Moves-from-hell

site a 2006-2007

Moves-from-hell

MOVES FROM HELL

There are times ...and you will know of them if you have a few years of life under your belt, when if it can happen..it will happen! The bottom drops of the bag at the supermarket just as your youngest pulls the bottom can out of the stack on display, meanwhile your mobile rings and in your haste to answer you lose concentration and walk into a little old lady, who falls and ...you know the sort of day. The specifics vary but the outcome is always the same...unrelenting chaos and a feeling that someone, somewhere, has got it in for you.

If you are unlucky enough to have a day like when you are moving then you are possibly having a “Move From Hell Day”. Here are a few things that have happened on moves we have carried out over the last 16 years or so....I’ve sort of put them altogether into one MEGAMOVE FROM HELL. Fortunately we have never had a day quite this bad!

Lets Start from the beginning. Our removals staff meet at the yard at Prenton at 8.30am, have a chin wag, get their job sheets, check vehicles inside and out, make sure they have full removal kit on and set of..merrily...whistling... unless its a ‘A Removals Day From Hell’.

On a ‘A Removals Day From Hell’ the key goes in the ignition and there’s a..a nothing. Flat as a pancake! And its 30 minutes later that the helpful on site mechanic has gone off muttering about “must have left lights on..again...” He plods back, miserably , wet and cold because it is on course, a very wet and cold morning on ‘A Removals Day From Hell’!

So our undaunted, cheery removals porters set off to the job. They phone the customer to let them know they are running 15 minutes late...but all phone numbers (we all seem to have 2 or 3 these days) are either are dead, busy or just ring and ring. Not to worry, a few minutes delay won’t make a difference..they will soon catch up. 10 minutes later they are at the door...the doorbell is pressed, did it work? try a cheery, rat-tat-tat on the knocker as well, one with a bit of energy in it. There’s eventually signs of life as a dressing gown clad, obviously miffed figure opens the door and glares. Mr Smith, we ask! This is 36 Albion Place? It is but I am not and never have been Mr Smith. So you don’t want moving today?

A phone call to the office, usually such a bastion of efficiency, reveals a typo and Mr and Mrs Smith are found at 63 Albion Place..a tad frazzled as they have been phoning the office fearing we have forgotten them but, because it is busy on the phone in the morning, just getting the answer phone. The Smiths are a little stressed! Don’t you just hate ‘A Removals Day From Hell’.

With voices of experience our removals staff, to a man, spout calming words of age old removals mans wisdom to settle the slightly troubled waters and set to. There’s a debate about whether the wagon will get in the driveway. The client is happy for the lads to try..but the road is narrow and getting into position might be hard. It would be nice, because there’s an almost 40 hard walk from the front door to the road if we don’t. But they do, and there’s not a scratch put on the lorry side..Eureka..but wait..why is the vehicle leaning to the right. The drain cover has collapsed under the weight and the tyre has wedged. Luckily there’s some traction on the leading edge and with 2 porters pushing the pantechnicons wheel spins out onto the flat. Our cheery removals men look wryly at each other. A suspicion is crossing there minds. They hope to a man they are wrong...but 3 mishaps in half an hour leads them to the possibility they are having ‘A Removals Day From Hell’. Their joint removals mans blood runs cold!!

But action is the only way forward. The newest Removals Porter, called Peter, is dispatched to tape down the carpet cover in the hall. As he has only been a removal man for 2 months he always goes with a 3 man team ...the two experienced removal men guide him. That’s the theory, anyway. Confidently claiming to know what to do the old hands leave him be as he trudges a trail of muddy foot prints across the clients hall carpet. “Not my carpets, anymore” says Mrs Smith. “Just let them dry and they will brush off”. Thank God for an understanding Customer. Wise to his mistake Peter takes off and cleans his dirty boots and tries to tape down the carpet..but the tape he was given just lets 2 inches of tape free and then splits off. Frustrated he just tapes the corners of the carpet protector. Now that is never a good idea but on a potential ‘Removals Day From Hell’. it’s guaranteed to bear unwanted results. And it only takes 2 minutes before Removals porter Steve catches his foot under the wayward carpet protector and , but for an almost magical hop and skip, would have dived headfirst through the right hand pane of the double entry doors on the lounge. Thank God for small ( well, actually pretty big) mercies.

Steve, a little shocked, a little proud of his dexterously maintained uprightness then sees the lounge...and wishes he had flown through the window. Mr and Mrs Smith efforts at packing their ornamental items leave a lot to be desired. As removals packs goes they would score just 1 out of 10 for the lounge...and Steve quickly finds it’s the same around the rest of the house. A 1 out of 10 has pretty well confirmed it is ‘A Removals Day From Hell’.

”The kids unpacked boxes as quick as I could pack them!!” Explains Mrs Smith. And there’s worse.The clients have used many of their own boxes rather than those we supplied..there are lots of small, weak boxes full of light items and our bigger general purpose boxes used for books...arghhhh!!

But undeterred our trusty Removals Porters get to work with gusto. But it’s not easy...cos if it truly is a ‘A Removals Day From Hell’ , if it can happen ...it does!

