Sorry I've not Shlogged for a few weeks. I've been moving house - which, as it turns out, is what this weeks Shlogg is all about!
I posted a while back about the rental market. Mainly about the fact that every rental property you want is already taken before the advert even comes out. Certainly, this still holds true. Mostly. The house that myself and my 'significant other' finally settled upon, after four months of searching was so new to the market that the agent hadn't even listed it. We viewed it a few hours after the agent got the keys, and said "Hell Yes!" to it before lunchtime was over.
I say this is 'mostly' true, because this property had in fact been listed by a different agent for several months. We had seen the advert and ruled it out for several reasons - not least of which was the fact the rental was too high. As it happens we were able to negotiate the rent to a level that all parties where satisfied with. That and a bit of creative thinking on our part (where to put the drum room!?) and we nailed it.
First a bit about the property itself.
I think it's fair to say it's our dream house. It's on the outskirts of Maidstone ('our' town), close enough to the main road to ensure fairly easy car journeys and decent facilities (gas, broadband, transport), but far enough away that we don't avoid stepping outside our front door for fear of being collected by a speeding lorry. It's also quite literally on the banks the of River Medway, and an outstanding water view was something very high on our wish list.
We definitely nailed it.
Anyway, pleasing views and second floor drum rooms aside, what I wanted to warn you about is the actual move itself.
Our move was fairly complex. My other half lived in a second floor flat. That's six flights of stairs. She had been there for a year, so a pretty typical collection of furniture, sofas, etc but not a decade's worth of collectormania.
I lived in a ground floor apartment. Again I had been there for enough time (18 months) to collect all the usual essential bits & bobs, but not enough time to have every loft space, garage and dusty corner filled with clutter which needs moving.
So we decided to move ourselves.
My other half had a definate 'get out of Dodge' date, so we concentrated on boxing and packing her stuff first - after all, my clutter could follow-on at our leisure. When moving day came along, we figured we had over half of her stuff neatly boxed-up, carried down the (did I mention 6 flights?) stairs and stacked-up at my place. We were probably right, but we didn't fully grasp just how much stuff was left to shift on moving day, nor did we realise the time and pain impact of the (6 flights - 6 flights FFS!) stairs.
We did the move, but it was extraordinarily painful.
One full day for four people to move half a flat's worth of stuff into a house.
What this gave us, was a lovely big house that we could barely get into, due to the massive amount of furniture and boxes clogging-up the ground floor. It would take us two more weeks (9 days of which were vacation days!) to pack and move my own gear in. I'm sure it will be months before the last box is emptied and everything is in the right place.
So the moral of this story.
Unless you're moving into your first place, or you really do live like a monk, don't try and do your own move. There are professionals out there who, for a small fee, will pack-up everything you own, magically transport it to a new location, and even put every box and piece of furniture into the correct room for you.
Don't be a tight-arse. Let the pro's do their jobs!
Now, back to completing all those half finished Shloggs I have backed-up ... ;-)
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