One move, three states
April 5, 2014 2:20 PM Subscribe
Moving from the midwest back to California via a three month stay in Massachusetts...
We've got a house full of stuff, two cars, two cats, and a dog, and we're moving. Due to career and school changes, we're going to be heading back to California, but not before spending the summer working in Massachusetts. Right now, I'm thinking about using PODS to move and store most of our belonging from June through August, but this still leaves a lot of driving with some very full cars from Minnesota to Massachusetts to California. Is there a better way? In particular, does anyone have experience with PODS vs traditional movers + storage?
Bonus: Does anyone know good movers (either just loading a truck/PODS or the whole shebang) in Minneapolis?
We've got a house full of stuff, two cars, two cats, and a dog, and we're moving. Due to career and school changes, we're going to be heading back to California, but not before spending the summer working in Massachusetts. Right now, I'm thinking about using PODS to move and store most of our belonging from June through August, but this still leaves a lot of driving with some very full cars from Minnesota to Massachusetts to California. Is there a better way? In particular, does anyone have experience with PODS vs traditional movers + storage?
Bonus: Does anyone know good movers (either just loading a truck/PODS or the whole shebang) in Minneapolis?
I tell everyone moving more than a couple hundred miles to use PODS, just because it eliminates mover scams.
But one 16x8x8 container is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than a 22 or 24-foot moving truck. You have to be brutal in your disposal, especially the more big furniture you have, because two PODS would be a ludicrous amount of money. We had to pare way down to move a 3br house (without any appliances) in one unit. (My mom or grandfather made a bunch of my furniture or I would have scorched the earth more.)
But the PODS process was seamless. We didn't store it except for incidental holding before it got on the road, so I don't know about that, but they came and got it when we asked, it took them 10 days to get it to California, we had movers (highest Yelp-rated, you can't go wrong because people are passionate about that stuff) unload it in less than an hour, and the container was gone before the end of the day.
And nobody stopped at the CA border and demanded another $1000 to finish the trip. And we could focus on getting two cars and three animals from Texas to California (the car with the animals had nothing but a backpack for luggage) without having to worry about our stuff.
That move was 3 years ago and I am at this very moment taking a break from packing for move to LA next weekend and I promise you, you have a lot of shit that should be thrown away. As much as we pared last time, I still found two never-unpacked boxes in my kitchen and two boxes of winter clothes in the garage. And why do 2 people need THREE liquor boxes of glassware?
One of the lessons I got from that last experience is to let experts load for you, no matter what you do. We're renting a truck (because PODS San Diego to LA costs half of what Dallas to SD cost) to drive ourselves but getting pros to load and unload.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:09 PM on April 5, 2014
But one 16x8x8 container is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than a 22 or 24-foot moving truck. You have to be brutal in your disposal, especially the more big furniture you have, because two PODS would be a ludicrous amount of money. We had to pare way down to move a 3br house (without any appliances) in one unit. (My mom or grandfather made a bunch of my furniture or I would have scorched the earth more.)
But the PODS process was seamless. We didn't store it except for incidental holding before it got on the road, so I don't know about that, but they came and got it when we asked, it took them 10 days to get it to California, we had movers (highest Yelp-rated, you can't go wrong because people are passionate about that stuff) unload it in less than an hour, and the container was gone before the end of the day.
And nobody stopped at the CA border and demanded another $1000 to finish the trip. And we could focus on getting two cars and three animals from Texas to California (the car with the animals had nothing but a backpack for luggage) without having to worry about our stuff.
That move was 3 years ago and I am at this very moment taking a break from packing for move to LA next weekend and I promise you, you have a lot of shit that should be thrown away. As much as we pared last time, I still found two never-unpacked boxes in my kitchen and two boxes of winter clothes in the garage. And why do 2 people need THREE liquor boxes of glassware?
One of the lessons I got from that last experience is to let experts load for you, no matter what you do. We're renting a truck (because PODS San Diego to LA costs half of what Dallas to SD cost) to drive ourselves but getting pros to load and unload.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:09 PM on April 5, 2014
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I moved from Washington state to California via Georgia. We were in Georgia about 4 months. I moved to the High Desert and my stuff was delivered to me in early July. I just could not seem to get enough rest until I finally sunned my mattresses in 115-120 degree heat outside in the blazing desert sun. Mattresses and bedding that had been in storage for months were just too dusty, musty, or something. It was making me sick without me realizing it. I thought I was "just tired" but I stopped being tired all the time after sunning the mattresses.
I am more sensitive than most people are to things like mold, bug infestations, etc but I am sure that stuff is not good for anyone. I was a military wife and I have had stuff in long term storage on other occasions. Sometimes, pulling stuff out of storage, it was visibly covered in mold and mildew and promptly went in the trash.
The more I moved, the more I just got rid of stuff before moving it.
Best of luck.
posted by Michele in California at 4:13 PM on April 5, 2014 [1 favorite]