I’ve never been one for moving. During my entire life I’ve only lived in five different places (I’m not counting a different room each year in college). My parents still live in the house where I was born, I went to college, spend a year in Germany, and then went to graduate school in Boston. During grad school I was in Cambridge for 8 months before my landlady decided that she wanted to remodel and found out my two roommates and I couldn’t live there while she was doing it. So, we were evicted. After that I moved to my place in Brighton and stayed there for 8 years.
Back in March 2006 I had to decided whether to renew my lease. My roommate Matt was leaving for a PhD program at U Penn and I expected to be done by that point, so we gave the place up. Little did I know at the time that my defense committee would pull a 180 and I’d have more writing and editing to do on my dissertation. Good thing my sister let me housesit and crash at her place until I can get my sorry ass out to my new job at PNNL.
Moving date was July 30th. I had the truck from 9 am until 3 pm and got two friends to help me with the bulk of the moving heavy stuff. I spent the week before editing my dissertation and packing during breaks. Most of the packing was finished up on Saturday, but I still had some shit to take care of on Sunday. As I was finishing up Saturday evening and took a little break at a friend’s place I had the feeling that the following day would be crap. I also only got my friend Mario to help, figured that with another person we’d all just be in each others way.
What follows is a long description of a day that ended up being something in between a reality TV program and an episode of the Three Stooges. I can summarize it by some things that I learned.
- Always fold in the mirrors
- Your worst concerns will come true
- Always rent for the whole day
- Purge before you pack or try not to accumulate crap to fill your space.
- Driving faster does not mean you will get to your destination more quickly. Especially if the vehical has tricky accelerator
- Take care of business in person if possible
- Insurance eventually pays for itself
- Brighton isn’t bad to live in, but it sucks to move out of
So Sunday comes. I call Mario Saturday evening and we arrange to meet by work and walk over to UHaul. I wanted him to be there so that he could get authorization to drive the truck. The plan was to move out, he’d drive the truck back to Boston, and I’d follow in my sister’s car. Mario is not a morning person by any means. 8:45 rolls around and he’s not at the aggreeded meeting spot. So I leave a voice mail telling him that I’m just going to go pick up the truck. I get there and there are at least 20 people in front of me. Call from Mario, “I’m on my way.” About an hour later I’m at the counter getting all of the paperwork taken care of. It ends up that Mario didn’t have to be there and that an licences driver can drive the truck. It didn’t matter, Mar showed up just as I was signing the papers. So it’s 10 by this point and I ask if I could get another hour on the rental “Sorry, sir. Somebody needs it after you at 3 pm.” Great we’re down an hour all ready. Let’s just get the truck and get this shit done with. Lesson: always rent the truck for the whole day.
Mario and I were chatting along the way. I didn’t have any worries about us getting along during the day since we’re both fairly laid back and have been friends a for a few years now. He viewed the day as a chance to spend time together without any interruptions, something we don’t get to do very often. The truck was a 14 footer and I had never driven anything that large. Mario had and his advise was very helpful. Still, I was apprehensive about what was ahead of us.
Parking in my section of Brighton is always a bitch. Most building are multiple occupancy (even if they weren’t originally build to be so) and most everybody has a roommate because Boston housing is just way to expensive for what most people can afford. Most of the parking is restricted to residents, which really doesn’t matter since the city always sells more stickers than there are parking spots. My street was open parking, but you just have the same problem because all of the students who have out-of-state plates can’t get a resident sticker and end up parking there. So on that Sunday we don’t have a place to park.
There’s a small access road behind my old building. I wasn’t confident that I could get a 14′ truck back there, but Mario and I were going to try. When we got to the road our path was blocked on many sides. First off, somebody had parked right new to the driveway and was pulled back near the sidewalk enough that we couldn’t get in. On either side of the driveway people had parked in what was supposed to be a no parking area, narrowing the entry way. To make matters worse, the driveway is accessed from a carriage lane and a median separates it from the main road. Normally this would not be a problem since you could just back the truck up over the median, but there was a light standard just were the truck needed to go. So, the only way to get in was to wait for a spot to open up or have somebody move the truck that was parked next to the driveway.
I pull out and try to double park, but somebody wanted to get around me. She could have gone out on to the main road, but she though she wanted to make a right turn at the light (you can only make a turn from the carriage lane). So I had to pull out and go around the block. It ended up that she wanted to go straight anyway. Annoying.
Mario and I find a place to park at least until we can get the other truck moved. While we’re parking a guy comes up and asks if we were trying to get behind the building. He was the driver of the truck that was parked next to the driveway. Finally some luck.
We have to go around the block again. By the time we got back to the driveway the guy had moved his truck and given use as much room as possible. There were still cars parked in the no parking areas on either side of the entrance. I finally got the truck turned around with much direction from Mario. With new confidence in my driving abilities I head down the driveway. SCRAPE!! The passenger side mirror hit the retaining wall. I over compensate to the left and bang the driver side mirror. Right away I am worried about the passenger mirror, but when I park the truck and get out I see that the real damage is on the driver side. The mirror connectors were the old pipe style, anchored to the door at three points. Let’s just say that the top support bar was bent up at a 45 degree angle and rubbed against the overhang above the cab (”Mom’s attic”) when the door was closed. I’d find out later that the door frame was bent and the window was stuck. Here I learned two other lessons, always fold in the mirrors and pushing harder doesn’t always work.
By this time it’s about 11 am and Mario and I are realizing that we might not have enough time to move everything. Looking around my apartment, with most of the stuff packed into boxes in two corners of the living room I realize that I have a lot more crap then I thought. We start moving the big stuff out and disassemble a wall unit that I got from by brother-in-law. Takes forever, things are going really slowly. We start discussing a cut off time, a point of no return when we will not be able to get the truck back in time. Pretty soon we get to the boxes and things move along a bit faster, still it is clear that some stuff will need to be left behind and that I will need to move some things on Monday. Finally, we draw the line and start packing the final items into the truck.
