Nightmare Moving Stories

[jdub]

I've just moved into a new place. I got a sweet deal on a fine pad, but the former tenants still have crap everywhere and have yet to perform the implicit cleanup that, it seems to me, comes with moving out a house. I'm in charge of a three-bedroom flat, and the other roommates are beginning to squalk.

On the bright side, I now have cable.

I'm just wondering if anyone here can commiserate with stories of nightmare moves that make mine pale in comparison.

[Fondoo2]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

moving under a bridge because of the unfair high cost of crack did not go very well it was drafty and there were privacy issues but the dirt floor was very low maintenance!

[kimo55]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

yea that damned expensive crack. can be blamed on many of today's moving maladies.

[jdub]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

don't say crack...i'm in a fine neighborhood, but those speedfreaks have sharp ears and i live in fear of my guitars being stolen...i don't want those babies moving without my consent...

[lavagal]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

I once moved to a place that was filthy, cockroach ka-ka every where. it was gross. My last move I endured when I was eight months pregnant. But that's probably not what you're looking for.
Where's the new place, dude?
Congrats on moving on!

[pzarquon]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

I haven't moved many times, thankfully. The biggest relocation was to a neighbor island, but my "stuff" was your typical college student's haul, which isn't much. Two moves have actually been to different apartments within the same building - ground floor to fourth in Waikiki, one bedroom to two in Makiki. Those were fun moves... it was basically just "recreating" your place piece by piece (but backwards, in one case).

Last year we moved into my mom's place in Mililani. That was tough, because we were simultaneously moving a whole family's worth of stuff across town, but also moving out a lifetime's worth of furniture, books, papers, and more (packrat tendencies run in the family).

But. Well, that ain't nothing compared to moving to the Mainland. Or another country. Or, really, having four hours to pack to flee a hurricane. Compared to that, there are few real nightmares.

[cezanne]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

I've just moved into a new place. I got a sweet deal on a fine pad, but the former tenants still have crap everywhere and have yet to perform the implicit cleanup that, it seems to me, comes with moving out a house. I'm in charge of a three-bedroom flat, and the other roommates are beginning to squalk.

On the bright side, I now have cable.

I'm just wondering if anyone here can commiserate with stories of nightmare moves that make mine pale in comparison.

I don't know how desperate you are for this place but I wouldn't move in until the landlord cleans it out. That's what deposits cover... among other things. If not, maybe you can negotiate with the landlord the cost of cleaning out the place yourself... like deduct it out of this month's rent.

[jdub]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

I don't know how desperate you are for this place but I wouldn't move in until the landlord cleans it out. That's what deposits cover... among other things. If not, maybe you can negotiate with the landlord the cost of cleaning out the place yourself... like deduct it out of this month's rent.

i was desperate for a place when this one came about...i got genuinely lucky, considering the brutally money-grubbing rental market that characterizes conditions in honolulu right now...i got rid of everything but my clothes, guitars and personal effects when i moved out of my last (dream) place in downtown...

i had no other option but to literally dump everything, but i'm glad of it now...i learned on the road to travel light, and i won't have a ton of crap when the time comes to move on...

as far as the former tenants' crap goes, it turns out that the landlord has a bunch of furniture in here that i'll have to find a place to stow...he's an old japanee guy who isn't concerned with whether or not rent is on time, so i'm not gonna rock the boat...and the place is clean enough for me...if my new roommate turns out to be a clean freak, then i'll leave it to him to accommodate his own obsessive compulsions...i clean up after myself, only, with the glaring exception of looking after the inadequacies of incompetent clients...the other roommate is a successful hotel executive from alaska who is as mellow as a fine santa barbara cabernet...it'll be fine...

and btw, lavagal, you never told me of moving at 8-months into childbirth! do tell! (if only for the sake of this thread)

[SouthKona]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

I once moved into a place that was filthy from previous renters, and was given a month's free rent in exchange for cleaning it up. All was ok until time to move out, when the owners tried to charge me for some damage that the previous renters had done (cracked window, etc, things that upon moving in I had not "repaired" as I was only tasked with "cleaning").

