Bust a Move

A journey of one mile, trauma for a lifetime.

We’ve barely plumbed the tragedies of my life, but I think we’re all tired of the sad stuff. Depression is a beast, but life goes on, right? Focus on the tragedies that seem funnier now, eight weeks and several hundred boxes out — like when our movers showed up to move us, half loaded a truck, called it a day, and then held our bed hostage until we paid an exhorbitant amount of money.

I mean, y’all requested the story. Don’t fail me now. I wanted to go back to the funny stuff. But noooooo

This is only funny in that sort of, “I have to laugh at it or I’ll realize I can’t manage to function as an adult” sort of way.

I’m not even ashamed to post the company’s name. It’s All My Sons, and if you just groaned, I assure you, two individuals who both posess professional degrees and have both built and successfully managed their own companies, did not consult the Google reviews before hiring AMS. Because that would have been the responsible and adult thing to do.

Ultimately, it seems like moving is a straightforward pursuit. You take the boxes, you put them in a truck, you drive the truck to the next place, you unload the boxes. In our case, we asked for a couple of things to be packed because (1) we have three toddlers and (2) I like my dishware, it was expensive, and we have toddlers.

And okay, I just didn’t really feel like packing the bookcase.

It turns out, I was hilariously ill-informed about the process — and business — of moving. By the time I’d returned from dropping my kids off with a babysitter (the movers had been rather dismayed to learn there were children involved), the movers claimed that they’d “filled the truck three-quarters of the way,” but there was an additional floor of items, and the truck was not three-quarters of the way full, unless movers use a term of art to refer to “one-quarter full” as three, though perhaps it was also a local term, given that we’d just moved cross-country the year before and they’d managed to fit all of our worldly goods in a space about the same size.

They also hadn’t packed. An attempt was made, it seemed like, but interest had waned around the tenth dish. Of the ten packed, two were broken, so maybe they felt those counted as two. Some of the items were thrown on the floor, including my children’s breakfast dishes and anything that had the audacity to be in a basket on the stairs. They packed the basket, oddly, but not before throwing all of its contents across the living room.

You’d think we’d have done something to deserve this, right? Like we’d been Karens, or asked questions, or micromanaged the effort, but our only crime was having the audacity to suggest they move our things to our new home, less than a mile away.

Around noon, they told us they’d filled the truck (they hadn’t), and that they’d run out of boxes (other than the three dozen in my living room, I guess) and that their job was done. They offered no explanation, and did not suggest that the entire second floor, which was just a bed and some bookcases, could be moved at all.

Eventually, I begged for them to take the bed.

That was a mistake. It gave them leverage.

Why, Emily, would they need leverage? Well, we’d already paid a deposit, but their detail-oriented, organized, and thorough approach to moving was far costlier than their business department initially led on, and it was pay on delivery. And if you disagreed, they’d keep your items until you paid ransom.

I sobbed on the phone to a manager, who was convinced I was responsible for the problems but thought they “might” have a crew that could come the next morning to get the rest, though he couldn’t guarantee the second crew would be able to finish everything the first crew hadn’t, especially since the first crew needed more boxes, he said.

After taking a two-hour lunch and getting lost on the way to our new house with what little they’d managed to put on their truck, they unloaded most of it in the wrong rooms. But not the bed. The bed stayed on the truck until I agreed to pay twice what they’d originally quoted me.

Now, I may be dumb, but I deal with several toddlers and know when I’m over a barrel. I tried to negotiate with the business manager but the person in charge had left for the day (convienent!), and every day my bed was held in “storage,” I’d accumulate additional charges for their stellar service.

Knowing I’d rather not see what would become of my bed in their care, I paid their ransom, but cancelled their service — a move they simply refused to understand, after we’d been treated so well.

We hired a logistics company to come pack, it took them under an hour because our movers, who “needed to pick up more boxes” had left plenty of boxes in our living room. We hired a new moving company to come get the rest of our stuff, and they packed up, loaded, drove, and unloaded with such terrifying precision we bought them lunch. And then we called our credit card company and made a complaint.

They told our credit card company that they’d done such a good job, we’d recommended them, perhaps interpreting our warning to humanity as a five-star review. They then told our credit card company that they had a right to hold our bed for ransom because we’d entrusted them to “store” our items, not just move them.

Apparently, this isn’t an uncommon scam — it’s so prevalent, particularly with this company, that Florida and other states with large numbers of incoming residents, have introduced legislation to prevent moving companies from advertising as “storage” as way of bait-and-switching desperate families.

Weeks later, as we returned home from a funeral, which turned out to be a much-needed break from moving, there was an hour-long traffic jam caused by a burning truck. I bet you can guess whose it was.

It is possible — I’m not saying it happened, I’m just saying its possible — that it was the sheer force of my hatred that caused it to spontaneously combust.

They’ll probably charge the poor sap double for storage since they did some redecorating.

You’re welcome.