Dorm move in woes...

Parent Cafe
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<p>I moved in today, in 90 degree weather. I’m a sophmore so no massive move ins (freshman move in all at once, and were at their required orentation, thus the dorms were a ghost town).</p>

<p>It started out fine, went got the key, found that the room had been cleaned top to bottom (!!!) and not a speck of dust to be found. We were expecting to have to do some cleaning.</p>

<p>Brought a few loads up and my mom offered to set up the stand (for microwave and frig) while i went to the FA office to check if everything was okay.</p>

<p>I came back from my hike (hill to the office is really steep) to find that our salvation from this heat, the fan, was a dud… a $30 fan… you’d think it would be worth what it cost.</p>

<p>So we got the rest of the stuff up (whilst dying in the heat), and ran off to lowes (sp?) to get another, as the other is going back to the store. Picked up a nice 18 inch cyclone fan for $22. It moves alot of air too.</p>

<p>Saw mom off then came back to my room to finish unpacking and such. Went to set up the lamp (had to get a new one), and i thought the bulb was in my hand. I hear a tinkle like sound, looked down and found that it flew out of my hand and onto the floor, smashed to bits. </p>

<p>I cleaned up the mess and went off to find my spare, only to find that the spare did not work…</p>

<p>I decided then and there that it was best if i didn’t go out for the rest of the night…</p>

<p>So, do you guys have any move in stories to share?</p>

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<p>The ultimate move-in story:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/385663-moving-story.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/385663-moving-story.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>God love Curmudgeon. I know I do!</p>

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<p>D arrived at school today expecting all her stuff, which had been stored by the on-campus UPS facility over the summer, to be waiting for her in the dorm package room. It wasn’t. By the time the package room opened, the UPS facility had closed, so she’s sleeping on sheets borrowed from her roommate sans pillow and will be at the on-campus UPS office when it opens in the morning. She’s terrified that all her worldly possessions have just disappeared. Me too!</p>

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<p>Updating my own post—The UPS store is closed till Monday. Oh my.</p>

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<p>My D was away for study abroad last fall, so did not move into the dorm until January. Her room was a MESS!!! Although she had a small “stick” vacuum, the carpet needed a more powerful vacuum (not to mention a carpet shampooer …). Guess what? No vacuums at the dorm desk … RA’s have them, and they weren’t on campus yet. I sent my H & D away while I cleaned the room top to bottom with Murphy’s Oil Soap, noted every single issue with the walls, etc so D & her roommate wouldn’t get charged, and vacuumed with the small vacuum several times over (emptying it MANY times!). When I moved the beds away from the heater, the front fell off. The tabs holding it on were broken … another thing to note.</p>

<p>Hours later, the room was liveable (and I was livid). The dorm is NOT cheap, and I expected that it would be cleaned before move-in. I felt we should have been warned if cleaning over holiday break wasn’t going to happen & vacuum cleaners would not be available. We could have packed extra cleaning supplies.</p>

<p>I did communicate with the housing director a couple weeks later (when I could be calm & rational), and I was pleased with his response. It was a nerve wracking move-in, just the same. I kept muttering, “We don’t live like pigs at our house, and I don’t appreciate paying for something that isn’t clean to begin with.”</p>

<p>Nowhere near as entertaining as curm’s story, I know … but it’s my small contribution to the world of move-in woes.</p>

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<p>90 Degrees? We’ll take that.</p>

<p>D is moving into her dorm in Austin today. The temperature is supposed to be 101 with a heat index of 105. She is on the 3rd floor.</p>

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<p>I haven’t moved in yet this year, but last year was interesting. I have repressed the specifics, but I know I was up at 5am the night before sobbing so hard my teeth were chattering, covered in vanilla frosting, and refusing to leave the house in the morning if we didn’t find my camera charger. Eventually my mom woke up to help me. I got about 20 minutes of sleep and was so fried the next day when I moved in that I got sick. My dad spent at least half an hour yelling at me because he didn’t like how I had chosen to arrange my furniture, my parents got like four separate parking tickets, and the first thing that happened when I walked in the door was the director of my hall started yelling about how I am an awful neighbor because my fridge wasn’t legal and I was going to knock the power out, even though she was completely wrong and my fridge was fully within university specifications and I never knocked the power out at all. I think I cried, I don’t remember.</p>

