firetrucks and police and ambulances...MY MOVER JUST OD'D IN MY BATHROOM!!"

 

[ashjohnson80]

What do I get if I win??

So the movers pick up a extra hand on the trip from Florida to Hendersonville Tn...you may have heard of Hendersonville...Johnny Cash lived right down the street...anyway..about 1/4 way through the unloading of the truck, the extra guy is missing...look upstairs, downstairs..everywhere! He is finally found, ODing in the upstairs guest bathroom!

"HI, Thanks for the welcome to the neighborhood...pardon the firetrucks and police and ambulances...MY MOVER JUST OD'D IN MY BATHROOM!!"

Holy Crap! That's nuts. And I know Hendersonville, my parents used to live on Old Hickory Lake.

 

[FreshTressa]

Okay....this might make everyone feel better..

I have moved over 36 times in my life and not ONE horror story.

So...good moving wishes to all you movers! It can happen!

 

[DisneyDmbNut]

Oh...and moving into our apartment 2 years ago while waiting for the house...pull up and the apartment has no carpet...tack strips and pad...and ONE man trying to install it...The movers unloaded everything (2nd floor) onto our patio and kitchen..we had to put everything together 7 hours after we arrived!

 

[PhotobearSam]

Our move from the center of Canada to an apartment on the east coast owned by my folks...

We hire 6 men to move us from our 14th floor condo down to a BIG truck that was bringing the furniture we bought for our new motel to the east coast...It took them 9 hours for 4 men and 6 hours for the other 2...and we are not packrats at all....

The truck leaves and DH and I pack up our cars and head out the next day in the afternoon after closing. Wehave 2 cars and we have to drive the 14 hours in January to the new place. We have walkie-talkies and I have the 2 cats in a cat carrier in my back seat...5 hours into the 14 hour drive...the heat fails in my car...Cats are crying and snow starts to fall...Horrible.

Well at 4 am, we finally get to our new place expecting the place to be empty. Well the truck made it at 4:30 the night before and they unloaded my stuff into my livingroom/kitchen area in 1/2 hour...EVERYTHING was in that room including beds, wahser/dryer...etc etc...we could not get to anything...So we put the cats in the bedroom area with food and litter and head for my parents house to sleep on the couches....not fun.

The cats got fleas from the previous tenant...It took 4 guys, 3 hours to put everything into the rooms they belonged to...this last move was great. We did it little by little using laundry baskets and unpacked as we went. (we move 500 feet away...) I am NOT moving for a least 10 years or if I win the big lottery...

 

[RadioFanatic]

ours was this last move. DH was in the hospital for the month of our move. We had been in the old house for 7 years, but our accumulation was even more because (a) both parents decided since we had a house for the first time, they were going to give us all of our possessions from the time we were babies; and (b) we were also the couple everyone gave their old furniture to which we stupidly accepted.

Needless to say, it was absolutely miserable packing up all by myself in addition to working full-time and visiting dh in the hospital. I got to the point where I just threw a ton of stuff away b/c I didn't have time to look at it all and figured if I didn't use it the past two years - see ya. I even had to get two, yes two, dumpsters to throw away all of my stuff. Not to mention the stuff I gave to the salvation army.

then, the movers stole my digital camera. although the company bought me a new camera, I lost a lot of great pix.

it's funny though, because I was able to get my act together until the very end when I noticed that the mirror on my new bedroom closet had a crack in it. I freaked out completely because I thought I caused it and I didn't want seven more years of bad luck. You see, on our last move, in 1998, dh and I cracked a mirror and I swear we had bad luck because of it. We had just gotten out from that seven years when I saw this crack. So I thought we were in for another 7 years of cruddy luck. Thankfully, the owners admitted it was there before. Phew.

 

[Chicago526]

My middle brother has always had a mouth and a half on him. This has come back to bite him in the butt more times than I care to count!

So he picks this day to mouth off and guess to whom? Yep the immigration officer. It was horrible!

He made some smart aleck comment and they made us unload the ENTIRE Uhaul right there at Customs. My dad was fit to be tied!!!


They inspected EVERYTHING we had. oh it was ugly.

then of course they make you load everything back up. Yeah it wasnt pleasant.

So, where did you hide your brother's body?

NEVER EVER EVER believe your husband when he says a trip to Home Depot will only take half an hour

Words to live by!