should i fly back to nyc to move out during covid?

May 7, 2020 4:26 PM

my lease on my nyc apartment ends at the end of june - my boyfriend and i have been subletting since mid-january, then covid hit. our subletter has not paid rent in two months. we can't renew the lease and want to stay in california until we figure out our own career/money/future. there's still a significant amount of our things in the apartment -- a lot of the furniture i'm fine with just getting rid of, but there are some things (my boyfriend's desktop computer) that we have to mail back to california or put into storage. more details beneath!

i don't want to fly to ny and back just to sort out possessions we *mostly* don't care about -- but our subletter isn't reliable, and i don't know what else we can do at this point. should we attempt to hire a moving company to move for us and stay in california, despite the expense and the difficulty of sorting out what to keep vs give away? should we just suck it up, travel there and back for the move and hope for the best? it seems dangerous because of the risk of getting covid and bringing it back...(we're in california with my parents)...but i'm really not sure what else to do. please help, if you have ideas! =

posted by lightgray to Travel & Transportation (7 answers total)

Could you hire a moving company to put it in a storage unit in NY for you to deal with later once the COVID risk is better managed? That would allow you to get out of the apartment, keep your things, and avoid the cost/risk of a cross-country move.
posted by rube goldberg at 4:44 PM on May 7, 2020 [7 favorites]

It's likely your landlord will charge you for removal of your items if you just abandon them and don't clean out the apartment. You should find out what they will do if you don't clean out the apartment before you decide. It kind of depends how much money you want to throw at this.

Options:

1) Friends grab what you want, you let the landlord charge you for removal of everything else (potentially very expensive, but fast)
2) Friends pack everything into storage for you, or you let them direct the movers to do so, and your landlord doesn't charge you for cleaning (less cheap, but faster)
3) You fly back and deal with it yourself (bad option)
4) Your friends grab the stuff you want and move the stuff you don't want to the curb for garbage pickup, the landlord doesn't charge you (probably the cheapest but hard on your friends)
5) Your friends direct movers to put everything in a van/pod/etc. and ship it to you in CA, where you store it (expensive)

There is no donation pickup/dropoff in NYC right now, so your stuff has to be stored, moved, or tossed. I would advise putting someone you trust in charge of either the stuff you care about, or the process of the movers handling it. I would price out all these options but would probably go with 1 or 4 depending on cost and how much stuff you actually want.
posted by blnkfrnk at 4:54 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

You absolutely can hire a moving company to simply pack for you. They can put that in storage or they can ship it to you where you are.

I have had to move cross-country in a hurry and the movers that my company hired to move me were so fast and efficient that they packed a trash can full of trash before I could empty it! They packed my cigarettes and a full ashtray on the table when my back was turned. I had to then empty that trash and ashtray when it got to me in my new city, but hey... it all made it in one piece.

I'm not sure if movers are working right now but that is an option... albeit an expensive one.
posted by pazazygeek at 7:31 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

There are also a lot of MeFites here in NYC. If it's genuinely only a few items that you need to have shipped or mailed, you could probably post it on the job board here and someone could come in and take care of it (assuming you can assure safe conditions w/r/t the subletters).
posted by Mchelly at 8:37 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

I still see moving trucks on the streets here, so at least some moving companies must still be operating. Makes sense, as leases expire with disregard to existing conditions.

Having the movers pack for you will substantially increase the price, but it can certainly be done.
posted by praemunire at 9:02 AM on May 8, 2020

I'm not a lawyer, but it's also worth finding out if you even can end this lease with a sub-letter in there. Landlords can't evict people for non-payment, and so if the sub-letter doesn't leave voluntarily, I wonder if you even can surrender the apartment back to the landlord.
posted by willnot at 11:31 AM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Can confirm, I just moved out of NYC and movers are essential and still operating.
posted by blnkfrnk at 12:01 PM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]