<p>I am hoping this year will go more smoothly! IN THEORY we know how to not get parking tickets, I am already packing a week in advance, I am baking brownies this year to bring with me and NOT vanilla frosted sugar cookies, and I’ll live on the ground floor which will make my dad less irritable. The only thing I have to worry about is that it’s possible my university lied and my room is 10x6, not the 10x12 I was told it was and planned for when I purchased furniture for this year-- and it is likely I don’t have a closet. Disaster waiting to happen.</p>

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<p>MommaJ: :eek: How can the UPS facility be closed the weekend your college is moving in? And how can they not be coordinated with the dorm package room’s hours? geez…</p>

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<p>It’s over 30 years since I had to move into a dorm, but all four years at my undergrad, I had to move in in the rain …</p>

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<p>Not my woe on move in day, but…walking over to S’s bookstore, encountered group (parents & kids) staring off in same direction. When we asked what was going on, they pointed to a man and woman in a parking lot some yards away. The couple was screaming and throwing bags and suitcases back and forth at each other. Quite a spectacle, I kid you not! C’mon folks…move in is a pain for all, and we were all hot, tired and sweaty, but sheesh, get a grip!</p>

<p>We all were hoping their kid was on the other side of campus and not witnessing them…</p>

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<p>Lafalum, the package room opened at 5:30 pm on Friday (crazy, right?), and by the time D figured out her stuff wasn’t there, the UPS place had closed. As she said, “This could only happen to me.” Luckily her roommate had an extra pillow and sheets, and all her summer clothing had been shipped from home earlier this week and arrived on time. Also luckily, she had ordered all her toiletries from Drugstore dot com (and they had arrived on schedule), so she is managing fine–just has no desk stuff, no bedding, no decorative items, no hangers–can’t set up her room. The winter clothing can certainly wait–it’s brutally hot there now. And then today she told me that one of the boxes that was shipped from home, the one that had all her shoes and a few text books she had purchased over the summer, doesn’t seem to be in the package room, although UPS shows it as delivered. I thought we had saved ourselves a lot of wear and tear by storing/shipping everything and having her travel home and back to to school by train instead of driving her both ways, two round trips of 5 hours each way. Now I’m not so sure…</p>

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<p>My S is moving in on the 2nd (rising freshman). He told me yesterday that my ex wants to tag along to ‘help’.</p>

<p>I’m trying to figure out a way to weasel out of that without ticking him off (the ex - my S understands)</p>

<p>Him tagging along would be him showing up at my house and making the 3 hour drive with us in my van. (because he says his car won’t make it). Having him micromanage and criticize every aspect of the move in. And then me having to share the drive back. </p>

<p>If I can’t manage to get out of it, be sure to check the Boston area news over Labor Day weekend for coverage - ‘Boston area man tossed from highway overpass - details at 11’</p>

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<p>martina … Do not weasel. Just say NO. No excuses needed. If he wants to help move S in, YAY, we will see you at the dorm then! S will call you with the time to meet up at the curb of the dorm. Because we do not want to read News at 11 Mom’s head explodes…</p>

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<p>I love you guys! I feel so much better about our (minor, but huge at the time) move-in experiences.</p>

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<p>D doesn’t move in till the end of the week but my sophomore year move-in was the worst. Was so excited to get to school to live with my good friend. Flew to college, taxi to dorm, lug bags up the stairs, get to the room and see luggage there. Check the tag. It’s not my friend’s!!! Go find a phone to call her house (pre-cell phone days!) and her mother says, “Didn’t you know that XXXX is not going back to college this year?” WHAT!!! Another year of a dud roommate. Strangely, XXXX came back to school senior year. Never got the full/real story. We guessed there was drug rehab involved… we still refer to her as the “phantom.”</p>

