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There is no substitute for professional movers. They really are worth their weight in gold. We had very good furniture to move and they packed it in blankets, then cardboard, then shrink wrap, then blankets again as things were put into the truck. Not a scratch on anything.
Find a competent mover and work with them. This will not be their first rodeo with your situation. They can pack, move, store, move again and unpack. All insured. All for a price. But it takes a HUGE load (literally and proverbially) off your shoulders.
Do your homework. Bad movers are everywhere because everyone tries to underbid the next guy. We paid slightly more (like a few hundred bucks) on a cross country move to have a select mover load (two days), drive, two days, and unpack 1.5 days--same crew on both ends. Truck went back empty because they didn't want to take a load that they hadn't packed and loaded. THAT's what a great mover does. Look around; you'll find one.
Last time I moved, I shipped some boxes to my brother's house; he stored them for a year.
When I picked them up, one box was about 3" shorter than the other 2 (they had started out the same). Contents were damaged.
But it had been a year, so I didn't waste time pursuing it.
I can tell you what we did. We used a professional moving company. The house we had bought was still under construction so that meant that we needed to move into a temporary rental until construction was completed and we closed on the new house.
I set aside and marked the items that we would be taking to the temporary rental. The movers packed the house, loaded everything into the truck with the temp rental items towards the back for easy access.
We moved into our temporary rental, the moving company brought the temp rental items and put everything else into storage. When it came time to move into our new house, we hired a rental truck and moved everything in the temp rental to the new house and scheduled the movers to bring everything else from storage to the new house.
It was a lot of moving pieces but it all worked out. I was very impressed with the way the professional packers had packed our breakables - way more carefully than I would have. Everything arrived in good shape.
Trust me, you will not want to be hauling boxes of china and stemware around in your car and trying to find a place for them in a temporary rental (for us it was a small apartment). And we were in a couple of hotels before we were able to move into the temp rental.
That was pretty much what we did when we moved to our current home (we were in a corporate apartment while we looked for and abought a house). It worked out pretty well but for 2 concerns.
First it was more expensive because we basically paid to move everything to the storage place and then hired local movers to move it to our house. The other thing was that if something fragile had been discovered to be broken when we unpacked at the new house I doubt the original movers would have paid. They would have blamed the local second movers or said it was something that happened in storage.
I always use professional movers and have them pack anything fragile. It is just in this case if something turns up broken 3 months later after local movers have moved it I don't see I can go back to the first movers.
If we do end up using a POD we will, by the way, use professional packers and professional movers who have lots of experience packing PODs. We will not be placing one thing in the POD ourselves.
That was pretty much what we did when we moved to our current home (we were in a corporate apartment while we looked for and abought a house). It worked out pretty well but for 2 concerns.
First it was more expensive because we basically paid to move everything to the storage place and then hired local movers to move it to our house. The other thing was that if something fragile had been discovered to be broken when we unpacked at the new house I doubt the original movers would have paid. They would have blamed the local second movers or said it was something that happened in storage.
I always use professional movers and have them pack anything fragile. It is just in this case if something turns up broken 3 months later after local movers have moved it I don't see I can go back to the first movers.
If we do end up using a POD we will, by the way, use professional packers and professional movers who have lots of experience packing PODs. We will not be placing one thing in the POD ourselves.
We were fortunate that our move included the delivery to the temp rental, the hold in storage for the bulk of our items and then the delivery of the stored items to our new home at no additional cost. We had a certain set time frame that our items could stay in storage so if the construction on our house had run into delays, and the time in storage had to be extended, we would have been on the hook to pay for the additional time in storage. Luckily, the house was completed within the storage window. Since it was the same moving company throughout our items remained insured the entire time.
Of course, the items that had been delivered to the temp rental were no longer insured and had to be moved by us. We rented a a rental truck, loaded it up and moved those belongings ourselves to the new home.
To the person who left a message for me, yes, I am aware that the Op has asked how to prove who damaged their items (assuming any are damaged at all). The answer would be to let the moving company pack, transfer, store, move the boxes into your house while you have everything covered by insurance. That way if you notice damage while unpacking and report it right away, it should be easier to get your claim resolved.
