Moving is a bitch!!!!

Found a bigger, nicer, place for less money. Doing the Big Move Monday and Tuesday. I have become very friendly with the local liquor stores as I search out moving boxes. I am amazed at Jane's stamina. I am exhausted already. Really hoping that the thuglets do not follow us.

Moving is one of those things I'd do more often if I could only get someone I could trust to come in and haul all my stuff out to the "new" place.

Twice when I moved, I got distracted while the moving company was at work, the first time I got to my new place with books that were suitable for starting fires and the second time the movers uncovered a forgotten pile of porno under the sofa.

This last time I moved myself and got careless with my computer...it almost didn't get going after being plugged in at the new place. AND, because I waited to the last minute to start packing I wound up with too much stuff and not enough boxes. Thank heavens for re-inforced garbage bags.

We're in the throes of moving, as well. Back across country to Texas after moving to NC less than two years ago (bank mergers suck).

We just discovered that Lowes sells boxes much cheaper than U-Haul or than the movers charge. Their medium box is only 70 cents.

Craigslist is the place to get boxes. When people have a moving company move them, then unpack everything, they are left with a E36 M3 ton of boxes. What to do with them all? Craigslist, in the free section. I have all the boxes that my stuff fits into stored in my unfinished basement from when I moved last October.

As someone who has moved 25 times in his life in 23 years...

don't be a cheapass. Buy proper boxes. You buy them once, and you have boxes for the rest of your life (if your not the kind of person who moves much) or the next time you move the boxes are ready and waiting.. Yes, it is expensive, but this is one of the few times where it is worth getting actual boxes. They also stack 1 millliiiiiiioooooooon times better as they are all the same size and don't crush easily.

I packed all my E36 M3 up in these kinda boxes for when I was supposed to be going overseas. That fell through and I am now un packing everything into my new apartment. These boxes make moving alot easier. I thing they were about $5 each a Wally World.

I hate the whole moving thing. The worst part is when you cannot find something no matter where you look, for instance my 'World's Fastest Indian' and 'Dr Strangelove' DVDs have both vanished. I have ordered replacements, that means the day they show up I will find the originals.

We moved about 8 months ago from a house we lived in for 23 years. I still have night sweats about it and still haven't unpacked everything. Next time I'm burning the house down.

I was happy to move out of my condo/townhouse after living there for 8 years. I hated it. I am happily moved into my new place as of yesterday.

I just moved my office for the 2nd time in 3 yrs. Hopefully this landlord will be more than a slumlord. Anyway, moving will keep you light. Do an honest assesment and throw out the stuff that you really dont use or need. We just kept raiding the liquor store across the street for their best boxes. Books are a real PITA to deal with but I rented a small army of mexicans and they were done in 2.5hrs.
Just wish that AT&T wasnt the only commercial phone company. All I asked them to do was move my old services down the street but it took them 2 weeks to get it right. The worst thing is that they will just flat out lie. My fav of the deal was when they told my Assistant that I called back after she had corrected our situation and cancelled the order. I do have several months of credit coming due to their stupidity.

yea.. been there too many times. I was due to move this past fall when work dried up.. got stuck with a lot of stuff packed up that had to go back where they belonged

wife and I invested in rubber maid tubs some years back...

but I still feel the best boxes you can get is cheese boxes from pizza shops (except dominos) and fry boxes from chic-fil-a... very sturdy and just the right size for most everything

Warning: This is a rambling venting post that starts with moving and ends with car troubles:

How about this: Girlfriend had to be out of her apartment at 5:00PM Saturday. We filled 1.5 Carolla's and a Uhaul E150 all the way to the gills. Then at 7:00PM, I graduated college. Noon Saturday, I had to be out of my place. We got the keys to the new place at 1:00PM, getting everything in there... But wait, it is more complicated! It is my (now former) roommates and girlfriends place (along with former roommates girlfriend who will be moving in in a week), not mine! I moved half my stuff back home, and half my stuff in with them. I don't know when I start my job, and it is only for the summer for right now, so I don't have a place.

Oh, and to make matters more stressful, today on the 120 mile trip home--that I was actually driving to my uncles for a Mothers day party--the damn car dies with 30 miles left. I got a jump from a friendly Illinois Highway worker (seriously a very nice guy), and I got another 20 miles before it died again. Dad was near my by that point, he jumped it again, then we got about 2 miles from the destination when it died in an intersection in a left turn. Push it to a gas station and leave it there. Went to party, had a good time, went back to the car, bought a new battery (figured it would be the easiest thing to try), and the light came back on. Damn. Drove the 20 miles home and took it straight to the dealership where I'm sure they'll screw me.

