Moving House. How stressful.

So have been spending the last two month getting everything together and being super organised in the hope of a smooth transition for me the kids, the EX band all included. So why when it comes getting a date set why does everyone freak out.
It hasn’t been all that stressful but now its overload.
Why is this?

Right now I’d settle for our current vendors finding a bl00dy house so we can start packing stuff again. The last 6 months have been horrendous as we’ve pulled out of 2 purchases due to structural issues, the second of which was down to the vendor being one of the biggest ****s I’ve ever come across.

Oh, and good luck BTW.

I’m sure I read somewhere that moving house was second only to a bereavement in terms of stress….

Try having a baby on the day of the move! That was us just over 3 months ago. I’m not sure why we didn’t also decide to get married on the same day as I am sure we could have fitted that in as well. Unsuprisingly I have noticed a few grey hairs recently.

stick with it, try and stay human. we’ve finally moved in and are busy knocking the house to bits after months of faff and lies from so called professionals. in the end we sorted it out between ourselves and the vendor

Moving from rented into a bought house has been my only recent experience I have to say I didn’t get overly stressed. Having said that buying and selling in a chain if I ever move will no doubt be harder.

I’ve just spent two weeks alternating between moving stuff from my flat 55 miles north to my fella’s house, and travelling 85 miles south visiting my dying father – he died the evening before I moved the last few bits out of my flat. That may have been the most stressful two weeks of my life 🙁

Ah, yes Jim Bob. I know that feeling. Due to lawyerly screw-ups little Gritty was born the day after we moved into our current abode. I reckon getting the wife to carry a mattress upstairs must’ve encouraged the labour.

Its very stressfull these days, we have noticed how much the laws have changed in 6 year from selling our 2nd to buying our 3rd house (the house we are in now) as to when we sold are 1st and bought are 2nd house.

Been in our new house 3 weeks now and all that stress has gone. Am even away with the kids now on holiday leaving the wife at home to do the decorating, so even better lol

There will be some cracking deals coming up on new build part exchanges as we head towards the end of the year. We did it last year and moved in 5 weeks after spitting on the hands, totally stress free.

pfff, try being a removal man for 4 years, on average move house 5 times a week.

Customers had strokes and heart attacks, fisticuffs between vendors was not unheard of….. best was stopping a gunship pilot from battering the seller with a 4Dcell mag torch, although the carpark punch up after the strip club was a good one 🙂

Had chains collapse the day before moving, most common cause was buyers lying about having the funds ready and being declined a mortgage last minute.
Some even forgot to book movers, we turn up to an unpacked house, costly for the people moving out as they get sued for extra costs by the people trying to move in

He who shouts loudest gets moved first ! legal types really slow things down.
On day of move hassle the living daylights out of your solicitor, most deals are done on a 12pm money exchange throughout the chain, keys are released legally when funds exchange is confirmed. Shame this happens at lunch time. When they say they will phone you back in an hour, they won’t, they are too busy dealing with another irate customer phoning them every 15mins trying to get the keys to the property they where told and contracted to own at 12pm.
If we turned up early to an empty house 🙂 we would perform a free for our customer an anti burgler and security check, and show them how easy some garage doors are to open, how quick it is go through a window or gain access through the cat flap, although first we did check for hidden keys….. surprising how many keys you find under a doormat/rock/gutter over the door etc etc.

If we turned up early to the house with the sellers still there….we would go on a charm offensive, and attempt to talk our way in, if we help there team move out….maybe leave a discrete window open downstairs. Nearly everytime we had this happen we could do a deal and gain full or partial access to start unloading before legal release of keys

Big chains are the worst.
Moving to an empty property is the bestest.

My boss has just bought a new place, hasn’t sold the old place yet, no chain, got mortgage ok, took 3 weeks from start to finish, and is having a nice move of painting a room first then moving one room at a time from the old place.

People moving themselves are a nightmare, do it cheap rent a transit van and a few mates.
We turn up and help them empty there stuff onto the front garden so we could move the new legal owner in from our big flash 2500cubic feet removal lorry with everything in boxes…..and not packed in bin bags….mind you we moved someone who packed themselves like that from that 70’s estate near Huston station in London, about 100m walk to the truck carrying very cheap bin bags….. oh how we laughed when the bag full of video tapes split and it was his porn collection spread out in front of the neighbours…..adult toys was another common thing….

You see a lot being a removal man.
We got to do it all the time, thats more stressfull than moving once every few years 🙂

Serious tip’s
Don’t pack the kettle, removal men are powered by Tea&Coffee, kettle is last thing on the lorry so it’s first thing into the new house.

Pack everything you can into boxes. Boxes stack real nice and maximise the volume of the lorry.
If you have a garage at both ends…. Start filling your garage with low priority packed boxes now.
Mark anything you are not in rush to get at as “garage” & whats in it, this will free up space in the house and make things easier for moving furniture about, you can unpack at leisure, but try building a bed/wardrobe etc etc in a room choked with boxes.

