I have been very excited about our move to Vermont from Montana. What has sorely tempered that excitement is the fact that all of our belongings are still in Montana. On a loading dock. Why is that? Well, I’ma gonna tell ya. It’s not a pretty story and it’s not a cheap story. What it is is a story about a moving company that has basically told us a bunch of tales that have not ended happily. So, should you hire a professional mover? The short answer in my experience is no and I am going to tell you why according to what happened to us.
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Why Hire a Professional Mover
There are a myriad of reasons to hire a professional mover. I will offer the list of why we did as there were quite a few that took us down this route:
- we are not spring chickens and needed the help packing – although if push came to shove we could have done it ourselves with the time we had to get this move accomplished
- all our earlier moves had been geographically closer so it was easy to just gather some friends, get them to help haul the boxes and furniture and then have a pizza party.
- when we moved into the yurt it was from the fifthwheel so that was easy. Plus we were building the yurt.
- moving cross country is no joke – especially with five cats.
How Was the Packing Up?
The two of us managed to pack up all of our books and clothes but left the rest of the house to the movers. We hired Montana Transfer locally and the ultimate trip would be with North American Van Lines. I was not present when they came and packed up the house and as we don’t have our stuff yet I cannot tell you if they did a good job packing or not. I do know they were fast.
All of our stuff went into boxes and and was sent down to a loading dock in Missoula. Where it still sits. Our contract had a delivery date by which penalties would be charged if we did not have our stuff. That day was 9/16/21 so since as I have noted repeatedly, I do not have my stuff, penalties are starting to accrue but they are, in my opinion minor compared to the inconvenience and to the whopping $21,000 it is costing us to have this done.
Yes, you read that correctly – the cost of this move is $21K and WE DON’T HAVE OUR STUFF, nor do we have any kind of a date when we will have our stuff. And additionally, the customer service basically sucks wind. We are promised calls and no calls come. Most importantly we were promised our stuff and well – no stuff!
Would I Hire a Professional Mover Again?
That would be a resounding NO! Unless someone could show me a company other than North American Van Lines with a proven track record of excellent service and actual delivery of a person’s stuff. As my husband said we could have gotten a bunch of friends together to help us pack, rented UHAULS, and had them drive with us to Vermont. They could have stayed for a couple of days, had some fun and we could have then bought them plane tickets home and it would have cost less than the “professional” movers. That probably would have been a lot more enjoyable and I WOULD HAVE MY STUFF. I know I sound like a broken record but these companies took what should have been a very happy occasion and have turned it to dust.
I know in the scheme of things stuff is not important but we had to go out today and buy socks and some clothes because we each have like two outfits as we didn’t think we would be waiting so long for our clothes to arrive. The cats are missing their things too. It was hard on them to totally lose their environment and to have nothing familiar. I did buy them some fuzzy cat beds but they are new – they want their hairy, old cat beds. Even their favorite toy, Trout is on the truck.
A Big NO to North American Van Lines and Montana Transfer
That is my final answer. I would not use either company again. If I ever move I will find a way to do it without the so called professionals because so far I have seen very little to make me want to pay large sums of money to a mover ever in my lifetime. Can you imagine what I could do with an extra $21K around here. Or even half that if we had gone the friends helping us route. It was definitely NOT worth that much money for the aggravation we are currently experiencing and the longer it takes for everything to get here the more we are going to have to buy just to manage to live some semblance of a life. Grrrrrrr.
Has anyone else had any experiences like this? Head over to my Facebook to let me know. Feel free to vent or if you have one, please give me a positive tale of a move!
