@2many2no@Kidsandliz I’m pretty sure that there’s a box or two in the attic which has yet to be unpacked from my move to Texas in 1981. That’s four changes of address back.
@phendrick - actually moved one many times. Always rented a piano dolly. Except one time where I got 12 guys to pick it up and carry it across the room. Goes down in history as the piano moving party.
@Yombleflobber Upright. Had it from when about 8 until a house fire a few years ago.
We moved cities when I was twelve. My parents took care of that and it stayed at their house until they moved to be close to me, and it went into storage. Soon after, my wife and bought a new house, and I and a couple friends moved it in a rental truck to our house. Thankfully, the move was all ground level, other than putting it on the truck (with a big ramp). We had it at that house for almost two decades.
It was a good piano, but old and not great, not worth the cost of restoring after the fire.
I later had a chance to buy a concert piano at a steal of a price, but it was upstairs and stairwell was narrow and steep. The quotes I got from professional movers were not a steal, so I passed.
My next piano (if any) will be an electronic emulator, from a box I can tote by myself.
@phendrick@Yombleflobber I had the honor of being the one on the downstairs end of a six-foot upright moving out of a friend’s second-floor apartment. The staircases were narrow, with the typical 180 turn at the halfway point. That was back in the '80s. When my ex wanted her piano moved over here from her condo, we had movers do it. And then I brushed up my tuning skills and made it playable. (I have the wrench, mutes, and meter, and I know how to use them.)
Dead Bodies… first you have to break up the concrete on the patio, then you have to dig them up and wrap them in carpets… then you have to fill in the holes and repour the patio… all at night so the neighbours don’t see.
Then, when you get to the new house you need to do it all over again.
@OnionSoup You are doing unnecessary work. Amateur move. When you get to a new place, your first order of business is to locate all of the small local cemeteries close to your house, preferably with an unused corner or two. Do all the work in the middle of the day, not at night. Small backhoe, bury body, add a nice, thoughtful headstone with a fake name and dates. To be thorough, scan the place for common names and work them into the rotation so it looks like the new arrivals are part of the community. Occasional flowers are always a nice touch.
@OnionSoup@rockblossom
Or if there’s dug up spot where someone’s about to go in dig farther down and put them in so the new body will go right on top of yours and you’ll never have to move it again.
@yakkoTDI@zippyus The trouble is DHS takes a dim view of leaving the children on the curb with the trash, even if you post a curb alert to come get what you are leaving behind.
@awk@kittykat9180@zinimusprime Anything that’s both large enough to be hard to pack and move, and valuable enough to be listed on a separate schedule. High-ticket sculpture would be a first guess. Sometimes they just insist on fully bonded and insured specialized movers.
@Kyeh
I know it ridiculous! Most of the ones I tossed were ones that I had already moved once with and had such a hard time adjusting to new light I didn’t have it in me to do it again. Some of them I had grown from cuttings and bc of bad natural light where I was living had grown towards the light (so out of their natural form and looked weird). I was just ready to start over.
@Star2236 I have several plants like that, especially 2 scheffleras and 1 big jade plant. They’re all contorted and weird, poor things, but they keep growing, and they’re green, so I can’t bear to get rid of them.
@Kyeh
My jade plant was horrible. That I kept and somehow, out of no where I started noticing tons of gnats flying around my house. I’ve basically killed my rubber tree bc I though that was where the bugs were coming from bc it was my newest plant and then finally discovered my jade plant was mush in so many areas and full of bugs. That got tossed instantly. Now I’m trying to save my rubber tree that keeps loosing leaves bc I had sprayed a hydrogen peroxide water mixture onto the soil to kill the gnats I thought were coming from there.
@Star2236 Oh, how awful! Can you replace the soil in the rubber tree’s pot? It doesn’t seem to me like hydrogen peroxide would kill a plant but I don’t actually know.
Cast iron sand. Had to keep paying extra for expenses for the movers. Massive back injuries, arms ripping off, trucks breaking down and exploding — the whole shebang.
I’m surprised books are even on the list. They are generally rectangular, so they pack very well, and a box full of books is very sturdy, so you don’t have to worry about putting things on top of it. They’re one of the easiest things to move.
Pianos are very difficult to move, as others have said.
I will also suggest that the worst things to pack and move are all of the things you need to finish cleaning/close out your old place. It’s last-minute, so you can’t pack it very well, and by the time you’re dealing with it you’re ready to be done, and there’s always more of it than you expect.
@Limewater You’re not wrong, but I think my books outweigh everything else in my house put together.⁽ᵖʳᵒᵇᵃᵇˡʸ ᵃⁿ ᵉˣᵃᵍᵍᵉʳᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ⁾
If your boxes are filled just right, you can stack them safely, but do they really count as sturdy? Not all books are the same size, so a lot of box crushing can happen (which is probably okay, but doesn’t allow for a tall stack of stuff).
