stress-free move

By Donna Kakonge

Moving all your precious things into a new home is stressful, but people do it all the time. Recently Cheryl and Andrew Guilfoyle, along with their eight-month-old baby, packed their belongings from a two-bedroom apartment and moved into their three-bedroom detached dream home.

"It was great, it was seamless," recalls Cheryl Guilfoyle. "We did all the packing ourselves, [the moving company] had four guys that came and?looked around and walked through every room?from the old house to the new [they] started just before 9 a.m. and were done by 11:30 a.m."

The Guilfoyles used Consolidated Moving and Storage Limited to help with their new home transition. Jacqueline Cowan, owner of Consolidated Moving and The Box Spot, has more suggestions on how to make your move stress free.

"Start packing as soon as possible," she says. "Book your move well in advance. Basically go through the house and purge. You don't want to be packing things you don't need for your new house. You can have a garage sale and make a few dollars there? choose a good mover. Most people will check references, they'll have referrals from friends?a lot of our work is referral, it's repetitive. We've done three generations of some families."

Melanie Bradley, who works in sales for The Box Spot, says "people come in and they have questions. We'll try to suit them up the best possible, get them a good start with the standard boxes?the person will give us an idea and we try to suit it to the best of their needs."

Both Cowan and Bradley have seen plenty of stressed out customers who haven't started packing by the end of the month. Their business offers rental boxes, dollies, furniture pads, and "everything and anything" needed for shipping.

Although Consolidated Moving has had many happy customers like the Guilfoyles, they have also heard horror stories. "There was one lady who called?and she was waiting for her movers and the other people turned up with their furniture ready to move in," says Cowan. "They took some of her stuff out and put it in the driveway and it was starting to rain. The woman was crying on the phone, and it was so sad and we didn't know what to do [because]?we don't overbook." In the end, Cowan couldn't do anything to help the woman and her stranded possessions.

Bradley says one major reason that people experience hassles with movers is because they use companies that advertise on telephone poles or in grocery stores. Cowan elaborates that "the problem if you go with a number off a [pole is]?a lot of times it's just a cell phone number and something like that is questionable. Are you going to trust your possessions with someone like that, that's not probably even insured [insurance is necessary in case of damage] just because it's a cheaper hourly rate? And with most of them it's cash, there's no receipt, you're not able to deduct your expenses because they have home offices or something. If you don't have a receipt and your television is damaged, who are you going to come after?"

Consolidated Moving offers $70,000 worth of insurance to protect your belongings and The Box Spot offers discounts. Every Thursday there's free delivery of packing supplies.

The Guilfoyles have been living in their new house for only a short time. "Everyday we try to unpack a box and get things on the walls," says Cheryl Guilfoyle. But she says that it already feels like home.