Moving 101 – What Can Go Wrong In One Day???

The day of my move out of the Irvine house finally arrived. The sales of the house turned out to be relatively easy. The appraisal and home inspection were done while we were away. And by the time we return, the buyers basically accepted everything (consider we had only two minor items the home inspector can find wrong with). The appraisal was a bit lower than the agreed price. They were going to ask us to split the difference, but no phone, no connection, and they really like the place, they went ahead with agreed price. But I did give them the washer and the dryer as a consolation.

The actual move, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.

So between the end of the cruise and Labor Day weekend, I had basically one weekend to pack. My plan of purge while packing pretty much went out of the window. I donated a lot but still have a lot, most of them are my hobbies and home furnishing stuffs!!!

During a normal year, I would call up the charity pickup couple times a year. However, at this compression time, I did it a bit differently.

• The Chinese books + other English best sellers went to the Irvine Heritage Park Library, as they do have a decent collection of foreign language books. I know if I left them for the normal charity pickup, they probably end up in the trash.


• My Chemical Engineer textbooks, I packed them in boxes and dropped them off to Bridge to Asia. They would ship them to China. According to the website, it is difficult and expensive to obtain technical textbooks in English language. And when it comes to technical learning, you do have to learn them in English. You cannot translate business terms easily. Even though these books are old, the contents are the same (the fundamentals do not change with new edition…)


• All the nice hotel size shampoos/conditioning/soaps I collected throughout my travel, I dropped them off at a local women’s shelter, Orange County Rescue Mission. They don’t accept half used stuffs, but these are brand new travel size, they are more than happy to take them.


• Clothes, furniture, etc got picked up by United Cancer Research.

My hubby believes in fairytales, where the little people would do everything on their own and carry out magic! That is Tom’s philosophy when it comes to moving. He believes in hiring someone to do the moving, including the packing and unpacking. I on the other hand, believe in hiring someone to do the actual moving and heavy lifting. But when it comes to packing and unpacking, I need to do this myself so that I know what is where etc. In my previous moves when my employers paid for the complete services, I wasn’t unsatisfied with the work, but I felt like a tournedos went through the house and I still have to put everything back to the way I want it. So what is the point of having someone packing and unpacking for me??? Maybe it is just me, but I am picky!!!

On the day of moving, one would expect it to be hectic. It is worse than hectic.

First, the truck’s loading rack shorted out within the first 30 minutes, this means they couldn’t lower and raise the rack. The movers tried a few attempts and basically had to get a different truck. They wasted about half day with the truck exchange. No, I don’t pay for that.

Second, because of the half day lost, there is no way the movers can stop at the apartment first to drop off and pick up more stuffs before heading to the storage unit since the storage unit will be closed after 7pm on Sunday. Instead, the truck went to storage unit first. Now, with the new truck, the height clearance is a bit fuzzy, the driver wasn’t sure if he can go under the building to unload the households. I wouldn’t want to take the risk too, so they had to park a bit further. This means it took longer to unload.

Third, my hubby underestimated the amount of stuffs his wife can accumulate. The storage unit is not the right size (10’ X 15’). By that hour, there is no one at the office to even exchange for a larger size. This means everything must stack upward, so even more time is wasted during each unload from the truck to the storage unit.

Needless to say, it was no surprise the final delivery to the apartment was after 10pm. I was dead tired. Given all these trouble, maybe I should have hired the American company than a Chinese company. The difference is half of the cost. Then again, there is no guarantee that a truck from an American moving company wouldn’t break down…