The Move – Campbell Bros Moving
February 2nd, 2010 by PotatoWell, the move is just about done. It took forever and was a huge pain in the ass. “One more move, and then we’re dying in that house.” Wayfare told me. I have to agree.
We hired professional movers for the big move to Toronto — no way was I going to try driving a big truck myself in the winter, or take 10 trips in a cargo van. To help our last move go smoothly we hired professionals as well, and we weren’t very satisfied: while they did get us fully moved in just a few hours and saved our backs a lot of agony, a lot of our stuff ended up scratched or dirty, and they didn’t bring the promised protective blankets, etc. So we tried looking around online for reviews before picking our movers for this round.
To my surprise, it was kind of hard to find any reviews at all for most moving companies. We ended up going with Campbell Bros, which were rated highly by the BBB. We were a little nervous at first since our contact at the company didn’t seem to understand email — we’d get one-line responses that didn’t address all our questions, and one of the quotes he gave us specified a delivery window of about 2 weeks when we were expecting a same-day move. However in person everyone was great — they not only brought the quilts to protect our furniture, they also had roll-out carpets to protect the floors that we worked so hard to get clean! They were done each half of the move in under two hours (it took me and 3 friends almost 3 hours to move just two rooms to my new London apartment). They were also really good at their jobs. It took them no time at all to realize Wayfare’s enormous desk wasn’t going to fit through the door to her office, and had the top off the desk and the door off the hinges in minutes, and then all back together again lickety-split. I think that alone would have taken the better part of the day if we were trying to move ourselves.
Moving the utilities went fairly smoothly this time around — Bell didn’t cut our phone service off a month early or anything. We did have some issues setting up the gas at the new house since apparently the old tenant wasn’t paying his bills, and Enbridge couldn’t figure out whether the gas was on or off (and it was somehow a different process to activate my account if it was off), so I had to have my mom physically go to the house before we moved in to see if there was a lock on the gas meter. Also, Rogers was offering a $30 credit if you set up your move yourself via their website. Their self-move website, naturally, didn’t work. Specifically, it told me that I needed at least 5 business days notice for my move, which I was trying to set up 12 calendar days ahead of time. So I had to call them, and they wouldn’t give me the $30 credit for trying to do it myself (though I’m going to call back again as soon as I have some time to sit down and breathe — blogging time doesn’t count).
With all the stress, all the packing, all the unpacking, plus getting used to a new place (and rewiring the phones, caulking the washroom, and all the other things we seem to do at every new place we move to) I can’t wait to never move again.
PS: To whoever rents the house after us: Congratulations, you’ve just won a free desk you can never take out of the office!
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:11 am
My last move was 16 years ago and I have no immediate plans to move again, but it will likely happen at some point. Just the thought of moving has had me going through all our stuff getting rid of as much as I can. Default mode seems to be to save everything.
The funny thing about getting rid of stuff is that if I do it in the abstract sitting down with my eyes closed and thinking of what I want to throw out, I never come up with the right things. I only think of things I still use. I have to dig into the back of long-unopened closets and storage spaces to find useless things I’ve long forgotten about.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I just finished moving yesterday without professional help. I really wish you could have posted this two weeks ago…
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:31 pm
10 trips with a cargo van from London to Toronto would have been insane!!