Monday, June 9th, 2008 12:01 am by
jdmacor 
So I have finally made it! I am in Dallas, Texas! And I am living in an amazing million dollar home! The only problem? It belongs to my girlfriend’s mother… So I haven’t quite made it yet. But I have started looking for apartments and a job.
The Moving Part
This move was relatively stress free for me. Basically, my brother is still living in Boston, where I started out, so I didn’t have to be super careful when combing over for my stuff. In fact, I left a good amount of my crap back in Boston; sure some of it was important stuff, like my knee brace and printer… But it will all make it here eventually.
Now to actually move the boxes, we chose to ship everything with DHL. We weren’t bringing any furniture, so we just shipped boxes. For about 15 boxes, it ended up costing around $300, which is a great price in my book. Unfortunately the service matched the price. The first shipment of 3 of the boxes was fine. The man rang the doorbell and brought them in for me. But the second shipment with the rest of the boxes was a little… let’s say, below par. Have a look for yourself:
As you can see, several boxes were badly damaged. I may have lost some items, but am not sure yet. The real kicker here, is that I think the driver wanted to avoid my wrath! Several of us were home all day, but the doorbell never rang. We later discovered the boxes behind the house in front of the garage. There was no notice, no email notification, no courtesy phone call; just a pile of heavily damaged boxes in the back. If you can, I would avoid using DHL, unless you can find awesome, indestructable boxes (I used standard, USPS approved shipping boxes).
So now I am here. Living with my girlfriends mom… but I see it as a leaping pad, more than a hole. I have given myself a dealine of 3 months. By then, I should have saved up enough money to start renting my own apartment and really get on my feet. Hopefully it will work out! Anyhow, here are some things I learned during this move as well as other resources:
6 Tips For Moving
- Make an inventory list of your items in boxes (in case they break or get lost)
- Consider using a container service, where the container is left at your house, you pack it, then the company picks it up and drives it (see UPack below)
- For extremely delicate items, consider UPS’s packing service; they guarantee the safe shipment of your items.
- Buy 3 more rolls of tape and 5 more boxes than you think you need. Chances are, you will need even more than that.
- Use your luggage. Several of my boxes were actually pieces of luggage and they came here fine; they are already designed to take a beating.
- Pack well ahead of time. I didn’t. I chose not to sleep the night before… This is not the best idea, nor the first time that I did that for a move.
Moving Resources
Do you have any moving tips of your own?
41 Responses to “ The Big Move: Version .5 Beta ”
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Great post. Brings back memories of my nomadic life when we had to move house quite a few times.
Please take offense but, I think that you should take up the matter with DHL. It has been my experience that they are very much pro customer and I am sure will be very helpful.
It would further be helpful for your readers to find out how exactly they respond.
I’ve never had anything but bad experiences with DHL domestically. They are fantastic at international deliveries, but dreadful at domestic deliveries. They purchased Airborne Express many years back and it still shows.
I am quite surprised at these two experiences as mine has been quite good both locally and internationally. However, it will be nice to know what if any action they take after David takes it up with them.
you have some nice moving tips! Sorry you had to go through the terrible dhl experience.
yeh, i move a lot because of temporary job placements.
i will keep this in mind
Good article!
Million dollar home? I wouldn’t mind living there, even if it wasn’t mine
Thank yo for sharing these tips!
@ Saratoga - my thoughts exactly
PS How can I get that little cloud before the comment link on the blog?
>>Steve
Use plugin, if you blog on wordpress see wordpress.org.
That was quite an entertaining introduction. It still is effective when a writer switches it up like that by pointing out one possibility and then negating it soon after in their article.
Thanks for this usefull tips
Tips are very usefull in your work for my type of people.
Wow, living in a million dollar home. That’s pretty cool
Useful post. Thanks. Did not forget insurance?
It is really a nice move.
It is great.
Thanks for links to moving resources, useful.
I hope you’re into your own place now … it’s never comfortable to have to share space like that.
Happy New Year.
living in an amazing million dollar home, wow, just in my dream. Even that is not my home, for a while I will enjoy it
Good tips and better resources. Thanks.
Super article, thank you for thinking to do this. For my part, I use TNT, you know?
That’s surprising. I haven’t had any problems with DHL before. Did you have your stuff insured?
Anyway, thanks for the info. I might just need it (well, someday).
Wow, living in a million dollar home. That’s pretty cool
Wow, living in a million dollar home. That’s pretty cool
Thanks for links to moving resources, useful.
Well I never used DHL service specifically for moving to another place, but I am using it for almost every shipping I need to made..
Probably you are one of a million who that happened, but it is still a good firm..
Super article, thank you
I use them constantly for sending contracts and think they are good
actually i don’t move much but thanks for the tips about moving from home , i think i will use it in traveling .
I had to move house several times and I hate him. Nor because we all have worn habit of accumulating objects that never used…
take to your house too!please
thanks for the sharing. I think this is one choice for me too
yeh, i move a lot because of temporary job placements.
It’s indeed very fine tips. This blog has strong contents. Thanks for posting.
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I also spoke to my site french.
Wow, living in a million dollar home. That’s pretty cool and amazing i just can dream about.
Thanks for the great advice …. and for the links, too.
Damn, I’ve learned most of those tips the hard way - good post, thanks.
Whoever it belongs to… the important thing is that you are living there
Nice, very nice a million dollar home in Dallas. Wow though, for moving to a million dollar home you should have picked a better service lol. Those boxes look like they went through hell and back. Those sneaky delivery men …. Even they are well aware of the horrible service they provided.