How NOT to Move!

I recently had 15 days to move from Sutherlin OR to Stayton OR. Trust me, it was not enough time.

Being 62 and having no help, it was a comedy of errors to be sure. So here are some things I learned that I want to share with you. This won't be a "encouraging or uplifting" essay. It will be brutally honest and meant to prevent you from making my mistakes. So...

DO NOT:

• Buy cheap tape. For wrapping presents to send in the mail, it's fine. For making sure your banana boxes don't come open, not so much. I had a hard time finding good boxes, so some had to be "re-folded" for lack of a better word, and cheap tape often failed. Or, I used so much of it that the good stuff would not have cost me any more. Lesson learned.

  

   

• Use shipping boxes from the "above store". It was all I could find during the last little bit, but they are not designed to "ship" only be loaded and unloaded from a big truck. Sturdy isn't even close to what they were. And it rained the day the truck was loaded. Nuff' said.
  

• Think that you can't get rid of things. During the 9 days I had to get "packed", I gave away about 60 boxes of things to my donation station in our club house. Had I not, I would not have had room for what I could stuff in the moving van. And by "I", I mean the movers. We will get to that later.
  

• Think that you have plenty of time to clean. Do it as you go and you might. I had to wait till the boxes were out of the way. You don't realize how your corners and cubbies can sneak up on you. I am a pretty clean person. But even I was shocked. If you have to pack a whole apartment, set things in the middle of the room (if you can) so you can do the windows, closets, bathroom etc. I was literally cleaning while I was backing out of the apartment. Not great for your stress level.
  

• Think the men in your complex will help. A man I have known for over 2 years lived three blocks from me, and I was shocked that he didn't even offer. Just bringing down the microwave alone would have saved my aching back. You know who did help? A 72 year old gal who I have been helping off and on drive to the doctors and such. She couldn't even come up the stairs but she helped by pushing a loaded shopping cart to the moving truck.
  

• Hire movers when you think it will take two hours and it takes three. The guys I knew didn't charge me full price as they knew I was on a tight budget. They even went as far as to take the tow dolly off the truck, take it back to the dealer, and get the right one and load up my van and never charged me full price. I love them for it, but I felt pretty bad that I couldn't pay them what they deserved. And, it rained the last hour. So, if you can, have a "cushion" for times like this.
  

• Rent a moving truck from someone who's business name starts with Bubba. He got the prices wrong, the wrong dolly, never told me how high the truck was going to be, how to adjust the mirrors, that 1/3 of a tank is not 1/2 of a tank, and so on. The only reason I had to use him was that my movers could only work on a Sunday and he was open. So, by the time I got the truck, spent the money on fuel, a quick lunch, never being able to back the thing up, and returned the next day, it was almost 100.00 more than I was told it would be. "You" can take that company and "Haul" it over a cliff.
  

• Overload the dolly. See the results.
  

• Forget to make three emergency bags for the bathroom and the kitchen, and the office, then not be able to find one. I now have two bottles of aspirin, tubes of toothpaste, etc.
  

• Forget to eat. Seriously. I was so rushed the day I drove up, trying to get to the new apartment by 3:00 pm that just getting there by 4:30 pm used up all my reserves. A bag of chips and a cheese danish from a truck stop does not a full meal make. The first night I couldn't get the van off the truck, so I borrowed a pot from a neighbor and heated up a can of soup and slept on the 2 pieces of foam mattress I had (yes, they buried my bed) and went from there.

So, all in all, I am in debt, tired, sore, stressed and will never EVER do this again. If I have to move, it will be planned down to the minute and penny. At least, that is the plan

PBP