Though communications specialist Nancy Hyzer moved into her antique-filled loft apartment on Lake Shore Drive at the beginning of June several years ago, she vividly recalls the difficulties she`s had in past winter moves.
”On a snowy day in the winter of 1983, I moved into a rental house in Glenview, and it was a tough scene,” Hyzer says. ”I had a new white sofa, which I wrapped but water still seeped through the cover, the sofa got stained, and I had to have it cleaned. In addition, snow was tracked in on the hardwood floors and I had to move my plants one by one because I didn`t want to expose them to the cold air. That just took forever.”
Though spring and fall remain the most popular times of the year to move in the Chicago area, some brave souls move during the cold winter months. Job transferees get relocated to Chicago in the middle of winter, a family may move into a new residence during their children`s Christmas vacation, and couples who marry in the wintertime may have to pack up their belongings and move into a new apartment when it`s cold and blustery outside.
Furthermore, in a competitive real estate market, some management companies are offering prospective tenants incentives to sign a lease that`s longer than 12 months. Thus, tenants who move into a building on Oct. 1 of one year may move out on Dec. 1 of the following year.
”Our tenants move much less often in the wintertime, but with our different leasing terms, that`s changing,” says Peggy Pollock, relocation consultant with the Habitat Co., which manages rental buildings throughout the Chicago area. ”Currently, Habitat is offering different incentives-get one-month free on a 13-month lease or two months free on a 14-month lease, and that takes away from the traditional 12-month lease.”
Cold cash
When it comes to the actual cost of moving, wintertime may offer the best bargains. For example, while Hollander Storage and Moving, an agent of United Van Lines, charges the same for a local move in winter and summer, if you`re moving across country from Chicago to New York, it`s going to cost you less in the wintertime, according to account representative Sandy Wendland. Similarly, Ryder Truck Rental and Leasing occasionally offers special rates during the slower winter months.
Whether or not you decide to do most of the packing yourself or hire a professional mover to do the job, moving in the wintertime does require some extra time and effort-time and effort that will go a long way toward keeping your prized possessions unscathed by the elements.
”In the summertime, you don`t have to worry about getting every piece of furniture into your house or apartment right away. If you set anything on the lawn for a minute, you`re not going to have it ruined by the snow or cold,”
says Hyzer. ”But in the wintertime, you`ve got to move things right into your new place, so you`ve got to be really organized about where things are going to go, what pieces go in what room.
”I have a lot of antiques, and any time you take them out of a controlled (warm) environment and put them on a cold truck, they get brittle,” adds Hyzer, recalling a 1988 winter move from Detroit to Chicago that damaged much of her antique furniture. ”The movers did wrap the furniture-I watched them wrap it-but nonetheless, after the move, I had to spend time and money searching for the right person to restore the furniture.”
”You must anticipate inclement weather,” says Terry Buckley, a location rental supervisor at Ryder Truck Rental and Leasing. ”The biggest mistake people make is not using enough protective materials on their furniture. For wooden furniture, you should take cloth pads and pad the furniture so that it doesn`t get wet and damaged. For other types of furniture, it`s a good idea to get plastic covering that goes over the sofa or your chairs.”
Moving plants in the wintertime can also be a tricky proposition. Hyzer recalls that during her move from Detroit to Chicago in the winter of 1988, several prized plants didn`t survive the move.
”I had some ficus trees and some ferns from my father`s farm, and they just didn`t make it,” Hyzer says.
Wendland of Hollander notes that on a local move from one elevator building to another, ”We`ll use a gurney like you see in hospitals. We`ll put plants on a thick canvas on the gurney and throw a blanket over the top to protect them.”
Adds Ryder`s Buckley: ”It`s not advisable to move plants in the winter, but if you have to move them, water them first, then put plastic bags over them and puncture the bags so that the plants can get air. You also do not want to put plants in the back part of the rental truck where there is no heat; you want to put the plants up front where there is heat.”
Protecting valuables
Hyzer has had no problem moving paintings in the wintertime; she`s packed them in boxes and crates, and they`ve all done just fine. To protect paintings during a winter move, Hollander Storage and Moving can provide tenants with boxes specifically made for moving pictures.
”If there`s something of great value, we would recommend that we pack it with a lot of padding. The other option would be to blanket-wrap the picture and then place it on a gurney,” says Wendland.
Items such as pianos need to be exposed to the elements as little as possible. ”Every time you move a piano, it goes out of tune, no matter what the season,” says Hyzer, who has a 1932 Knabe piano that`s been moved during the winter. ”But when you move a piano out of your warm, temperature-controlled environment into the cold weather, it really goes out of tune and sometimes the strings break. Pianos are like fine paintings in museums;
they just don`t like wide variances in temperature.”
Like other precious possessions, pets, too, need to be handled with care if moved from one residence to another during the wintertime.
”It`s important not to leave a cat or a dog in a cold truck for too long,” stresses Buckley. ”And if you have a fish collection, drain the tank and put the fish in a smaller container that you can place on something that will be heated during the move.”
For the most part, there is more of a problem moving long-distance in the winter, says Wendland. ”People move food and wine collections, and wine, for example, tends to have a low alcohol content and it can freeze. I remember we had someone who wanted to move 1,500 bottles of wine to the East Coast and we covered the wine with styrofoam containers to keep it insulated. You don`t want corks popping during a move!”
”With a local move, you move in the morning and things are delivered in the afternoon, so items aren`t on the truck too long,” Wendland adds. ”With a long-distance move, you`re going to load one day, then the driver spends the night somewhere, and the next day or two or three he spends driving. Also, there may be other shipments on board, so there will be other loadings and deliveries to those destination. So it might take a week to finally get your items and by that time, they`ve been in the truck for a week. Food can freeze; plants can freeze.”
Packing problems
The worst mistake people make when moving during the winter months is not packing items correctly, Wendland says. ”For most people, it has to do with their breakables, their dishes, for example. You`re supposed to pack dishes on end when you pack them; people tend to pack them flat. So if it`s really cold outside and you packed the dishes incorrectly, they may crack more easily. And occasionally our movers will fall and drop a box if it`s slick outside. If you pack dishes correctly, and the movers fall and drop a box, they`re not going to break.”
If it`s snowy and slick outside on the day of a move, special precautions can be taken so that your new carpet or shiny hardwood floor doesn`t get ruined.
”During a winter move when we have snow to contend with, we want to keep everything dry, so our movers will lay cardboard or plywood from the apartment to the truck so that they`re not stepping in snow,” Wendland says. ”They`ll also put rug runners down in the apartment in both residences-the origin and the destination. The movers normally use runners during a summer move, but in the winter, they`re more careful because it`s wetter out,” says Wendland.
If you`re doing the moving yourself, it`s important to make sure that when you`re loading items onto the back end of the rental truck that the area is clear of snow and ice, Buckley says. ”Some of our trucks have a walkup ramp or a liftgate to move your items up and down from the truck, and you want to make sure that this area is cleaned off of snow so that you don`t have any injuries or slippage.”
What happens if on moving day, you wake up and see that there`s a foot or more of snow outside? What happens then?
”If there`s so much snow that our truck can`t move, then the move will be delayed,” says Hollander`s Wendland. And according to Ryder`s Terry Buckley, ”If you`ve made arrangements for a truck and there`s a foot of snow on the day that you`re supposed to move, you can cancel. If you`ve made a deposit and you call that morning to notify us, you`ll get the deposit back.”
