I am so sick and tired of disorganized moves

[bankworking]

When I moved (house move, not office), my friends laughed at me because i labeled every box on the top and two sides, with details on the sides so I knew pretty much exactly what was in each box. I packed everything except one box, which I lived out of the last couple of days before the move. My parents paid for movers for us, and they finished the job in a third of their estimated time, which saved my parents money since the movers charged per hour. Took me forever to get unpacked, because as good as I am about making sure I'm packed, I lose motivation once I have my main boxes unpacked. I had a few boxes that were still waiting to be unpacked a year later.... but if I needed something from a still-packed box, I knew where to find it.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

When I moved (house move, not office), my friends laughed at me because i labeled every box on the top and two sides, with details on the sides so I knew pretty much exactly what was in each box. I packed everything except one box, which I lived out of the last couple of days before the move. My parents paid for movers for us, and they finished the job in a third of their estimated time, which saved my parents money since the movers charged per hour. Took me forever to get unpacked, because as good as I am about making sure I'm packed, I lose motivation once I have my main boxes unpacked. I had a few boxes that were still waiting to be unpacked a year later.... but if I needed something from a still-packed box, I knew where to find it.

That was how I did my boxes when we moved into our current home over 20 years ago.

As soon as Mom said we were moving, we started getting boxes and I started that same week with everything I didn't need . We used a Sharpie to write down which room each box went in and moved it ourselves to the new house and they went in those rooms.

Took almost 3 weeks to get everything in, as we did a lot of the boxes and smaller stuff in the evenings after work, then rented a Ryder truck to move the furniture and appliances (and it had just been raining and the truck got mired in mud in the front yard, we laugh about it now) and had the main stuff inside within 2 days (during a weekend. Then-stepdad went and got the truck Fri when he got off work and returned it Monday morning on the way to work.)

Took longer to unpack and get everything in place (especially the kitchen) but all in all, it wasn't bad.

[Jetfire]

Yeah when I moved last time, I started packing about 3 months before my moveout date. I was living on the third floor of a walkup, and we had storage lockers in the basement.

I would get what boxes I could, and filled them with things I knew I didn't need to use often and started hauling them down a few boxes a day. (Mostly books and comic books). I arranged with the apartment office to take a couple extra lockers until I moved out.

I probably had 2/3rds of my stuff down in the basement by the time I was ready to move. Still had to move the big furnature, but book shelves, books, etc... were all down. Which was probably good since I was pretty sick the day of the move and couldn't really do the up and down stairs to the top floor as fast as I would normally. Luckily I had family and a couple of coworkers who helped.

[wolfie]

I remember one office move where, at the destination, NOBODY in my department (I was a lowly peon) unpacked ANYTHING until I started unpacking. How did this come about?

As moving boxes, we had plastic totes, which we would seal using zip ties. This looked like it could be a problem if cutters weren't supplied for unpacking, so I taped my scissors to the inside of the lid of one tote (there was enough "give" that you could slip your hand inside a sealed tote) and blacked out a corner of the label as a clue to myself.

Post-move, I get to the new location and my early-arriving co-workers were standing around doing nothing because (surprise) no cutters had been provided. I found the tote with the blacked-out corner on the label, reached inside to grab my scissors, and cut the zip ties on my totes. Needless to say, a LOT of people borrowed my scissors. They had their own - neatly packed where they couldn't get at them until the zip tie on the tote was cut.

[bankworking]

I have a family friend who we call a "mega-mover". He's one of those guys who everyone wants helping them on a move. Strong, with lots of stamina, a good eye for fitting stuff in, etc. Could practically do the move all by himself. And doesn't even complain about being asked to help again and again by everyone he knows.

Well, he talks about one time he went to go help a couple move out. He was busy that weekend, only had about a four hour stretch to help, but it was a single bedroom apartment, and the place they were moving to wasn't far, plus they got the big furniture moved out the night before, so he was mostly just going to be moving boxes. Which they state are "practically" all packed.

He gets there and *nothing* is packed. They have something like 6 filled boxes. The silverware is still in the drawers, food still in the cabinets, clothes are still hanging in the closet and stuffed in the (not-yet-moved) dressers. He spends about a half hour getting down to the truck the few packed boxes and the bits of furniture remaining that don't have stuff in them, gives them a lecture on what a "all-packed" house really means, and tells them he'll see if he can help them again when they're actually ready to move. Then he leaves.

They didn't end up getting him back, but he heard it took them two weeks worth of small trips to get themselves from the old place to the new (plus an extra fee from the former landlord).

[wolfie]

They didn't end up getting him back, but he heard it took them two weeks worth of small trips to get themselves from the old place to the new (plus an extra fee from the former landlord).

They're lucky the landlord hadn't already rented the place based on them having given notice - if he had, the new tenants would have needed (and been entitled) to a VACANT apartment, and would probably have tossed the stuff "abandoned" by the previous tenant.