<p>D doesn’t have a roommate, is on the first floor and her dorm has A/C. I’m sure it will be hot; just hope it doesn’t rain…</p>

<p>Martina: Show ex this thread about dads on move-in day. If he can read what it’s like, he may change his mind.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/763600-tips-dads-move.html?highlight=dad+move-in[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/763600-tips-dads-move.html?highlight=dad+move-in&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>A/C?!?! :eek: no fair!</p>

<p>It rained on move out last semester, what fun that was.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the link Linymom, and the support esobay.</p>

<p>I hadn’t really thought to bring tools, and I <em>will</em> be making the bed. Actually, I will have him make it with me, so if he decides to change the sheets over the course of the semester, he’ll have seen how once.</p>

<p>As for the ex, I think I’m just going to be vigilant about screening calls between now and then. And just say no, if I get cornered.</p>

<p>My S mentioned something about bed risers…does anyone do that and have any advice?</p>

<p>edit: I googled and found things that raise the bed a few inches for storage - it sounded like he was thinking of something more dramatic, like making it into a loft bed :confused:</p>

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<p>Martina99, many colleges have beds that can be lofted, all the parts for that should be in the room waiting for you.</p>

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<p>Thanks Lafalum84. I just googled around, and it looks like they are loftable. I will tell S to hold off on the bed risers :)</p>

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<p>Moving to my first apartment is something that my mother and I still talk about today, especially as she is moving my brother in to HIS first apartment this weekend.</p>

<p>Since I had three big boxes that needed to be shipped, I had to pack them up and get them ready. My mother wanted them shipped out by Wednesday so they would arrive in Ann Arbor by Saturday. Well, at least the box that contained all the bedding (including sheets and pillows) had to go out first. The other two boxes were kitchen stuff and some random room decorating stuff.</p>

<p>So I drove over to UPS with that box. I asked about delivery timing. It was 4:00 at that point. He said that all boxes, if I wanted them definitely in Ann Arbor by Saturday, had to be shipped out by 5. Wait, you mean if I bring back the other boxes tomorrow, then won’t get in by Saturday? If you bring them in tomorrow, they don’t get shipped out until 5. Meaning a Monday delivery.</p>

<p>Oh…</p>

<p>I frantically called my mom, who was already on her way home, to help me move the other two boxes and explained what was going on.</p>

<p>We do get the boxes to UPS in time for 5 PM ship-out.</p>

<p>We make it to my new apartment on Saturday. We get a notice from UPS that the truck guy would get to my place anywhere between 3 to 5. Oh fantastic, we have to wait around because we have to sign off the boxes. (Because it is in an apartment complex). We did as much as we could in the morning with BB&B shopping and what nots. By 3 PM, we got to the apartment. Waited. Waited. Waited. Waited. And oh, the bed people delivered the mattress. Great, we have a bed to sleep on!</p>

<p>Seriously, our plan was to stay in the hotel overnight Friday and stay in the apartment for the rest of the move-in.</p>

<p>So no pillows or comforter? We become uneasy even though we did have sheets. (My mom can’t sleep without a pillow) By 5 PM, my mom lost it. She called and yelled at UPS. Sorry, we didn’t make it in time. No Sunday deliveries. Not good.</p>

<p>Not to mention that as we began unpacking on Sunday, we discovered that there were other things IN those boxes that we could’ve used for cooking, like a pot! And 2 (unbreakable plastic) plates to eat food off.</p>

<p>Essentially, we had to wait until TUESDAY before the boxes arrived. In terrible condition. They looked like they had been smashed. Thankfully nothing broke but I was certainly unhappy with the shipping abuse.</p>

<p>I think from there on, we shopped trusting UPS with moving boxes.</p>