The Move

Sorry for the slightly out of order-ness of this post, seeing as how I’ve already posted about my new commute. (I needed to get those early first impressions down right away!)

The move went smoothly. Stressfully, but smoothly.

Originally, I planned on renting a truck and conning my brother (or literally anyone else) into driving it — I’d happily load it, but did not want to drive that thing through Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Queens. The rental was going to cost as much as my move from Chicago to NYC or (for less $$) rent one where they call you the day before and let you know if/where you can pick up the truck (how this is an actual business model, I have no idea!)

Just for kicks, I checked some prices for movers on Thumbtack and HomeAdvisor. For roughly $300 more I could hire pros to do everything (except pack). I was sold; we booked Douglas Moving via HomeAdvisor (for spoilers, see my glowing review here).

Over 6 years in Brooklyn, my hoarder-like nature had accumulated an awful lot of stuff. I packed my books (very efficiently, in giant boxes*) and Sergiu packed loads of other stuff in possibly the least efficient way any box has ever been packed. But he got it done, so I’ll stop complaining.**

Sergiu and I both helped the movers carry all our crap to their truck (they were really surprised we were helping…), and then I followed them up to the house on July 30 while Sergiu stayed behind to patch, paint, and polish the apartment. The drive was uneventful except it sucked. Once at the house, we unloaded all of my useless crap that I will probably never be unpack while Wes and Oberon played on the “slide.”

The boys and I spent the night in Wassaic while Sergiu stayed up late partying with one of our neighbors in the near-empty apartment. At ~4am, I dragged two sleeping children out to the car and made the drive back through NYC. Have I mentioned I hate driving?

Long story short, we cleaned, cleaned some more, and kept cleaning*** well into the day. I think I finally convinced Sergiu that it is better to clean regularly, because the alternative is 8 hours of hard scrubbing 6 years later. We said farewell to our favorite neighbors (though, we’ll be back periodically and keep in touch), and loaded up the car with more stuff than should reasonably fit into a sedan.

By mid/late afternoon, in the rain, we were off (just in time for rush hour!), and by much later we finally made it “home”

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*I’m a tetris master! Which means those giant boxes, filled entirely with books, were incredibly heavy. However, I carried those so it’s okay 🙂 Also, everyone is thoroughly impressed with my incredible strength.
**I really won’t. I mean, Sergiu did do most of the packing, but seriously he is terrible at it. He stuck glass in the bottom of gigantic boxes, unwrapped, put heavy things on top of light, zero organization, random food in random boxes with toxic items. Again, he did the work. Yay him, I guess. But ffs, logic/commone sense is not his strength :p
***No cleaning is too much cleaning – I want that damn security deposit back!!!