Somehow, it DOES all work out

From the beginning of this moving process, what was stressing me out the most was how I was going to get my belongings and furniture from point A to point B. I’d never actually had things worth moving before, and nothing that wouldn’t fit in a car. My dad suggested that I just get rid of everything and start over but that’s his style, he’s attached to nothing and practically lives like a monk with only the bare minimum. But selling what I have and buying new furniture is more work than moving it.

So there was labor to consider – what would make my life easiest? What would make the most sense financially? The most difficult consideration was when to move. Do I wait until I have a point B and move from one apartment to another? What about breaking my lease? I need to clear out ASAP so the landlords can rent and how long can I afford to leave my stuff there? But if I move it to storage do I still use professional movers? And do I store it here or there (and at that point I don’t think I could have specified which location was here and there.)

My good friends kept saying “don’t worry, it will work out,” which is one of those things that’s really irritating to hear when you’re stressed out. I feel like saying “How? HOW will they work out exactly? Don’t I have to make them work out?” But then, as promised, they did. I found an apartment in San Francisco and a few days later Delancey Street returned my call. When I talked to them initially, they said they’d need to come out and look at the apartment and at my stuff – which concerned me because I wasn’t there – but when I got the guy on the phone I said “Look, I’m already living in the Bay Area; my stuff is packed, I’ve filled out two inventory lists already for moving companies, I think it’s 2,500-3,000 pounds and I need to move it next weekend, is there any way we can do this?” To which he miraculously replied, “yeah” and just like that, I had movers arranged.

On the day of the move, a crew of five young guys covered in tattoos, but otherwise clean cut, arrived on my doorstep an hour early. I wasn’t done packing (I’d lied before about being done) and asked them to come back. “Do you want us to help?” they asked, “we can bang that out for you in ten minutes.” They made an otherwise crazy day into an easy one. They were polite and professional, quick and careful. I felt taken care of and actually enjoyed the process. It cost me just over $1,400, which is a very good price. They packed me on a Friday and I my things were delivered Wednesday morning in San Francisco, also about an hour early, by a similarly professional and pleasant crew. They were able to get everything through the slim doorway of my new building and not one thing was damaged or broken. Whoever said, “it will work out” was a genius! (I think it was Steve).

Three whirlwind weeks

I drove up to the Bay Area on August 20 to start the new job the next day. It's only been a little over three weeks and already I've flown back to LA for work twice. It's disorienting to go to San Francisco on the weekend (to apartment hunt), San Mateo in the evenings, San Jose for work and Los Angeles for meetings and not live in any of those places. But by next weekend, my life will start to make a little more sense. Today, even though I'm totally ill and woke up with a cold my co-workers gave me (thank you!), I'm driving to LA to meet the ex-con movers at my place on Friday. They'll deliver my things on Wednesday and by next weekend, I'll be unpacked and living in San Francisco! I'm hoping then I will then be able to blog more regularly.

Ex-cons are the only movers you can trust

I had a conversation with one of my neighbors that I'd never had a chance to talk to before. He's always sitting outside in the sun and I knew his name is Keith, he's a writer and has lots of tattoos. I didn't know that he had just gone through a divorce, lost his parents, and is from Manhattan. I got to see his apartment and it's decorated like a male version of mine. A big comfortable couch and furniture from the 30's, which matches the 1939 building. He asked me if I had arranged for movers yet and when I said I hadn't he recommended a company.

First I have to say that selecting a moving company is one of the most confusing and difficult commercial endeavors I've had to navigate. It's like the industry is still in the 1970's and run by the mob. I was at an apartments site and used a little widget to request quotes from movers. I got responses from no less than ten companies. They emailed and many called and either called or emailed me every day since. Their quotes range from $895 to $1,895 for the same move! Their contracts are confusing and bizarre and I really didn't know what to do.

To complicate matters, I don't have a place to move the stuff into yet and the longer my things are in the Santa Monica apartment, the greater the chance I'll end up paying yet another unoccupied month of rent. So I've looked into pods and storage and movers and U-Hauls and day laborers. There are a myriad of choices, all of which are difficult to decipher which combination will end up costing the least. Talking to my mom about it, she said it reminded her of Bank of America (whom she said she's heard is run by the mob). She works for the government and they have a deal with BofA to handle all of their corporate accounts. But when my mom's purse was stolen on a business trip, Bank of America was the only credit card that wouldn't take off the charges incurred by the thieves. My mom got a ding on her credit report for three years and has refused to use them (corporate or otherwise) since. I have my own horror story about BofA and wasn't looking forward to experiencing what moving companies are doing to people.

A regular Joe got mad and got even by starting MovingScam.com to educate other people, watchdog the industry and inspire people to take action. It's an excellent site and the story is fantastic. He got charged three times the initial rate, waited six weeks to get his damaged belongings, some of which were missing, and spend countless hours on the phone dealing with these thugs. Three years later the ringleader was actual convicted of extortion and money laundering. Which explains why this guy went through the trouble to find out exactly how the industry is regulated (or more accurately, not regulated.) He writes, in regards to the common practice of holding belongings hostage in order to charge up to double the "guaranteed rate": Believe it or not, a mover's "punishment" for stealing from you is to give back what he stole, and that's only if he gets caught and someone forces him to give it back which is no small undertaking in itself.

I know what it's like to be that mad. I spent three months trying to get my money back from Bank of America. The frustration of being victimized by a business legitimized by the government is incomparable. So when I started hearing horror stories about movers - they take forever, you pay more than they say, they break things, they lose things - I really wasn't sure what to do. Then, my neighbor recommended Delancey Street Moving company. He said he'd done three cross-country moves, two were horrible experiences but the one with Delancey was great. He said "you wouldn't believe the care these guys took with my things."

I looked them up online and discovered that it's a Bay Area based non-profit that helps ex-cons (and the like) learn skills, get sober and do whatever else it takes to "graduate" into society. The foundation's website says that The Delancey Street Moving Company is the largest independent moving company in Northern California. "Known for its swift and superb service, the moving company is so popular that they do virtually no advertising, relying on word of mouth." Certainly a refreshing change from the hard sell of these other companies wanting to provide me a quote and get me to sign on the dotted line.