Moving on the Cheap Sounds Good!
It’s easy for people to move furniture on the cheap, and many do; but it’s not so easy when:
- The people moving the furniture don’t know what they’re doing.
- The moving vehicle is not purpose built for furniture removals.
- They don’t have professional moving equipment.
When people don’t really know what they’re doing, they’ve got the wrong vehicle and they haven’t got the right equipment they’re going to have dramas, no doubt about it.
The following scenario is fairly typical of a young guy wanting to help his mum out:
She’s got to move, and a friend of hers from her bridge club had recommended that she move with a professional member of the Australian Furniture Removers Association. She was going to go with that recommendation until her son convinced her to hire a truck and he’d line up a couple of his mates to save her some money, and everything would be alright because they’d done this sort of thing before.
The son’s plan:
Go down to Woolies and get some fruit boxes and buy a roll of tape; nest stop is the $2 Shop for some big, striped bags. The guys will simply pack up all her stuff, do a couple of quick trips, return the truck, and the three of them will be sitting back having a beer and watching the footy by early arvo. Too easy.
This is a common Australian scenario, and it’s bound to end with damages + injuries. And if he’s not careful, the son is likely to end up with no friends and being struck off mum’s will till she calms down. You see, it’s easy to underestimate the job at hand, and there are sometimes consequences from doing that, so let’s continue on with our scenario.
What actually happens:
Last night, the mates went out and got on it, resulting in no sleep and them starting late. This means for a stressful and late start to the day; not a reassuring way to start a job. Newspaper and fruit boxes are used to pack mum’s priceless Royal Dalton dinnerware and lace doilies, meaning they’re stained from the ink of the newspaper print. However that isn’t the half of it, because when the dinnerware gets unpacked it’s found to be broken from not being wrapped properly, not to mention the fact newspaper and fruit boxes don’t have very good cushioning properties. When mum’s expensive ball gowns are unpacked it is reassuring to see the way they were carefully laid out in the striped bags, however it’s soon realised that striped bags are not the best things to put delicate clothing in, because the ball gowns are ruined because someone stacked heavy stuff on top. When the guys were about to start loading the truck, they opened up the back to find emptiness; no blankets, no equipment, nothing! However it did come with a hydraulic tailgate loader which looked good, but that only got used a couple of times when it was found to be very time consuming to raise and lower it each and every time they needed to get both in and out of the back.
The tailgate loader did make light work of mum’s piano; but it didn’t help the fact that before reaching the truck, the piano fell off the skateboard-cum-makeshift piano trolley, and landed on mum’s foot, and a good two-wheeled trolley was sorely missed when one of the mates had to go to the chiropractor the next day for a back injury from carrying all those heavy bags and boxes up the driveway.
When mum got out of hospital, she wasn’t too happy to find out the full extent of the damages to; the piano, the ball gowns, the Royal Dalton dinnerware and also the internal walls on both the moving out and moving in houses, which were scuffed from bad manoeuvring of furniture. This required the walls to need re-plastering and painting. Then there was the chiropractor and hospital bills, and also the pain and suffering as well.
It could never happen?
You may consider this scenario to be a little bit over the top, but there were actually many other things that could have gone wrong with mum’s move. In hindsight, mum should have continued with her original plan, which was to go with a Professional Moving Company, an AFRA Member for peace of mind; a company such as Acrobat Removals. Acrobat Removals are reasonably priced and offer the choice of an hourly rate or fixed price quite. They have in stock professional packing materials such as Butcher’s paper and Crystal Cartons for protecting priceless dinnerware, and Porta-Robes to hang and transport expensive ball gowns in, as well as plastics to protect lounges and mattresses.
Acrobat Removals employees are well presented and are professional in demeanour. They arrive in a professional moving truck equipped with a walk board that can be mounted to the back, or side of the truck for tricky access situations. Standard equipment on every truck is at least 100 professional moving blankets, 30 ties, a set of professional carrying straps, 2×2 wheeled trolleys, a piano trolley and a comprehensive tool kit.
Being accredited AFRA members means you have the peace of mind in the knowledge that you are moving with a member of a Government regulated national moving body, and also that you have the opportunity to take out Full Cover Insurance for your move with them.
Acrobat Removals, improving relationships everywhere!