Now the other part that I was dreading, getting the truck out. I was not going to be able to back the thing out and turning it around was not going to be easy. The only place to turn around is to drive into a courtyard of an adjacent building back into the ally. In a car or van this is usually not a problem, but a 14′ truck is a different story. I pull in as far as I can and can’t see squat behind me, vocal directions from Mario is all I have. It took us about 15 minutes, but after moving inches, back and forth, I manage to get turned around and head out the driveway.
Now I’m thinking we are home free. I have experience with the narrow entrance and we remembered to fold in the mirrors, well the one mirror that is still functional, the passenger side mirror. I take it slow this time. Coming around the corner we see another truck parked in the driveway. The one parked next to the entrance was still loading. I continue down the driveway… SCRATCH!!! Shit, the other mirror scraped and I’m stuck, the back of the truck was also caught and the driver side mirror is wedged. By this time the people loading the truck see/hear us and start to prepare to move their truck, before we have to ask. But, I’m stuck. We call over to a fellow mover and ask him to push in the driver side mirror (remember that the window is stuck in the up position). He has to climb up onto the truck to reach it. Mario and I can’t see anything behind us, so the other move has to direct me to get our truck unstuck. We only had only inches of clearence. Finally we get unstuck and out on to the main road. If there hadn’t been other people around Mario and I would have been stuck in the truck and might have damaged the vehicle even more trying to get out.
Now we had another problem, other then the fact that we are running late, we had no functional mirrors and I couldn’t roll the window down to look around the corner. I figured out that I could lean way back and kind of see part of the road, as for the passenger side mirror we’d have to pull over to adjust it. As we drove it shook out of place and Mario had to hold the mirror when ever I needed to see on that side. I picked a route where I can stay in the right lane and could to make the fewest left turns. At one light a biker pointed out that out that our mirrors were illegal. He was a commercial truck driver and noted that “cops with pull you over in a heartbeat” for that. Mario and I thanked him and drove on our way. Luckily, the drive was uneventful, but it never took so long to get to my sister’s place.
By the time we got to our destination it was 2:30 and there is no way that we were going to have the truck back by 3 pm. So I called UHaul: “We’re running late and I can’t have the truck back by 3″, “You need to have it back by 3″, “Well, that’s not going to happen, we’re just starting to unload it now”, “You need to have it back by 3, another customer needs it after you.” “I don’t think it matters, I had an accident and the mirrors are damages, I don’t think the truck is street legal” “That’s okay, we have spares and can put new mirrors on in 30 minutes” “The driver’s side door is bent and the window is stuck.” “Oh!” “What are my options?” “If you bring it back late, you’ll be charged a late fee and another days rental.” “What’s the late fee?” “$30 an hour, up to the discretion of the manager” “What if I get it back by 5 pm” “Doesn’t matter, we close at 4:30. You might as well bring back back in the morning.” “And I can still be charged the per hour penalty if I return the vehicle this evening? “That’s up to the manager sir.” “Where can I park the truck?” “Just park it on the street somewhere.” “Okay, what’s the best way to settle this.” “Call us in the morning” “What time to you open,” “7 am.” “Can I just come down and take care of this in person?” “Yes.” “Okay, I see you in the morning and we’ll take care of this.” “Okay.”
With that taken care of Mario and I have some water and start to unpack. First I have to move my sister’s car out of the garage so we can move stuff into the basement more easily. I get the keys, put them in the ignition, turn, nothing. Try again, nothing. Try the other key, nothing. I think it’s a security system issue and read up on it in the manual. I was following the right procedure and all of the lights were blinking like they should. After about 5 minutes I realize that my sister’s car is a manual transmission and that I have to have the clutch in to start the car. I hadn’t driven a stick shift car since mine died back in November. With the car out of the garage Mario and I quickly unload the truck.
For the return trip my plan was to drive my sister’s car into town and have Mario drive the truck. With the mirrors as they were I didn’t think one person could drive the truck safely. I rented a ZipCar instead, I need to clean out my apartment and move some more stuff the next day anyway. The ride back was uneventful, just pleasant conversation between friends that just went through a lot of silly shit together, comrades if you will. Mario needed some beer, so we stop. Getting to the UHaul place, we finally have some luck and find a parking space, the last one on the block. Walking away I remember that we forgot to refill the gas tank. The key was already in the drop box, so there was nothing to be done. Besides, we’d lose our parking spot. I run the total cost of the rental in my head with the expected rental, late fees, extra day’s charge, and refueling fees and figured that I could owe upwards of $200. At this point I didn’t care and was just going to deal with it in the morning. Mario went back to his place to shower and change (we were sweating our balls off the whole day). I went to get the ZipCar and picked him up later. Finally we got to share a well deserved dinner together at the East Coast Grill in Inman Square, Cambridge. I slept at my sister’s place that evening, but my moving was not done.
The next morning I’m at the UHaul place at 7 am, bright and early, prepared to have my ass handed to me and my wallet emptied. There are two guys in front of me, but I get to talk to the guy behind the counter. Ends up he was the manager. I explain everything look over and sign the paper work. No hassles, no late fees, no refueling charges, no arguments, final bill: $81. Getting the insurance saved my ass. $15 well spent. Lessons: Always get the insurance, solve your issues face to face, be polite and nod.
With the transaction done I smiled, bid the manager a good day and got ready for a day of moving and cleaning. I’ll save you the details and just say that Monday was better than Sunday, but it was still shit. I hate moving and have another one to look forward to in a few months when I move out to Washington State. I hope I can afford professional movers in the future. I’m done with this shit.
