ANY PRACTICE THAT has made so many people so miserable–stressed-out tenants scrambling for the services of movers that have to cope with ludicrous spikes in demand two days a year–must be rooted in tradition. And so it is with Chicago’s two customary moving days, OCT. 1 and MAY 1. Not only was May 1 called moving day as early as the 1840s (October gained popularity in the early 20th Century), but the tradition goes back even further than that. In rural ENGLAND and the NETHERLANDS, servants and farmhands would pack their things and change employers at hiring fairs in May and in October or November. So renters, take comfort: At least you’re not changing jobs too.
Number of boxes in a USA Box Co. moving kit designed for an average household: 66.
Percentage of the U.S. population that changed addresses in 2005: 14.
Number of days that the spring moving day was postponed in 1865 because Abraham Lincoln’s funeral cortege was passing through: 2.
Celebrity that consumers age 50 and older think would make the best neighbor: TIGER WOODS.
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“Just three classes of people were supremely happy yesterday–the people who did not move, the landlords, and the teamsters.”
–TRIBUNE EDITORIAL AFTER MOVING DAY 1880
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Sources: Encyclopedia of Chicago, USA Box Co., U.S. Census Bureau, ERA Real Estate.
nwatkins@tribune.com