Normally I'd take the time and try to figure it out myself, but if there is a drain in the system I don't have time to do it. I might have to start work Tuesday (120 miles away) and if not, then I have to drive (in another car) my great aunt to Kentucky for a funeral. Life demands that I take my car in this time.

Done this more than a few times. The advice about buying good boxes is spot on, and then I actually resell them. The other trick is to start ahead of time. Get the spare rooms, books, ect packed up good and early. And yeah, you should really be dropping a lot of stuff off at Goodwill. If you haven;t used touched or needed it in the last year, and it isn;t an heirloom, it should go.

But for those of us who have been living in...um...the "lower" scale and moving up, keep in mind that roaches love carboard. So when moving from an infested place to a hoepfully not one, you should bring the boxes in one at a time, unpack them there and carry them out. Becuase if just a few make it, you won't see them in the new place until it is too late.

I was warned several years ago not to get boxes from grocery stores because they are much more likely to be roach infested.

I moved over 25 times by the time I was 30. I'm done moving. Now I'm trying to gather as much E36 M3 as possible so my children will have to sort thru it after I die.

Moving house is easy.

Moving a machine shop, a fab shop, a wood shop, and a race shop, months before you move house - so you can sell house number 1?

That's a bitch.

The neighbors that are all "Oh, having to move all that ~furniture~ is so hard!" have never had to relocate metal objects that weigh as much as cars but reside indoors at the bottom of flights of stairs.

Throw out the crap before you move.

This was load two from my shop and the 5th including the house. The furniture was the easy part.

We used banker boxes for just about everything including the thousands of books that are still in boxes. That's the only way to go as far as I'm concerned. They were more expensive than the Uhaul stuff, but rated at 400 pounds and had handles. The handles alone were worth the extra expense.

Dave Barry, from 'Homes and Other Black Holes':

'I, personally, have never given birth to a child, but I have seen it dramatized a number of times on television, and I would say that in terms of pain, childbirth does not hold a candle to moving. For one thing, childbirth has a definite end to it. The baby comes out, looking like a Vaseline-smeared ferret, and the parents get to beam at it joyfully, and that is that. Whereas the average move goes on forever. You take Couple A, who just had a baby, and Couple B, who just moved their household, and if you keep track of them, you'll find that years from now, when Couple A's baby has grown up, left home, and started a family, Couple B will still be rooting through boxes full of wadded-up newspaper, looking for the lid to their Mr. Coffee. Also, during childbirth, when things go wrong, trained professionals give you powerful drugs. Nobody is ever this thoughtful during a move.

This is why my Number One piece of helpful advice to people who are about to move, especially for the first time, is always:

DON'T DO IT! SET FIRE TO YOUR HOUSEHOLD GOODS RIGHT NOW AND WALK AWAY FROM THEM WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A BACKWARD GLANCE! THIS WILL BE EASIER, IN THE LONG RUN!

Of course you think I'm just kidding, and by the time you realize I'm not, you'll already be in your new home, trying unsuccessfully to locate something to slash your wrists with...'

Last October/November I had to move 2 times in a period of 2 weeks, 3 depending on how you count it. I feel your pain.

I helped my son move from a 4th floor brownstone in Boston, wlak up - no elevator. TheLL wouldn't let you throw crap out the window either!

I swore that was my last ever move.

At one point in my last move I was sort of hanging in space. I had stuff in a garage in Charleston, stuff at my mom's house and my cars at my brother's house. That sucked, imagine a move stretched over 5 months. I couldn't find squat.

Well, we're all in. Various adventures, of course. Half the promised help did not show. Fortunately, three guys from next door volunteered, and worked their butts off. Then, the next night, one of them had us over for dinner! Good vibes here. Small adventure- yesterday was Haitian Independence day. The church next door turned out to be ground zero for the street party. Interesting. Now comes the two month adventure of unpacking. Never been so tired in my life.

I feel your pain! A couple of months ago I packed everything I owned (well everything I could fit) into a U-haul and moved to Oregon from Texas. I have moving, across town or across the country.