Your worst moving experience? (moving company, back north, job, U-Haul)

[doug1980]

I have moved over 20 times in my life and they all have had their share of complications. From Florida to Indiana, Indiana to Texas but the worst was moving from Indiana to Alaska. I had just returned home from Iraq and had 3 weeks to pack up all my things then fly to North Dakota to get married and pack up my new wifes belongings and put them in storage. We then drove back to Indiana and had my truck shipped to AK, loaded up my stuff and then headed back North Dakota. We unloaded the U-haul at our storage and waited for the Military movers to load it all up and haul it to AK. It took them all day to repack and load all our stuff. We then drove 5 days straight to AK. It was a total nitemare but we did it. The worst part is next summer we get to to it all over again only with a dog and a 15 month old. Should be interesting that's for sure. So what was your worst move ever?

[cl723]

I`ve had a couple of moving nightmares. It would take to long to tell here.

[kodaka]

Moving from central Missouri to southern Idaho when I was nine. I got food poisoning but my parents just thought I had a tummy ache, so they started feeding me pepto bismol. We stopped halfway across Nebraska when I threw up the pepto all over the cab of the u-haul.

My mother took my sister to see An American Tale at a theater in town and I stayed in the hotel room with my dad and a bucket.

[stacylee926]

My worst moving nightmare was when we moved 3 blocks away. I thought it would be easier - HA! We set it up so we would have a week overlap and I could start moving boxes early. I spent days carrying boxes up and down steps from one townhouse to another.

The weekend of the move, my husband left town for a bachelor party out of state. I was finishing the move of boxes and stuff and attending the bridal shower and the bachelorette party. I was exhausted (oh, had 2 young children too) and on the actual day of the move it was pouring rain.

What a mess . I am still angry about that move. LOL and it was about 13 years ago!

[MaryleeII]

My worse experience was when my mother died. She died suddenly and unexpectedly. I had to clear out her apt and move all her stuff from Ohio to TX. Thank goodness she had substantial life insurance, that's what it was for, to handle settling up her affairs.

We just contracted a moving company, they boxed up everything, sent it all down here and put in storage. I didn't have any time to sort through her things. I just had a few hours to get rid of foodstuffs, medicines, the obvious. They literally packed every hair pin and paper clip. Over 300 boxes came down here, all stuffed in storage. it took me a year to sort it out, one box at a time. I mean, there were old newspapers, junk mail, it was a nightmare sorting it out. I learned from that never to let stuff pile up.

We've been moved on the company's nickel several time, but I always went through everything with a fine-tooth comb and didn't let them just pack and ship. I had people say they're paying for it, let them pack and ship it and you sort it out at your leisure. Believe me, its to your benefit to sort and prune as much as possible, regardless of who is paying for it. Its a nightmare to sort it out on the other end!

[terrasurf]

My worst experience was when I moved into an old converted farm/barn during college. During my first night, two rats were running around behind the walls above where I lay. The next a.m. I banged on the wall a bit, and later told the landlord who gave me back my security thank god. He tried to tell me they were squirrels. When I went back to pick up my few belongings, they chewed a large hole in the spot where I was banging, as if to get after me I guess.

[gentlearts]

I HOPE and pray my upcoming one is not it. We've never moved out of state before and as of now, have no new house picked out. So all our stuff will be on a truck on the way to storage before our buyers close. That scares me.

[rickpugh]

Most of my friends' bad moving experiences had something to do with hiring the wrong moving companies. One friend scheduled a mover at 3pm, and had the elevator of her building reserved for two hours. The moving guys arrived two hours late. They were so lazy and unreliable she and her husband had to carry most of the stuff themselves. Then they billed her for extra hours even before they could finish unloading all their stuff, for certain stuff they had to take up the stairs (which was supposedly not included when she asked for a quote), etc., etc. They refused to pay the hidden costs and their remaining things got held hostage. They ended up calling the police.

[MovedfromFL]

We moved from FL to GA when our first child was 6 weeks old. I have to say it went fine, even though we did it all ourselves with 2 U-Haul trucks and a trailer. The only problem was someone siphoned the gas out of the smaller U-Haul the night before we left FL, when the truck was parked in our driveway. My dad got around the corner driving it and realized the gas gauge was way below "empty" Luckily he was able to coast into a nearby station on fumes. If he didn't notice it when he did, he would have run out of gas on a rural road and then things would have been a bit tricky!

This time we are going back to FL with one more child in tow. Doing the whole pack and move by ourselves again, so let's hope it goes well. About a 9 hour drive but could be up to 10 with stops for the kids and traffic. We've really pared our stuff down to the minimum this time and still have to sell our master bedroom set and computer desk soon. (both are old, heavy, and take up too much space)

The plan is for my parents to come up from FL in a rental car. Then we will convene a caravan to FL with my husband driving the 26 foot truck, my dad driving my husband's truck towing a trailer, and me driving the kids and my mom in our SUV. (hopefully without a trailer b/c I don't know how to drive w/one and it's too dangerous with the kids in case it fishtailed or whatever.) I guess if we need more room, we will put the truck on a trailer behind the 26 foot truck, and then my dad could drive another rental truck.

[AJTucson]

My worst moving experience was ten years ago from the Midwest to AZ. I don't know if it is the air or water or us or what....but the amount of things going wrong since that move has been just incredible. There has been more in ten years than all my years in the Midwest all added together.

What makes it worse is that hubby and I both did not take advantage of job opportunities offered to us over the past couple of years that were out of state. There is just no explaining that one.

So, we're listing, most probably going to need to sell empty and at a deep discount given our area (mostly due to location) versus what we should have done in 2000, 2003 and 2005 relative to the job offers.

Going forward and knowing what I know now, we would have rented (and will rent for a while). You get to really know an area, see how everything works and if you're a good fit, etc.

Also, bought and sold 3 homes prior to this one. Only the closing on our Midwest home that we sold before moving to AZ and the closing when we bought this current property had issues (too lengthy to name). That is something I do not intend to miss again.