From little irritations such as the coat hangers being all higgledypiggledy, some hung front wise, the others reversed...sounds silly but it means that our removals porters must select each individual hanger to hang it on the bar in our Hanging Wardrobes rather than grab a handful at a time.

But as Andy was quietly moaning to himself as he filled another Hanging Wardrobe he heard a monstrous exhortation from Steve and Peter as it dawns on them that the stairway access is very tight. So tight that it looks like the 3 standard double wardrobes will ALL have to be dismantled. They only need another half inch and each wardrobe would go down..but apparently the ceiling was badly cracked and replastered just a few months earlier..the wardrobes came up in one piece. Wiping a tear from there four eyes, the two removal porters decide to check windows, hoping that they will be large enough to allow the wardrobes to go out that way..and guess what...not a chance. The only likely candidate has been painted over and simply won’t budge a millimetre!! Hey, it’s definitely ‘A Removals Day From Hell’.! It’s Peters job to dismantle each wardrobe and keep all the pieces safe whilst Andy and Steve crack on trying to load the lorry.

“Try “being the operative word. After fruitlessly attempting to get the sofa out of the porch that covers the front door, it transpires that the sofa came in after the front room window was removed.

Mr Smith had forgotten about...an emergency call to the local glazers would hopefully get someone over to help without delaying the move further. Can Pigs fly?? Hey, it’s ‘A Removals Day From Hell’!!

Undeterred, Steve sets to loading the myriad of minute boxes whilst Andy tries to take down a corner wall mounted unit that we agreed to take down. But the screws have rusted into the wall and remove large gapping plugs of plaster when removed. But at least the wall remained standing and Andy actually managed to get a piece of furniture into the wagon.

And so the Smiths removal continued throughout the morning. If it could happen it did.....virtually every castor drops out of bed bases and sofas, the attic is choc-a-bloc...even though it was originally described as just a dozen boxes by Mrs Smith when the boss quoted for the removal. This was genuinely underestimated by Mrs Smith...Mr Smith had apparently slowly filled the attic with old kids items over last 5 years...it was indeed a miracle the rafters were still intact. The freezer gushed water all over the kitchen floor when the door was opened to check inside, the washing machine pipes were stuck solid and the pipe work typical DIY bodge started to leak when they were necessarily moved during the pipe removal....the 24 hour plumber was asleep in bed and couldn’t come for 3 days!! Our recommendation came within 2 hours.

Because of all the underestimates accidentally caused by Mr Smiths poor memory it is obvious that on this particular Removal from Hell, the lorry is too small to hold all the Smiths items. Mr Smith had undertaken to do the garage items, but his friend had broken his leg just the day before and did not turn up with himself or his van! Luckily, as we have 4 removals wagons and one specialist storage wagon we do happen to have a spare vehicle, which the boss arranges to deliver.

Of course there’s no rush, because, as you can guess, on ‘A Removals Day From Hell’ the load is already an hour behind schedule...and losing! Plus, surprise, surprise, there are already indications form the Smiths that all is not well with the money transfer. Possible short term storage might be required (and we can oblige easily, if required, as we own a large warehouse business and we are storage specialists). But apparently strenuous efforts are being made to get them in today. The mysterious term ‘license’ is being muted, to allow them to move in temporarily whilst things are sorted out...then we hear we might be able to move the furniture in..but they cannot stay and must sleep elsewhere. Only time will tell. From my years of the removals and storage business the relevant parties tend to get it sorted at about 4.59pm...just in time to go home!! Well, for them. Our Removals Porters would be just beginning the second phase of the removal..the unload! Typically,this is faster than the load, as it is the careful furniture wrapping that takes our removals porters the time.

But on ‘A Removals Day From Hell’ it’s not usually just one thing that goes wrong!. On arriving at..or rather close-ish to the new house it seems to be sitting in a sea of mud. We had been informed it was a new-build and the Smiths were confident everything was intact though they had not been over for a few weeks to check. and the recent amazonian style rains and the lack of made up road and drive had allowed the myriad of site vehicles to create a giant soup of mud, glugging, ebbing and flowing..almost as if alive.

Not that our staff were getting into the new home to unload. The earlier problems had not been sorted out and it was ‘wait and see’ until further notice. Two oclock passed..then 3 and 4 and 5...this was indeed bad. At 5.15pm the smiths arrived with the keys. The problem had finally been resolved..the money had transferred and the smiths were the proud owners of their brand new home. Wading through the mud our staff left them to open up.

The new white carpets in the house were already a patchy light brown but our staff covered them to limit any further damage.

Now that was a day that was! . But then again..... no one fell through the attic ceiling, and no creosote got spilt all over the lorry floor. The cat did not run off and hide behind the cooker, and no one fell off the ramp on the lorry. Three Porters left with 6 arms still with 29 digits (Peter came to us with one finger already victim to an earlier work accident..not on a removal!! hasten to add) . Oh believe me, there’s still plenty that could have happened. In fact, reassessing that move it does not qualify to be called ‘A Removal From Hell. No. I think it was a pretty smooth move, really.

ONLY JOKING!!!!!