Moving to Maine Part 2

July 12, 2014 8:31 PM

So we rented the house and have a moving date and now we're looking for recommendations for movers that can get us from far Northern NY to Portland, Maine. I think we'll be better off with movers from Maine coming to get us as where we are currently movers are few and far between. Any recommendations for movers that provide such a service? Thanks!
posted by merocet to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Just call an Interstate moving company. Graebel, Mayflower and Bekins have all been good with my moves. Have each give you an estimate. Interstate moves are governed by tariffs and the estimates should be pretty close together.

Don't bother calling people to come from Maine, that's not how moving works. The trucks are moved around, with multiple loads, to maximize efficiency. So along with your load from NY to Maine, a truck may come up from NYC with a load destined for Boston. So call your local Franchise and work it out from there.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:20 AM on July 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Agreed - interstate movers are the way to go here. Moved from Massachusetts to Tennessee last year in peak moving season. Got quotes from a number of different companies - all were well within the same ballpark. Ended up going with Wheaton, just because a relative had a really good experience with them on a similar move, and because their Angie's List reviews seemed decent. Like most interstate movers, they take your stuff, shove it in a warehouse for a bit, and then when they have enough other customers moving to the same general area that they can fill a truck, they'll put your stuff in with theirs and make multiple stops to unload stuff along the way. I was QUITE leery of such practices, and I figured between all the loading, unloading and combining of boxes in the truck with other customers, there would be breakage and mix-ups aplenty. Not so. We got all of our stuff and no one else's, and though many of our boxes looked like they'd seen better days, we had only one broken glass bowl which was a gift from someone we didn't really like anyway. Worked out great.

Oh, also... word to the wise. Good packing skills are key. Plenty of good spots to research this online, but you should just assume your boxes will be undergo the equivalent of being thrown off a tall building, and cushion/wrap fragile items accordingly. You won't regret it.
posted by Rewind at 7:39 AM on July 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

An alternative is any of the various you load they drive services like ABF or Pods. Uhaul has / had a thing where you can hire local movers on each end to load and unload.

If you're using straight up movers, read up on the various scams.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:16 AM on July 13, 2014

I don't have any experience with those particular areas, but I always recommend checking the website movingscam.com, which has a list of endorsed movers. Also, they have message boards where you can check for your area or Maine to see if anyone else has done a similar route. It looks like one of their recommended movers (Corrigan Moving Systems) has offices in Rochester, so that might be close to you.
posted by bluecore at 9:27 AM on July 13, 2014

If you decide to get packed up by one company, drive yourself, and get unpacked by another, I recommend Local Muscle in Portland. They are really nice and extremely efficient.
posted by bile and syntax at 9:29 AM on July 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks all. We followed up on the recommendations here and then were lucky enough to get one from a friend about a company he'd used in Vermont that can do the whole thing as a single move with none of this truck sharing, waiting for our stuff to get there via Boston stuff. Also about a grand cheaper! Yay! Thanks as ever for input.
posted by merocet at 5:38 PM on July 14, 2014