Hauling boxes of breakables around in your car while you are essentially homeless is not a great plan. If you're like us, you could be hauling them around from hotel to hotel to temp rental and then into your new home. Way more potential for damage to happen AND a huge pain, too.
To the person who left a message for me, yes, I am aware that the Op has asked how to prove who damaged their items (assuming any are damaged at all). The answer would be to let the moving company pack, transfer, store, move the boxes into your house while you have everything covered by insurance. That way if you notice damage while unpacking and report it right away, it should be easier to get your claim resolved.
Well, yes, that would work. Alas, it is not possible. When we sell our current house, we will not yet have our new house. Hiring a traditional mover and having them do all of that would require potentially several months of storage which would be cost prohibitive.
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Hauling boxes of breakables around in your car while you are essentially homeless is not a great plan. If you're like us, you could be hauling them around from hotel to hotel to temp rental and then into your new home. Way more potential for damage to happen AND a huge pain, too.
I have no intent to do that. We will most likely do one of two things.
Store the breakables (a few boxes, not a huge number) in a friend's attic until we move into our house once we have bought it. Then we travel back, get the boxes and take them to our new house. We might have one night in a hotel on the way back but we would take the boxes into the hotel.
The second option is to take the breakables to our new city and put them in a temporary storage (we would insure the goods in storage of course). We plan to make a driving trip to the new locale in a few weeks (one our house is under contract and out of inspection but we haven't closed yet) and we could even take the stuff then and put it in storage. This is actually pretty simple. The only negative would be if the sale of our house didn't close for some reason this stuff would be 1200 miles away from where we live now. Of course, that is not likely to happen and if it did we would probably sell the house to someone else and would eventually move.
We have about decided to do PODs for everything else except the stuff that must travel us such as our cats, needed clothing, important papers, jewelry and computers. This breakable stuff will be moved according to one of those options.
Well, yes, that would work. Alas, it is not possible. When we sell our current house, we will not yet have our new house. Hiring a traditional mover and having them do all of that would require potentially several months of storage which would be cost prohibitive.
I have no intent to do that. We will most likely do one of two things.
Store the breakables (a few boxes, not a huge number) in a friend's attic until we move into our house once we have bought it. Then we travel back, get the boxes and take them to our new house. We might have one night in a hotel on the way back but we would take the boxes into the hotel.
The second option is to take the breakables to our new city and put them in a temporary storage (we would insure the goods in storage of course). We plan to make a driving trip to the new locale in a few weeks (one our house is under contract and out of inspection but we haven't closed yet) and we could even take the stuff then and put it in storage. This is actually pretty simple. The only negative would be if the sale of our house didn't close for some reason this stuff would be 1200 miles away from where we live now. Of course, that is not likely to happen and if it did we would probably sell the house to someone else and would eventually move.
We have about decided to do PODs for everything else except the stuff that must travel us such as our cats, needed clothing, important papers, jewelry and computers. This breakable stuff will be moved according to one of those options.
It sounds as though you've got a solid plan that will work for you within your given time frame. Best wishes for a smooth move.
It sounds as though you've got a solid plan that will work for you within your given time frame. Best wishes for a smooth move.
Of course, all of this depends on a POD being available when we are ready to move. That is going to be controlled by when we sell our house. The move could end up being as soon as late July or more likely in August. But we will deal with that when we know the situation better.
Of course, all of this depends on a POD being available when we are ready to move. That is going to be controlled by when we sell our house. The move could end up being as soon as late July or more likely in August. But we will deal with that when we know the situation better.
Moves are stressful because of all of the moving parts involved and all of the things that need to happen within a certain time frame. I remember the stress all too well. In our case we also had to factor in getting our kids enrolled in a brand new school system. Of course, the rental we had planned to move into fell through at the last second so we wound up having to first stay in hotels until we finally found a rental to move into which was in a different county and then get permission for the kids to attend the schools where our house was being built. Then it was a matter of commuting to/from the schools every day....and the kids were on very different schedules so half my day was spent just dropping them up and picking them up from school. Fun times. We made it through but man was the stress level ever crazy.
OP~ it sounds like you aren't afraid to spend big money of a couple cat towers. Hey, if it costs a few thousand to move them, then so be it. (After all, they're almost new!)
What I'm telling you, is now that diesel is $5+, it's NOT going to be "cheap."
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