You can get around 800-1000cubic feet of volume into a garage, this can be moved real fast on sack trucks, it will aid you getting out, and speed up moving in.

Empty the attic, a lot of companies will no longer do attics for health and safety reasons, got some comedy and horror stories there.

Removal men like to start upstairs, strip it out and work downwards through the house.

Get friends to look after pets, or clear a room and shut them in.

Did everything in your house go in the front door ?
Will everything in your house fit the stairwell and front door of your new house.
We always got ripped by idiots who wouldn’t declare a sofa came through the old sash windows….since replaced with non opening double glazing….we left a few behind as they wouldn’t go out the door and the customer decided we should get and pay for window firm to come out and remove a window.
Other biggy was wardrobes and beds going up stairs. Square pegs into round holes time.

It will be stressy, if it goes smoothly it will be stressy, if it goes wrong it will be worse. However this is only one day maybe more if you have a big house, take a week out be prepared, and hopefully you will have a good team of movers, they do this everyday, they know lots of tricks, and as soon as they get you in, they can go home or head of to another job overnight.
They will try and get you in as quick and safely as possible.

Reminds me of the day we moved house. Mrs
(Teacher) couldn’t get day off so all down to me.
Packed up fine (great removals guys) called solicitor and transfers all
through so drove over to estate agents to pick up the keys. Then drove to new house to find hardly
anything out of the house. Sellers, seller hadn’t emptied the house next up, despite it being a probate sale and the sellers, seller also making a huge amount on selling a large land parcel with the house. My seller was in a panic.
Knew he had to be out, so all (me removals
guys, mine and sellers mates) went round to next house up, moved everything out onto
the lawn, called charity shops to collect all the items. Then all went back to new house, moved seller out (fortunately only moving a mile) and moved our stuff in. Good job there were almost 20 people involved.

Mrs swans home at 6:30pm. “Great all moved in, all smooth then”.
Me “yep no problems” 🙂

When I moved out to Oz there was about 2 weeks of trying to get stuff down to the amount I could ship, the removals guys turned up 4 hrs early packed what I told them they left leaving me with more than I could air freight/carry/fit into a hire car to get out and then I tried to find my driving license and passport…. 4 hrs later I had a beer and relaxed – very stressful times.

Last move we had the seller was in denial about leaving (divorce). My movers were parked up outside and she refused to leave. Got my lawyer to ring her and “have a chat”. In an inspired move we had added a clause into the sale agreement that for every hour past the 10:30am handover she was charged $5000. We suspected she would drag the chain despite having a nice new place to go to. She waited 3 hours before she was reminded that she had to pay $15k for the privelege. We were in no rush as we only moved 500m and didn;t need to leave our place anyway. She left after 4 hours but we only charged her 3 as a “compassionate” gesture. Sorry if that sounds harsh but you enter a deal and its business.

Sorry if that sounds harsh but you enter a deal and its business.

yep you sound like a complete barsteward 🙂

Nice move NZCol 🙂

what these people don’t understand is that by mucking up there own move it has a knock on effect down the chain.

Mine was from storage to the house, the lorry had to be left loaded and wasn’t available for duty the following day, so an extra day’s charge for lorry and crew had to be added, this fee was recovered from the people who “forgot” to book a moving company, and must have paid loads extra for an emergency booking.

Sorry if that sounds harsh but you enter a deal and its business.

I know, what can I say. It wasn’t like it was a complete surprise that she had to leave, we signed the paperwork 3 months before and gave her an extra month. That’s why we added the clause in because I was pretty sure she would not be keen to go. Yes i felt sorry for her but this was a transaction for a significant sum of money and so she finally had to face reality. I was just buying the house, not her baggage !

100% with you NZCol, nice only works if everyone is going to be nice. Otherwise the biggest motivator is cash. Whether it’s offering to help them move out (onto the street) or penalties for not being able or willing to complete the deal you signed for. Considering how far some of these chains go one idiot can cost everyone else a lot of money.

Still could have been worse 🙂

she could have taken all the doors, fire places, and light bulbs 🙂

In the three weeks before a move to Germany:

Renew a passport
Organise the delivery of three separate training programmes in Istanbul and Fontainebleau
Hire 12 staff for the above, cover documentation, presentation materials and briefing documents
Sell a car
Finalise a Safety Plan for an adventure race, Edinburgh to Ben Nevis summit
Work on the above
Run the safety cover for a race across Hadrians Wall
Organise packing of house contents into storage, Pickfords, superstars (partner already in Germany)
Find a hire car to go to my mums as a stop over

Not stressy at all though a fair bit of the stress was of my own making and getting neighbours involved saved the day completely.

Good luck with the move !