And books are beastly heavy. You have to be careful what size boxes you get, and they rarely have any handles that will survive.
Ultimately, it’s not just the picking them up that’s the problem with moving them. There’s all the packing and unpacking. And searching for another book of just the right size to finish that box, or finding that one odd book that doesn’t fit in any of the existing boxes…
But ultimately I agree that a piano’s weight of books is a lot easier to move than a piano.
@walarney This is a very strong argument against owning a pool table. Someone I know had their job shift them to a different state twice just after buying a new pool table each time (“move yourself or take severance, your choice”) before they figured out that it would be a good idea not to buy a third. Their company has never moved them since.
@walarney@werehatrack
My friend moved sold her house with the pool table included (and a huge safe), bough a new house and what did the owners leave behind, a pool table.
@kittykat9180 Just my tools would require at least an 8-foot trailer plus my Caravan, and I’d be running at about 50% over the gross weight rating for the brakes.
@werehatrack, I have one small tool box. I also move every few years, I’ve lived all over my home state as well as lived in 5 states (looking at a 6th now).
I have no interest in toting stuff all over the country.
All the junk you said you would go through and get rid of,
but you move it anyway.
@2many2no I have moved 19 times and sometimes I have had boxes that hadn’t even been unpacked from the previous move.
@2many2no @Kidsandliz I’m pretty sure that there’s a box or two in the attic which has yet to be unpacked from my move to Texas in 1981. That’s four changes of address back.
@2many2no @Kidsandliz @werehatrack
I have a basement full of it.
My heart. Just left it in San Francisco.
Cats
A piano, a real DIYer’s nightmare. Guess no one else here has ever moved one.
@phendrick do you put it back together too?
@phendrick Grand or upright?
@phendrick I have moved an upright piano from a second floor apartment.
@phendrick lol, my family moved a baby grand 5 times.
@phendrick - actually moved one many times. Always rented a piano dolly. Except one time where I got 12 guys to pick it up and carry it across the room. Goes down in history as the piano moving party.
@phendrick I have moved one multiple times and moved myself. I have always hired someone to load and unload it from the uhaul.
@phendrick @yakkoTDI I was the one on the downstairs end of an upright for such a move.
@Yombleflobber Upright. Had it from when about 8 until a house fire a few years ago.
We moved cities when I was twelve. My parents took care of that and it stayed at their house until they moved to be close to me, and it went into storage. Soon after, my wife and bought a new house, and I and a couple friends moved it in a rental truck to our house. Thankfully, the move was all ground level, other than putting it on the truck (with a big ramp). We had it at that house for almost two decades.
It was a good piano, but old and not great, not worth the cost of restoring after the fire.
I later had a chance to buy a concert piano at a steal of a price, but it was upstairs and stairwell was narrow and steep. The quotes I got from professional movers were not a steal, so I passed.
My next piano (if any) will be an electronic emulator, from a box I can tote by myself.
@phendrick @Yombleflobber I had the honor of being the one on the downstairs end of a six-foot upright moving out of a friend’s second-floor apartment. The staircases were narrow, with the typical 180 turn at the halfway point. That was back in the '80s. When my ex wanted her piano moved over here from her condo, we had movers do it. And then I brushed up my tuning skills and made it playable. (I have the wrench, mutes, and meter, and I know how to use them.)
Dead Bodies… first you have to break up the concrete on the patio, then you have to dig them up and wrap them in carpets… then you have to fill in the holes and repour the patio… all at night so the neighbours don’t see.
Then, when you get to the new house you need to do it all over again.
@OnionSoup If there’s space, just expand the existing patio instead.
@OnionSoup Boy I hope the next mehrathon sells carpets and/or shovels.
@OnionSoup You are doing unnecessary work. Amateur move. When you get to a new place, your first order of business is to locate all of the small local cemeteries close to your house, preferably with an unused corner or two. Do all the work in the middle of the day, not at night. Small backhoe, bury body, add a nice, thoughtful headstone with a fake name and dates. To be thorough, scan the place for common names and work them into the rotation so it looks like the new arrivals are part of the community. Occasional flowers are always a nice touch.
@OnionSoup @rockblossom
Or if there’s dug up spot where someone’s about to go in dig farther down and put them in so the new body will go right on top of yours and you’ll never have to move it again.
@OnionSoup Get maggots and feed the maggots with the dead body. Then you can sell the skeleton at halloween. Problem solved. You are welcome.
Have you checked my trunk?
Vinyl records. Who would have thought something so heavy could be so fragile.
All of the above.
Moving sucks.
@xenophod yep, ALL of the above, especially the Cat
children
@zippyus You’re supposed to move those?
@yakkoTDI @zippyus The trouble is DHS takes a dim view of leaving the children on the curb with the trash, even if you post a curb alert to come get what you are leaving behind.
