As some here might know, the family is moving to Florida in a couple of months. There will be some furniture and many boxes. Some items are fragile and antiques as well. I’ll be doing my own research, but I was hoping that someone here might have had a good experience that they’d like to share. As well, warnings about shady companies and personal bad experiences are also welcome.
How much does it cost to sign up for Angie’s List for a month, these days?
I think the big companies, like Atlas Van Lines, work on an affiliate model, so the quality of the affiliates varies. When my company hired me and relocated me out her from Chicago, one Atlas affiliate came to pack my stuff, based in Chicago. They sent an older ex-biker dude who kept asking me bizarre questions about my odder/older possessions and a young black guy who passionately believed that 9/11 was staged. They did a great job. Nothing broke.
Then another Atlas affiliate showed up with the truck: four skinheads from Naperville, one of whom (the only one who wasn’t actively hostile to me) had an SS tattoo on his hand. They displayed wary respect to the white guy, mostly sneering resentment to me, and open mockery to the black guy. They packed the truck OK but weren’t careful. When I had to redirect them to storage while they were on the road (because the place I’d leased had fucked up my credit check) they were spitting with rage just because I called them.
Then when my place was ready an SF Atlas affiliate came to unload and unpack, except that they claimed they weren’t told they had to unpack. My company had paid a pretty penny for a full unpack, but they refused – it was clear to me that the guys had no clue, but their manager certainly did.
If they are in your area, Gentle Giant was fantastic. My relocation costs were covered by my employer, and our interstate move was about 400 miles. They packed and unpacked, and not a thing was broken. They were all very nice guys, and none of the shenanigans you read about with some other moving companies. Very highly recommended.
Probably not in your area, but awesome nonetheless are Philadelphia’s Mambo Movers , who are mostly local musicians who are moving in lieu of a day job. They moved us from Philadelphia to Boston, and did a wonderful job (we packed and unpacked in that move). On the day of the move, we had several heavily tatooed gentlemen show up, and they were super nice and did a great job. They didn’t make fun of us for having a home made DDR mat. My wife told them it was an art project, and they pretended to believe her. Completely charming.
I recently moved with Two Men and a Truck (http://www.twomenandatruck.com/home). It was a tad expensive (for my budget, not necessarily compared to other moving services), but the movers were polite, friendly, professional, fast, and careful. I had paid for packing and the actual move. They hadn’t anticipated quite as much stuff as I actually had, but they were on time on the way in and completed the whole move in maybe six hours (though of course that was same metro area). I was very pleasantly impressed and I would certainly use them again if I need to move in future, though I sincerely hope that won’t be necessary anytime soon.
An old friend owns Perez Moving here in Palm Beach County and I believe one of his regular routes is between NY and Florida.They moved my office few years back and did fine.
+1 on Gentle Giant, I won’t use anyone else after having been screwed over to various degrees by the ‘major’ carriers in the past. I’ve used GG for packing, unpacking, intra-city (Seattle) moves, and for long distance moves where they handled the pack/unpack but UPACK/ABF handled the actual shipment.
The only problem with GG is that they’re fairly hard to find, I think they’re in Seattle, Charlotte, Boston, and a couple other places, and that’s it.
According to my recent search they are indeed in NY. So I’m leaning towards GG.
I was looking at some mover info the other day and came across a company called U-Pack that seems to have a good rep. Basically, they put your stuff in a freight truck that is running a normal route, and that means they save you some money (in theory). And despite the name they do offer packing and load/unload.
I used UPack + GG. UPack is a really good deal, you can either do the containers (like PODS) or you can do a front-of-trailer arrangement where they work with a national freight hauler (ABF I think). We used them when moving from Seattle to Charlotte.
You purchase a minimum of 7 linear feet at the front of the trailer. When done you put up a bulkhead (provided), and then they load commercial freight behind you, so you’re first one on and last one off (so they can leave the trailer at your destination until you call them for a pickup).
The only downside I saw was that despite everything being packed well, a lot of stuff got to beat to hell, presumably from road conditions. Just all kinds of shit shook loose, like they were racing over speed bumps all 2500 miles.
Anyway, so we used both UPack and GG, and that was a really economical combination. GG just charges you for the crew if you need pack/unpack, and the rate depends on region ($100-150/hour for 2-3 guys). The guys at GG are very different than most moving companies, because they have centralized training. The GG movers are very often career guys instead of just some random out of work guys or college students that need to make some money.
I don’t think I’d do anything else at this point, I’ve had some really, really poor luck with other companies. It’s also frustrating when they do load/unload but don’t give you time or get pissed off when you insist on checking each item as it comes off. You’re supposed to sign off that everything is in good condition, and if you do then you don’t have any recourse later (they’ll claim otherwise), but if you don’t sign off until you’ve inspected you’ll get a LOT of push back from the driver.
Hi, folks. I’ll be doing an out-of-state move from Chicago at the end of November or (gulp) December. Any additional recommendations for Chicago movers, either local companies or affiliates of the big franchises (Allied, North American, Atlas, etc.)?
After recently dealing with a moving company in LA I really feel sorry for anyone who has to pick a company blind. The internet was useless as I am sure the company I dealt with was either a Jeykl and Hyde company or they wrote their own reviews to balance the truthful ones.
Beautiful web site, on-line quotes available…but shitty service.
Angie’s List.
I didn’t know you were moving to FL. Where to? I did the Brooklyn > Manhattan > FL move 10 years ago. It does get easier when you realize this is actually the 6th boro. We’re moving to our second house down here in a month.
As for movers Suddath has always been reliable.
Rich has already moved Jag.
FYI I ended up using Graebel. Total professionals. I’d recommend them to anyone.
I moved to Avalon Park in Orlando, Jag. Nice place. A few eccentricities, but over all I like it.
I used 2 Guys & a Truck when moving to NC. They were extremely efficient, very brusque, and didn’t damage anything. One dude totally one-armed a freaking Queen mattress onto his back and hoofed it up two flights of stairs in 20 seconds flat.
It was cheap and they didn’t take any particular care of my stuff, but then again, the only things I really cared about (computer, nicer cooking equipment, vidjya games), I moved myself the night before.
Is this post suddenly at the top of everyone else’s EE forum as well? Anyone know why that might be?
Wow, yeah. What a blast from the past.
There was a spam post, since deleted, offering Rich help with all his moving needs.
A missed opportunity. Maybe he could have shipped himself a 2017 Tesla and wowed all his new 2012 neighbors.