saga

By anders pearson 02 Sep 2003

when i found my apartment two years ago, it was a pretty good deal. since then, i’ve seen friends and coworkers find better apartments in the same neighborhood for less money.

so, when my friend julintip dropped out of law school and moved back to new york, looking for something in the columbia area for not too much money, we decided we’d pool our resources and look for a two bedroom place together.

we spent about two weeks scouring the columbia off-campus housing database, papers, and craigslist. we checked out a whole bunch of places and dealt with a bunch of slimy real-estate brokers in our search. we even put in an application for one halfway decent apartment. fortunately, while we were waiting for paperwork to go through on that one, i spotted an interesting listing on craigslist and went and checked it out. the apartment was beyond all my expectations and we acted quickly.

on 110th and central park west in a doorman building with a fenced in courtyard, laundry rooms, bike room, elevators, and a trash chute. the apartment is large, attractive, has a nice southern view with a lot of light, 1 and 1/2 baths, a dishwasher and air conditioners. it even came partially furnished. and my half of the rent (with gas and electric included) is about $250 less than what i was paying for my old apartment. there was no broker involved, so no enormous broker’s fee either.

signed the lease last friday and moved in on saturday. well, kinda…

i decided that since i now have furniture and i wasn’t going to have to pay a broker’s fee like i expected, that i might as well hire movers to do the move for me. i figured that it would make things less complex.

wrong.

the new place has restrictions on when deliveries can be made and when movers can operate. they only allow movers in between 9am and 5pm (although, they’re reasonably flexible and moving before 6 really wouldn’t be much of a problem). this should have been ok. the moving company i hired was scheduled to show up at my old place at 4pm. with an hour to load the truck, they would make it in without too much trouble.

at 4:30 the movers call me to let me know that they’re going to be a little late. i go talk to the doorman in the new building and tell him that they’ll be coming later than expected. he says that it shouldn’t be a problem.

the movers finally show up at 7pm. 3 hours late. lovely. they load the truck pretty quickly and we’re over at the new place by around 8pm. the doorman asks if we’re going to need to pad the elevator, i say, “yeah, i guess so”. he calls the super to send someone down to pad the elevator. the super says “nope. can’t move in this late. absolutely no way. come back between 9 and 5.”

there i am with absolutely everything i own from my bed all the way to my toothbrush on a truck and i can’t get it into my apartment. eventually we decide to just store it on the truck overnight and move it in first thing in the morning. being labor day weekend, the movers are booked solid, so they’re going to have to squeeze it in to an already filled schedule. and there will, of course, be extra fees involved.

saturday night i do not sleep a wink. everything i own is in limbo in the back of a truck parked god knows where. you wouldn’t sleep either.

sunday morning they show up with the truck right at 9. they start to bring things into the lobby and the doorman on duty stops us. apparently moves are actually only allowed on saturdays and wednesdays. shit. if we can’t unload the stuff right then, we’re all screwed. i don’t have anywhere else to put it since the lease is up on my old apartment. the movers are screwed because they’re already late for the next move they’re scheduled for and their truck is full of my stuff.

the super shows up and we talk to him for a while explaining the situation. finally, he shakes his head, says, “fine. just do it quickly.” and lets us in. he starts to call someone down to pad the elevator for us but then looks at my pile of stuff and decides that none of it is big enough to need that.

so 30 minute later, my stuff is all safely in my new apartment and i can finally exhale.

what i learned from this experience is that i really am a control freak. what bothered me most about the whole thing was not so much the general pain of it all, but that everything that was going wrong was completely out of my control. if i’d been moving things myself i could have made <em>sure</em> not to be late. but there was no way i could make the movers be on time.

now i am in my new apartment though. it is lovely indeed and the unpacking is going well. hopefully we will have a broadband connection up soon.

Tags: moving movers clusterfuck