Moving Apartments -- Part Deux

To follow up on a previous blog post about moving apartments, I would like to share some post-moving experiences with everyone. The previous post was written at the conclusion of finding an apartment and signing the actual lease -- whereas this one will be on the process of moving (e.g. physical transportation of objects) itself.

Succinctly, the process moving was a ridiculously horrible affair: it took about 11 hours to complete, measured from the time I started to move until I went to bed, and absolutely exhausting. The moving itself is made more ridiculous by the fact that our new apartment was approximately 1/2 mile away from our current one. I started moving around 5:30pm on Thursday and was not able to fall asleep until past 4:30am (yes, 4:30am) on Friday. All this was made worse by the fact that it was a Friday, which meant I had to go to work at 9am the next morning. Work on Friday was neither fun nor energetic.

Here are some highlights (more like "lowlights") of the moving experience itself:

• Walking about 50 yards and climbing a set of stairs to reach my new apartment. This may not seem like much but, when you are making multiple trips, it takes up much time and energy. This is made worse when moving large objects such as...
• ...a 32 inch HDTV. I made the foolish mistake to try pickup a free television on the same night as we moved. The TV itself was very nice: a like-new Sony Trititron, and a matching television stand. But both my roommate and I were pretty tired by the time we got to the television and, to make matters worse, our transportation vehicle (a Toyota Corolla) was too small for the task. We were extremely blessed that the listing person was kind enough to drive us.
• My roommate cut his ankle while moving the television stand (above bullet). And dragging the TV itself up the stairs was extremely exhausting.
• A friend of mine renting out a pickup truck for 3 hours, yet only making a single run for us. He arrived 1.5 hours late and refused to make another run, even though it was only .5 miles away. The important thing is we moved my gigantic mattress but I was very pissed off about how this turned out.
• Attempting to take an air conditioning unit from the apartment, but changing heart halfway out of pity. I intended to sell the thing to recoup some of the extra rent I had paid to the leasing guy.

As a result of the above experiences, I have a few other advice to add to my previous list:

• Do NOT try to pickup large items on your move-in night. As my encounter with the television showed, this is bad on two accounts. One, you will get really tired; two, it will take up a lot of time. It's tempting but your focus should be on completing the moving.
• Pack everything into boxes, especially things you may not think of. Although my own belongings were already packed into boxes, there were common kitchen items and bathroom items that I had ignored. This came back to bite me because it took a while to pack them too -- time that could have gone into moving.
• Eat plenty and stay hydrated throughout the process. Moving is physically demanding, especially if you are trying to do this yourself. I stayed hydrated due to the amount of left Gatorade I had, but food was another matter. I ate a small burger during moving -- and did not eat again until before going to bed.