Jimmy Lederer moved from one Chicago apartment to another last year, and someone helped him move some of his things. The only problem is, he doesn’t know who and he doesn’t know where.
After a long day of hauling his life’s belongings across town and into a new apartment, Lederer says he had one more trip to make between the car and the apartment before he was finished. That’s when fatigue took over. “I was too tired to make the trip, even for a duffel bag,” Lederer says.
So he left the duffel bag filled with electronic equipment, including a radio and cassette recorder, in the back of the car, figuring he could collect his gear in the morning.
“But I never got the stuff because it was stolen,” says Lederer, who awoke to find his car window smashed and the duffel bag gone.
Lederer considers himself a veteran, notching up four moves in the last three years, and says he knew better than to leave belongings in the car. “But you can’t always think straight while you’re moving.”
Talk to most anyone in Chicago who’s moved and they can relate their own personal nightmare on Elm Street, or Oak, or Belden, or Dearborn. For many, the trauma of moving isn’t so much the prospect of abandoning the familiar and trying to adjust to new surroundings, or even the expense, but rather the toil and drudgery of packing and unpacking, and the sheer wear of the physical relocation.
There are ways to make moving less torturous, of course. For example, Lederer offers this advice: “Don’t leave anything in the car-big, small, whatever. It will get stolen.”
Here’s another one: You would do well to keep your hanging clothes hanging while moving. Ask anyone who has ever had the bright idea to pile hanging clothes into the trunk of the car, with the mistaken belief that they will lie flat for the duration of the move. We’ll all tell you that three-quarters of your clothes will emerge looking as wrinkled as if they’d just trudged across the city on a humid August afternoon. And that’s a best-case scenario.
The stress test
Given its hellish implications, it should come as no surprise that moving is ranked as the fifth most stressful thing that can happen in life, after the death of a loved one, marriage, birth of a child and losing or starting a job. Some people actually prefer public speaking.
There are ways to make it easier, however. Planning and organizing are critical.
“You have to get rid of stuff you don’t need before you make the move,” says Joan Dumser, a professional organizer with Order Made Easy in Chicago. “When you can’t make the decision of what to get rid of before you move, you end up taking it with you . . . and then throwing it away after you’ve hauled it across town.”
Weeding out can be tough, but you must prepare yourself mentally to make hard and sometimes unpopular decisions. For instance, do you really want to take that wooden telephone wire-spool you’ve been using as a coffee table since college? How about the 400 National Geographics given to you by your mom? Or the 55 coffee mugs you’ve accumulated from every birthday and corporate promo since Super Bowl XX?
“You never think you have a lot of stuff, and then you move and it’s like there was an explosion in the moving van,” Stephanie Jevelian said as she prepared to make her fourth move in as many years. But experience has been a good teacher, and Jevelian said she knew she tends to underestimate the amount of things she has, so this time she started packing the contents of her Wrigleyville apartment earlier. What’s not packed would be given to charitable groups, like the Salvation Army or Goodwill.
Here’s a tip on packing boxes from Dumser, the professional organizer: “If you have some extra space in a box full of sweaters, for example, resist the urge to throw in some small kitchen items to fill up the extra space. It will be incredibly hard to find stuff if you pack like this.”
That’s assuming that you actually pack, of course. People who move aren’t the only ones who have nightmares on moving day; so do the people who move them. Ali Kalish with Chicago Movers says that 90 percent of the people they move are not ready for them when they show up.
“Sometimes we show up and the place is a mess,” Kalish says. “I’ve had cases where we knock on the person’s door and they’re in the middle of eating breakfast and there’s a stack of dirty dishes in their sink.”
And, he says, it’s not unheard of for “people to be sleeping when we arrive, or their kids are sleeping and they don’t want us to wake them up.”
Tips from the pros
Kalish has many practical tips for people preparing to move. For example, if you need extra boxes, try to get paper cartons with lids from a print shop, rather than, say, produce cartons from the supermarket. The problem with supermarket boxes is that they usually don’t come with lids, and if you don’t have a lid on your box, the contents can more easily exit during the move.
In almost every instance, however, a supermarket box without a lid is better than plastic grocery bags. But at least one anonymous individual confesses that she once moved all of her possessions in these bags. “Please don’t embarrass me by using my name in this story,” she asked.
While wrapping up dishes before putting them in boxes is good advice, Kalish warns not to wrap them in newspaper, because the dishes will all have to be washed after the newsprint rubs off on them.
Joe Ehrhardt of Four Seasons Movers in Melrose Park says that dressers can be a real problem. “We say keep only clothes in them, because you don’t have to worry about losing your underwear when the dresser is tipped over, but spilled nail polish is another story.”
Both movers agree that planning and organization are essential, if for no other reason than it costs you less in the long run. “The less we have to do, the less you pay, because we charge by the hour,” Ehrhardt says. “People will complain if a move takes longer than expected, but often it’s because we had to do stuff they should have done.”
Some things people can do on their own include taking linens off beds and breaking down the headboard from the frame. Ehrhardt also suggests packing up lamps so there’s less of a chance they’ll break.
Another way to make a move go a lot faster is to make a floor plan of each room. Posting the floor plans on the door will let the mover know what goes where. Also, it will relieve people of having to constantly follow and direct movers.
Ehrhardt’s firm charges an average of $88 for a three-man team doing a minimum of three to four hours of work. Kalish’s Chicago Movers charges an average of $75 per hour with a two-hour minimum and $35 truck fee. Both firms stress that jobs are treated and priced individually.
It’s best to book a moving company early. The professionals say to give them about three weeks’ notice if you’re planning to move on the first or last day of the month. A mid-month move requires only a few days’ notice.
Here’s a tip from Jevelian: “Reserve a truck as early as possible, especially if you’re moving during one of the big moving months-September, October or May. When I move in September I reserve my truck in July.”
Elevator time
Moving into a high-rise? Be sure to schedule elevator time, ahead of time. Many buildings require a set time for the move so other tenants won’t be inconvenienced.
Here’s what happened to Christine Hawley when she moved to the 52nd floor of a 55-story high-rise:”I couldn’t get the freight elevator until 8 o’clock at night. Everything was all booked up, even though I called two weeks ahead of time. I had to jump through hoops to get a night move because the hours are 10 to 5 for the freight elevator.”
Hawley says the move finished up at 2 a.m. because “going up and down 52 stories takes three times as long as a regular move.” When her lease is up, Hawley says she’ll move closer to the ground.
While Hawley used a professional moving company, many movers enlist the help of family and friends on the big day. Veteran movers say it’s best to have food and beverages on hand for helpers even if you plan on paying them back with a dinner at a restaurant later on. “It helps prevent mutiny, and it cuts down on the arguments when hands and mouths are full,” Jevelian says.
Perhaps the most sage advice comes from Jimmy Lederer, after having had his things stolen from his car the night he moved: “Don’t move. Find a good place and just stay there.”
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Next week: How best to settle in at your new place.
