<p>I looked at all of the listings on Craigslist and my head just spun. Where do I even begin? I will be moving things from my mother’s house about 3 hours away. Some are antiques.
Much is in pod like containers but they are not official PODS, so they will not move them. Help!!</p>
<p>If I were you, I would contact some antique dealers/retailers in your or her area, and see whom they use. Expertise in handling antiques is a specialty. That is what I have done in the past.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much you want to do yourself, but as I was walking through town today I saw 2 of these trailers parked in people’s driveways (2 different houses) and I thought, what a brilliant idea!! They bring a trailer/container to your home and leave it in your driveway. Then you fill it with your stuff. I suppose you could hire some help to do that. Then they come and pick up the container and bring it to your new location. I think they will also store the container if that’s what you want to do with your stuff. What a concept! They solve 2 problems at once. Moving yourself is such a pain to actually drive the Uhaul van from point A to point B. And self storage is a pain to actually get your stuff to the storage location. </p>
<p>Anyway, I only just heard about this firm today because I saw the containers today. If you want a company that comes and packs your stuff and moves it and unpacks it, I don’t think this is for your. </p>
<p>The company is 1800packrat and of course the website is 1800packrat dotcom</p>
<p>We’ve had to move our household 8 times in 25 years (meh, clergy), although some of these were within the same city, but whole-house moves. </p>
<p>Whenever we’ve tried to pack fragile things ourselves, we don’t do it as well as the professional movers who pack. They have the proper boxes and stuffing materials. I notice they always do the glass, paintings and antiquities first.</p>
<p>They have double-weight boxes that aren’t soggy on the bottom from holding lettuce. They know to stuff around antiques lightly with paper or popcorn and not go sandwiching things into blankets, which are only heavy. They have boxes that are uniform, so stack into trucks tightly…unlike the many sized liquor boxes we still use to use to move books and pack ourselves.</p>
<p>It is very nervewracking to move antiquities. My H collects biblical archeology, and one time we had a guy drive up in a motorcycle, very Hell’s Angels in appearance, to pack everything fragile. My H took him over to the cabinet and sat him on the floor so he could hold one of them. He said, “There, you know that one comes from the time of King David” and the guy held it, cradled in his lap. Then he traded for another one and said, “That’s from the time of Jesus” and the man started to cry. When he recovered, he was the most careful packer we ever encountered. </p>
<p>You can certainly have movers over to give estimates, and seek the one who indicates they’ll control who’ll be the packer. Some of these are small operations where you can make such a personal request. We were supposed to have the wife of the moving company boss one time, but she got sick and sent someone else who did fine. Point is, they were aware that we had more than just a cabinet full of stemware.</p>
<p>Check on the kind of insurance they offer, too.</p>
<p>Maybe come up with a rubric and do some phone interviewing, ask 3 to come for estimates, and see if anyone sounds okay to you.</p>
<p>The real fact is, there’s not much difference between packing an antiquity and packing an unwieldly glass lampshade from l970. It just goes into a big, proper professional box with the right popcorn poured all around it.</p>
<p>When you contact antique dealers in your area looking for references to moving companies, you might want to say that when the items arrive, you would also like to have the dealer give you estimates on the value of the items because you are thinking of selling some of them.</p>
<p>This way, the dealer will be motivated to recommend someone who can do a good job, rather than his unemployed brother-in-law who happens to own a truck. </p>
<p>You can always change your mind later and decide not to sell the stuff. ;)</p>