Anyway, I'd recommend that you get the place cleaned up, and then have the owner come and do a walk through and mark down any pre-existing damage. Stains on carpets, etc. Get a copy of the report for your files. That way, when you finally leave, you won't be exposed to being responsible for someone else's previous damage.

[Palolo Joe]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

For someone who is used to being "connected" 24/7, having to endure nearly a month and a half of no cable/internet was incredibly painful.

Watched every DVD that I own, however. And I learned how to "borrow" bandwith when absolutely necessary...

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

When I was in the military I moved into a two bedroom home off base in the town of Mtn Home, Idaho. When the landlord took me to the house at night to see it I said it's so peaceful with no roads other than my 1/4-mile driveway to the main road.

I loved it and signed the 2-year lease and gave her my first month's rent and deposit right there. She left and I was happy...that is until Union Pacific came rolling down those steel tracks 40-feet behind my bedroom window and used the lights from my house as a cue to signal the road crossing a 1/4 mile away with it's airhorns.

Yeah my turntable's tonearm would jump around everytime the trains rolled by. Boy was I glad when I did my 6-month TDY to Holloman AFB in New Mexico! Never thought spending half a year in an underground bunker deep under the desert could be so nice.

[tiptoetulip]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

I'm just wondering if anyone here can commiserate with stories of nightmare moves that make mine pale in comparison.

When I lived in the Bay Area for a year and a half, I moved up to Monte Rio, which is up past Santa Rosa out towards the coast. Small, beautiful area along the Russian River.

Found out a couple of months after moving in that the former tenant used to have this dry terrarium....with all kinds of weird bugs and stuff. When he moved out, it seems he dumped all his buggy friends in the house. So besides a reeeeally bad flea problem (if you had white socks on, it'd look like they had polka dots in a matter of seconds), there were all kinds of creatures I'd come across from time to time. Found some scorpions and a tarantula. That was enough for me!

It's really a shame that people don't have more respect to leave a place in decent condition for the next tenant.

[Kilinahe]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

The moving company once lost our christmas tree (fake, naturally) and assorted other holiday-type stuff when I was a little kid. Problem was, we didn't discover they were missing until December when we went to put the tree up. Mom went to buy a new one, but it was too late. Everybody had shopped early and there wasn't one in the whole town. So we had a treeless Christmas.

Other than that, no real disasters. We moved around a lot (military dad) and it's a minor miracle that nothing else got lost.

[AbsolutChaos]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

My last move wasn't that bad since the company I work for helped out a great deal financially. The only real negative about my move is that I happened to do so right when the CA Dock strike was ending. As a result, though I moved in Oct, my car arrived in Dec. (with dead battery that required my getting a new one) and my household goods (what little there was) didn't arrive until after Jan. My stuff sat in CA for at least two weeks as they worked to clear the backlog of other people's stuff that also had to be moved.

In college, though, I recall moving in the sweltering heat into a house with no AC...that was pretty miserable...90s and muggy afternoon. In addition, the landlord, when I was moving in, discovered a recliner in an upstairs part of the house (not part of the house I would be renting) and told me that I could have it if I could move it out. As my friend was helping me move the recliner down from the third floor of the house (the stairway was narrow and had a 90 degree turn in it), the recliner popped open into a reclining position--I was stuck on one side of the recliner and my friend on the other. Meanwhile the recliner was firmly wedged in the 90 degree turn. It took a great deal of effort (I still don't know quite how we achieved it!) to get the thing back into chair position. I think that my friend injured his toe in the process when the recliner fell on his foot at one point. Talk about free furniture well earned! As typical college kids, I'm sure we proudly celebrated the final placement of the chair in the new living room with several martinis. The recliner served us well for two years, so it was well worth all the pain and sweat that it took to get it into the living room.

[MadAzza]

Re: Nightmare Moving Stories

As typical college kids, I'm sure we proudly celebrated the final placement of the chair in the new living room with several martinis.

Yeah, those college kids and their martinis!

It's amazing what we used to do for free stuff. Even really junky free stuff.

But it was free! No thrifty college student can resist the lure of the free stuff.