Thursday, April 4, 2019

House Move........"The Movers"

We got a couple of quotes in for the movers and decided to go with a well known company this time, as the ones we had used before and had, had no problem with gave me a strange quote which didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.  I would live to regret that decision.

So the movers turned up half and hour late, but never mind.  I described the guys in the House Move Part 1 post, so no need to do it again.

The guy who was a millionaire kept going on and on about how well they were protecting everything etc........okay but that is your job.  However, when loading up the boxes and everything I kept saying to dh he was rough.  If you read the house move posts you'll know that they had to store our stuff overnight in their trailer in bitter cold temperatures.

When they came the next day I was relieved to see the millionaire guy wasn't with them and commented to the boss of the guys I honestly though he (millionaire guy) was colour blind as despite me writing FRAGILE in big red letters he wasn't very careful.  

One guy was eating Dorito's while they were moving stuff into the house.  There were Doritos everywhere!.  They moved everything in and then left.  We were glad to see the back of them and were able to sit down in our comfy chairs.

The next day was when we started to discover all the issues.  Despite me marking all the boxes as to what room they were to go in and telling them what room was what most things didn't end up where they were supposed to go.

The last thing from our old house into the moving van and the first thing out of the moving van at the new house was our treadmill............it was damaged, thankfully only cosmetically, no mention though from them about damaging it.  I had/have a stainless steel toaster oven, big ding in that and no mention from them about damaging it.  There are shelves up in the basement family room.  I was standing on a ladder for something down there and saw something on one of the shelves.  Went over to look at it and it was a piece of wood.  Just happened to look down and saw my wooden cd cabinet below with a broken top.  On the carpet were wood splinters from the cd cabinet.  They had broken it and "hidden" the piece of wood on the shelf and again no mention made of damaging it.  Curtain pole, bent so couldn't use that.  Broke a piece off my washing/laundry basket, hid the piece in a box; when I emptied the box I couldn't for the life of me figure out what that piece was for......until I saw my laundry basket later.

Put in a claim with the movers and got just under $170 out of them, which wasn't enough, but by this point I was done with the whole nightmare.

As I pointed out to them in the office, it was something you would expect from children hiding things they had broken, not adults who are employed with a supposedly reputable company...........as at the end of the day I was more fed up with the fact that they didn't tell us what they had damaged.  Movers have broken things before as accidents do happen but in this case they were just not being careful.

Fast forward to February I decide to hook up the treadmill and guess what no safety key.........another thing missing from the move.  Luckily when I called the treadmill company they mailed me a safety key for free as it turns out they ALWAYS go missing in a move according to a company rep.

We commented on the fact when we moved from Britain to Canada we moved all our stuff over with us and there was only one broken glass and no damage to anything else.  These guys I wouldn't recommend them to move a plant never mind a house full of furniture........

Guess it all could have been worse........not sure how though!

13 comments:

Joy said...

Sheer carelessness and negligence on their part. You did the right thing going to a reputable company but that was not good customer care, was it? All that damage!!!! Shocking.
xx

mamasmercantile said...

Such a shame. Hopefully you have now settled into your new house and are making it into a home.

Maggie said...

How awful, especially when you are careful with things yourself.
Our movers damaged my table, put a big scratch on it, they reluctantly took it away for repair but all they did was sand the top and varnish it, it came back with an orange glow! When I complained again they got abusive, when I asked for their insurance details they got even more abusive. I made me angry more than anything else but best to put it behind you I suppose.

T'Pol said...

That is truly terrible! Only USD 170? Have you shared this experience on social media? I would.

Jenn Jilks said...

So frustrating!
We've promised each other to leave this house feet first.
(ツ) from Cottage Country Ontario , ON, Canada!

Boyett-Brinkley said...

For one of our moves I secured a big name moving company thinking I wouldn't have to worry about anything that way. I can top your stellar "crew" -- mine was a very tall, thin man, his 8 month pregnant wife and their two kids ages 9 and 11. It all went ok (I was very nervous) until the very last piece of furniture -- a large entertainment cabinet - he dropped it and broke one corner of the bottom. He apologized because his kid just couldn't hold up the other end of it -- I said it was ok and bid them goodbye -- glad to see them go. We had to feed them lunch and help the wife find a bank closeby. This was not my mother comfortable moment.I am so sorry it didn't go well -- maybe no more moves for a while?

Winifred said...

Crumbs what a move. I have't moved for over thirty years & hope I won't be doing it for a little while yet!

No wonder you haven't blogged it must have been traumatic.

Anne in the kitchen said...

That is a shame. We have always moved ourselves so we have no one to blame but us when anything breaks.

William Kendall said...

If their website has a review capability, as most do, I would put up a bad review of their services.

patriciaann said...

Nice to see you back in "blog land" Gill.

Sounds as if you had the move from hell, such a shame. I think moving companies hire people that have absolutely no idea how to handle furniture, either that or they think everyone buys cheap stuff and it is easily replaced. Don't see you using this company any time soon.

Patricia

barbara woods said...

at least it's over with

Rose said...

Oh, my goodness! I would want to wring their necks...it actually sounds like none of them could read.

Jean said...

We have always done our own moving except once when we used a company who damaged our beautiful pine bed and didn't tell us. We have never had damage moving ourselves. Your removal sounds very traumatic.

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