Anything where someone from the insurance company has to watch you move it.
@awk you’ve piqued my curiousity… what would an insurance company need to watch you move???
@awk @zinimusprime, I’m curious as well.
@awk @kittykat9180 @zinimusprime Anything that’s both large enough to be hard to pack and move, and valuable enough to be listed on a separate schedule. High-ticket sculpture would be a first guess. Sometimes they just insist on fully bonded and insured specialized movers.
Houseplants
@Kyeh Especially when they are cactus.
@yakkoTDI Yeeeeeahhh!!!
@Kyeh
I just came here to say the same thing. Last time I moved I ended up tossing some.
@Star2236
Sad! Houseplants have gotten to be quite expensive in stores!
@Kyeh
I know it ridiculous! Most of the ones I tossed were ones that I had already moved once with and had such a hard time adjusting to new light I didn’t have it in me to do it again. Some of them I had grown from cuttings and bc of bad natural light where I was living had grown towards the light (so out of their natural form and looked weird). I was just ready to start over.
@Star2236
I have several plants like that, especially 2 scheffleras and 1 big jade plant. They’re all contorted and weird, poor things, but they keep growing, and they’re green, so I can’t bear to get rid of them.
@Kyeh
My jade plant was horrible. That I kept and somehow, out of no where I started noticing tons of gnats flying around my house. I’ve basically killed my rubber tree bc I though that was where the bugs were coming from bc it was my newest plant and then finally discovered my jade plant was mush in so many areas and full of bugs. That got tossed instantly. Now I’m trying to save my rubber tree that keeps loosing leaves bc I had sprayed a hydrogen peroxide water mixture onto the soil to kill the gnats I thought were coming from there.
@Star2236 Oh, how awful! Can you replace the soil in the rubber tree’s pot? It doesn’t seem to me like hydrogen peroxide would kill a plant but I don’t actually know.
@Kyeh
That’s what I was thinking too. I’ve just been lazy.
Cast iron sand. Had to keep paying extra for expenses for the movers. Massive back injuries, arms ripping off, trucks breaking down and exploding — the whole shebang.
@Yombleflobber You were warned not to use that uranium ore sand for casting, but did you listen? Nooo, got to have that density, you said.
The basement. There’s always more than you think
@ybmuG I left the basement attached to my last house.
A loved one’s belongings, when his family just wanted everything sold cheap or thrown away because they didn’t like his friends.
The house.
Jello
Houseplants
Dried flowers
All of my glassware. Takes forever to wrap and I have way too much of it.
All the things that are left lying around after you think you’ve finished. I usually label it miscellaneous crapola.
@hotbiscuit
I have lots of boxes of crapola
I’m surprised books are even on the list. They are generally rectangular, so they pack very well, and a box full of books is very sturdy, so you don’t have to worry about putting things on top of it. They’re one of the easiest things to move.
Pianos are very difficult to move, as others have said.
I will also suggest that the worst things to pack and move are all of the things you need to finish cleaning/close out your old place. It’s last-minute, so you can’t pack it very well, and by the time you’re dealing with it you’re ready to be done, and there’s always more of it than you expect.
@Limewater You’re not wrong, but I think my books outweigh everything else in my house put together.⁽ᵖʳᵒᵇᵃᵇˡʸ ᵃⁿ ᵉˣᵃᵍᵍᵉʳᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ⁾
If your boxes are filled just right, you can stack them safely, but do they really count as sturdy? Not all books are the same size, so a lot of box crushing can happen (which is probably okay, but doesn’t allow for a tall stack of stuff).
And books are beastly heavy. You have to be careful what size boxes you get, and they rarely have any handles that will survive.
Ultimately, it’s not just the picking them up that’s the problem with moving them. There’s all the packing and unpacking. And searching for another book of just the right size to finish that box, or finding that one odd book that doesn’t fit in any of the existing boxes…
But ultimately I agree that a piano’s weight of books is a lot easier to move than a piano.
All the things. Moving sucks. Repeat entry for emphasis.
Pool table.
@walarney This is a very strong argument against owning a pool table. Someone I know had their job shift them to a different state twice just after buying a new pool table each time (“move yourself or take severance, your choice”) before they figured out that it would be a good idea not to buy a third. Their company has never moved them since.
@walarney @werehatrack
My friend moved sold her house with the pool table included (and a huge safe), bough a new house and what did the owners leave behind, a pool table.
Large items.
When I move I sell off everything and keep what I can fit in my car. Moving is much easier that way.
@kittykat9180 Just my tools would require at least an 8-foot trailer plus my Caravan, and I’d be running at about 50% over the gross weight rating for the brakes.
@werehatrack, I have one small tool box. I also move every few years, I’ve lived all over my home state as well as lived in 5 states (looking at a 6th now).
I have no interest in toting stuff all over the country.