Our Moving Saga

When you're in the middle of a move, the last thing you want to hear is that your mover is going out of business.

We officially moved into our new house two weeks ago, but the movers didn't deliver our stuff until late Saturday night. Thankfully we had bought a new bed, so we did have something to sleep on. Besides that and Edith's pack and play, we had little furniture besides a butterfly chair, an old uncomfortable rocker left behind by the previous owners and the porch furniture. We lived in an empty house for about 10 days.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. The day we found out that our closing was scheduled for Aug. 20, I called the movers to say we could accept delivery of our shipment as early as Wednesday, Aug. 21. I was told it would be delivered that Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.

When I called about the status on that Thursday, I was told that whoever told me that was wrong. A truck would be going out possibly that weekend. Our stuff would be delivered the next week.

I was upset. Paul was less so. Movers, after all, are notoriously late. He predicted this.

But we couldn't predict what happened over the next week. I called the moving company on Monday to check on the status. The woman who answered the phone asked if we received the email. What email? The one stating the company was going out of business on Sept. 1 and that our shipment would be delivered by another company.

All questions were to be answered by this new company. However, the contact details didn't inspire confidence: Two first names, no last names, a cell phone number and a Yahoo email address. And they didn't answer multiple phone messages, texts or emails. Eventually their voice mailbox wouldn't even accept new messages.

At this point, I wondered if we would ever see our stuff again.

We never did receive this email -- the company misspelled Paul's email address during the original send, and we have no idea why the subsequent attempts weren't successful. Finally, however, the new company replied to an email. There was a mistake. They didn't agree to deliver residential shipments. Call the original company.

That email came late Tuesday, Aug. 27. On Wednesday I voiced my extreme concerns to a man who appeared to head up the reservation center, based in Florida. He hadn't heard about this twist, and when we spoke several hours later, he gave me the cell phone number of the owner of the company we originally contracted with.

Of course, I called immediately. He said our shipment would be delivered Friday.

This was already a week late, so I wasn't happy. Still, Paul took the day off work, and my parents planned to come to watch Edith while we went out for our anniversary that night.

I confirmed on Thursday, and a woman in the office said our shipment should arrive about noon Friday, and the driver would call when he was an hour away. Paul and I anxiously waited, and when we still hadn't heard from the driver by 1 or 2, we got nervous. The office woman couldn't or wouldn't help, so we called the owner.

The shipment never left.

What followed was a shouting match. Why hadn't the truck left that day? (Truck broke down, supposedly.) Why weren't we told? (Never got the answer to that.) When would we get our stuff? (Sunday.)

Nope, not Sunday, we said. It would be delivered on Saturday. Make it happen.

And for good measure, I called the owner at 5:15 a.m. Saturday morning to confirm everything was on schedule. We had understood they were to get the truck at 4 a.m.,  it would be loaded and then delivered by 4 p.m.

It didn't come until 10 p.m.

To give them credit, the two deliverymen were extremely nice and very efficient. Still, they didn't leave until 12:30 a.m., and that was with Paul, my dad  and I unwrapping the blankets that protected the furniture and generally helping to move things. Mom watched an exhausted Edith, who cried and didn't fall asleep until about the time the movers left.

We were lucky my parents arrived that morning and decided to take a chance that the movers would actually come that day. We might still be unloading if they hadn't been there.

I would say stay away from this company, but it's already out of business. Lucky everyone else.