1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Here's a mover you don't want to hire

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by JR, Aug 15, 2008.

  1. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    Talk about buyer beware.

    Guy made a lot of mistakes, like not getting anything in writing but still, this is a moving story from hell:

    http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/478955

    At $65 an hour, the Scarborough-based company offered to move him from his old apartment on Lakeshore Rd. E. in Port Credit to his new one 200 metres away for less than $500. But Brown says that, after the movers had put all his belongings into a truck marked Desi Movers Inc., they threatened to throw it all into a storage locker if he didn't pay $1,497.50 more in "extra fees," such as charges for stairs and heavy items

    OK, now I shouldn't have but this made me laugh:

    A Peel police officer Brown summoned decided not to intervene because the mover's contract stated – in small print – that excess charges may apply.

    "I thought the presence of the police might encourage them to get on with the show, but instead they charged me extra for the time spent talking to the police," Brown now says. "I was completely rooked."


    Can anyone beat this? Wow.
     
  2. luckyducky

    luckyducky Guest

    Yet another reason why it makes sense to just buck up and move things yourself.
     
  3. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    How about Mayflower? /city of Baltimore
     
  4. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    That's fine unless you've got a four bedroom house, three kids and fifteen years worth of stuff to move.
     
  5. luckyducky

    luckyducky Guest

    Pare down some of the stuff, enlist the kids that are old enough to either help move or watch the younger kids and bribe family and/or former and new coworkers with pizza and beer.

    I know families with three and four kids who have had no problems moving without the help of a professional mover, but they made sure they were organized, made sure everything they put in the truck meant enough to them to take the time to move and bribed a little help along the way.
     
  6. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    Nope.

    I stopped helping friends move when I was about 35. It's one of those things you stop doing when you become an adult.

    Sorry, but if you're old enough to raise a family and buy a house, you should be able to afford a professional mover.

    And I'm sure it's fun to throw stuff into the back of a pick-up truck and do fifteen runs across town but it's a little tough it you're moving from say, Vancouver to Toronto.

    And I don't want "friends" or "co-workers" who have been bribed with beer and pizza handling my antique furniture.
     
  7. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    I'm with ducky.

    If you've got so much shit you've got to pay someone to move your shit, you've simply got too much shit.
     
  8. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    Yeah, when you're 25 and single, you tend not to have too much stuff.

    If you've been married for say, 20, years and have three kids, you tend to have more stuff. It's the nature of the beast.

    And I'm not sure what "too much stuff" is.

    When you're 25, you may have a sofa and two chairs in your living room

    If you live in a house, you may have a sofa, a loveseat and two armchairs in the living room, a sofa and two armchairs in the family room, not to mention a pull out sofa bed which weighs 400 lbs.in the guest bedroom

    Is that too much stuff?
     
  9. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Too much stuff is more stuff than you and the people who live with you can move by yourselves. ;)

    I have a natural tendency to be a pack rat. And I hate moving. But I have come to the conclusion that moving yourself forces you to make editing decisions. What's important enough to go in the truck? If you have to haul every last box of crap yourself, you have a much clearer idea of what to keep because it's actually useful or has legitimate sentimental value, and what's flotsam and jetsam.

    That pull-out sofa? Gone.
     
  10. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    JR - It's all good and well to say once you become an adult you should hire a company, but a lot of us can't afford a company.

    When I moved from Idaho to Texas, the ex-wife and I looked into professional movers but they all started at $2,000 and rose from there.

    We did the move ourselves, complete with driving a truck and towing a car on a short 2,000-mile journey for about $1,100. That's big savings in this business.
     
  11. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    Not if you paid three grand for it, it isn't

    When I was in my late 20's I moved myself from a house in one city to an apartment (third floor walk-up) on a Saturday morning then helped move a friend from his second floor flat to another second floor flat in a different city.

    We were finished by 3:00 Saturday afternoon.
     
  12. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    If you paid three grand for a pull-out sofa, you've got bigger problems than moving. :D
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page