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Military Families
noah-bear
member
Moving company coming Friday to "survey"
noah-bear
member
Is there anything I need to do, ask or say?
I am already planning to get a list of what they will not move for us, otherwise I'm blank. DH is down at BOLC until Halloween so he's not much help since he's in the field right now.
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Re: Moving company coming Friday to "survey"
Ask if they will unhook electronics (TV, stereo). Make sure they order the boxes for any flat screen TVs. Anything that they see that they need you to take apart? What will they not pack? How many days do they anticipate the job taking (usually pack one day, load the next).
Here is the important one, and I hope other people see this and use this unfo: Ask what order your things will be loaded onto the truck. For a PCS move, one tractor trailer holds several households of goods. House A is loaded first, then House B, then House C...you get the idea. You want to be 1st, or at least 2nd. Absolutely REFUSE to be the last load on that truck. Jump up and down, scream, throw a fit (okay, not really...) don't let your stuff be the last on the truck.
If you are House Z on that truck, the driver will do EVERYTHING to make your stuff fit. They will lose items, break items, take furniture apart that should never be taken apart, etc. It costs the company more money to be late with a load of household goods or to need another truck than it does to just pay the damages.
Between my husband and I we have PCS'd 9 times. We had no idea about this until our last move, where we were the last ones loaded onto the truck. They played tetris with our boxes for 4 hours trying to get everything to fit. In the end, every piece of furniture that could come apart did (including our crib), they lost 5 boxes of our items and two pieces of furniture. When we started filling claims and damage reports we kept being asked "were you guys loaded last on the truck?" Yep.
I'd actually not tell them what they shouldn't pack; I'd leave it alone when they come to survey.
I focused on what they shouldn't pack, too. Then when they came, they left behind things (they were in a mighty hurry to leave, and didn't even let me go through the house to check everything had been packed, mostly because they vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take to pack our place and sent an inadequate number of people) and then we had to figure out how to get them into our already overpacked car. They generally won't pack liquids (including alcohol or cleaning products) so if you don't want to lose those, keep enough room for those.
What I'm doing going forward is packing our cars with what we don't want them to take the day before they come, and then have them pack everything (rather than my other approach, which was to tag things they shouldn't take, adn pack our cars after they leave). These are not terribly reasonable people; they will pack full trash cans. So just make sure it's abundantly clear!
I think I confused them by telling them DON'T take this and that...It would have been better to say, take everything! We will pack a very few select items in our cars (such as some clothing) but come prepared to pack it all!