I had a move a couple of weeks ago that I have begun to refer to (mentally) as the ” Toxic Move”. There were no hazardous chemicals involved, no parts for making bombs, no leaking batteries, mold, or fatal airborne particles (that I know of).
I think of it as the “Toxic Move” because the situation devolved from what looked like a good-sized-but-normal move into a sticky mess, all the way around. The reason it did is that there was a shortage of preparedness and cooperation on the client’s part, and an overabundance of leeway and hope on mine.
The majority of my moves go like this: Someone calls me, and I go out to look at their current space, its furnishings, and their possessions. Then I go and look at their new space and get an idea of what will fit, and where. I look at the closet space, the kitchen storage, and the size of the rooms. Then I make up a floor-plan and discuss with the client what they can and cannot take with them. I am firm about telling clients what can be moved to the new place, and they generally abide by my choices–after all, this is why they hire me. Occasionally I run into a client who insists on making their own decisions or taking things that I already know will not fit, and when that happens I have to back off and let them find their own way. In those cases, I hear a lot of “You were right…we should have listened…NOW what do we do with it?” Then we have to have the movers take the items away (at a charge, of course), or have them picked up by a charity.
The “Toxic Move” did not work like that. A couple of weeks after the two initial, in-depth sessions (one at the old place and one at the new one), I was told that the client’s house was now “practically empty” because they had gotten rid of SO much stuff. I know from long experience that peoples’ idea of the amount of ‘stuff’ that they have varies widely, and is usually grossly underestimated. But when I’m told by someone who seems to have a good logical mind that “we’ve done almost all of your work for you” and that their house is “practically empty”, I give it some credence. It was a busy week and I did not have a chance to go by their house and verify what I was told, and that is where things began to head downhill…
We arrived on packing day to find that while they HAD gotten rid of some stuff, the house was nowhere near “practically empty”. In fact, upon entering you would not notice that anything at all was missing. Since moving day was the next day, and closing on their house was two days later, we had to work with the situation at hand. My crew and I began to pack, and I said at several points along the way “where do you think we are going to put all of this?” to which my client replied “We’re just going to take it all and figure it out when we get there”. (Now I have to say that these particular clients are people who are used to doing things their way, and do not take kindly to being told what to do or how to do it. Frankly, looking back on things, I’m not sure why they hired me. They really just needed a moving company with packers who would come in and pack everything in sight, since they had no intention of sorting out as they went.)
On moving day, it took our (large) moving truck, a pickup truck, 3 SUVs, and a car to transport their belongings. Even then, the clients insisted on bringing additional items from the garage in their own car (no garage in the new apt, of course). There was too much kitchen stuff, too many clothes, too many pictures, and too much miscellaneous ‘junk’ from places like the garage. The movers worked for 12 hours straight (and I might add, did not even receive a tip), and my crew worked even longer. Although the furniture was placed, the boxes were unpacked, and things were put away in all of the cabinets and closets, at the end of the day (9 pm), the new place looked like a storage unit. There was little room to move, and certainly no room to put anything else away.
The clients were exhausted, stressed, and angry with me because I ‘allowed’ them to bring such an overload of stuff. Their view was that as the professional, I should have made sure that things did not end up the way they did. Although I could understand their point, my view was that they should have listened to me and taken my advice. When you are dealing with adults, you cannot just ‘make’ them do something–you can only strongly suggest. If they don’t listen, the end result is in their hands.
The moral of this story is this: when you are moving to a smaller space, you need to be prepared for that space. Take what will FIT, not what you HAVE. Imagine where things will be going, especially if you are moving from a place with built-ins, lots of closets, and a large kitchen. You cannot just “figure it out when you get there”, because no matter how hard you try, 2500 SF of ‘stuff’ will not fit into 1600 SF of ‘space’.
