All The Right Moves

Sun Herald

Sunday September 3, 2006

David Wilson

Take the angst out of moving house by avoiding the cowboy removalists, David Wilson writes.

LOOKING back, he was too cheap. For payment, the amateur removalist I hired accepted only my dated hi-fi system, some books and CDs, and $50.

When the day of the move rolled up, the dreadlocked cowboy arrived an hour late, then raised his eyebrows when I grumbled. For fear of seeming uptight, I didn't complain again.

He duly took me around the neighbours' houses, asking old ladies for directions. We arrived at my new flat 70 minutes late. My landlady, a recovering schizophrenic, ground her teeth and stomped.

Privately raising his eyebrows, my removalist described her as "really intense", then skimped on lifting boxes in favour of lighting cigarettes. After an eternity, when the job was finally over and he sailed off, I cowered with my cat in my room, doomed never to salvage relations with my landlady.

Finding a reliable firm

To prevent a nightmare like mine when moving house, consider choosing a removalist accredited by the Australian Furniture Removers Association (AFRA) or visit the planning page of the company website (www.afra.com.au/Planning/planning.asp) to see a members' list.

Getting on that list is hard, says Viv Hanley, the executive director of AFRA.

"To become a member of the association, every company has to go through an audit of competency, financial security, correct advertising and paperwork, and staff training, among other things," he says.

"They also have to post a financial bond, which is an added commitment from the company to adhere to their code of conduct," he says, adding that if you do not choose an AFRA member, you have no safety net.

If a non-member bungles, you will then have to contact the Office of Fair Trading.

When disaster strikes

Echoing Hanley, Scott Guerin, the managing director of AFRA-accredited Bow Tie Removals, sums up the benefits of hiring professionals in one word: "Insurance." It's the soundest protection in the event of a disaster.

Guerin lists the big three as public liability insurance, carriers' liability insurance and workers' compensation insurance.

He says insurance is the chief reason a professional team usually costs at least $40 an hour more than the Dodgy Brothers.

Moving costs are dependent on a range of variables. "It will always depend on the access. If you're on the ground floor and we can park a truck at the front door and it's the same thing at both ends, then it's a lot cheaper than for someone who's on the third floor or the 20th floor of an apartment block."

The ball-park figure he gives for a simple, inner-city move (ground floor) is $500 to $1000. If there's awkward access, you could pay as much as $2000 for the same move.

"The issue is that every client who rings us wants a ball-park figure, but there isn't one," he says. "We have actually charged a client close to $15,000 for moving the contents of a two-bedroom unit because of how much she had crammed in there, how bad the access was and how long it took us: four days.

"That includes packing and moving it. It just took forever - we had six guys on it every day and she was literally around the corner."

The flipside, he says, is that under ideal circumstances, you can move a four-bedroom house for $1000. Either way, he warns, be wary about paying less than the benchmark figure of $70 per man per hour.

Cheap, but not cheerful

If you choose the cheapest removalist around, you could land in deep trouble, Hanley says. He condemns the naivety of those who entrust their possessions to a removalist with no paperwork. "And then they ring us; they tell us that it was a white truck with a mobile and now it doesn't answer. But it was cheap."

Even if you do not lose belongings through theft or breakage, you might find that a cowboy takes forever to do a job that a pro could finish in an hour. Time and again, you hear the tale of a customer who agrees to a cheap hourly rate from a removalist who gives a rough, wildly optimistic estimate of how long the job will take.

Because the removalist is raw, the operation takes doubly long. The customer stands by helplessly as the hired hands huff and puff, clumsily negotiating stairs and doorways.

Two mates and a ute

If, to cut costs even more than you would with a cowboy, you are considering hiring a ute and enlisting the help of a couple of mates, forget it.

"If you can avoid it, then don't do it yourself," says Phil Ridden, the author of a relocation guide called Let's Move! (www.moving.iinet.net.com.au). "By all means," Ridden says, "do your own packing but get professionals to do the heavy lifting".

Hanley agrees. He describes the DIY tack as hard work and high risk. Beware of injuries from lifting and the possibility of falling out with your mates in the wake of the upheaval.

The upside of doing it yourself, Hanley says, is that you can save a fortune. Hiring a ute for a day only sets you back about $70 - plus the cost of a slap-up meal and a sixpack or two.

You might also want to include the cost of insurance. The price varies sharply, depending on a slew of factors, but if you live in Sydney you will be lucky to pay less than $250. For a quote, go online and see www.removalsinsurance.com.au.

Cutting clobber

Before you start packing, prune ruthlessly. Eradicating old clutter in a feng shui spirit feels liberating. Resist the temptation to cling.

My mother tried to shoehorn the contents of her three-bedroom house into a two-bedroom flat. Now her home resembles an adventure playground - the only way to get from the bathroom to the kitchen is by clambering over sofas, pouffes and stools dotted around like stepping stones.

Open one cupboard and, as they say, the horse bolts from the stable. Fail to step back and you are struck in the chest by an ironing board, and then on the head by an avalanche of photograph albums.

The easiest way to kill clutter is to donate it to the Salvation Army. Salvos information line operator Katie Little says: "We take any kind of items except dishwashers. We can't take bed bases without the mattresses. But if it's in good condition, we can take pretty much everything."

The Salvos offer a pick-up service - book three weeks in advance to be safe.

If you're not hiring experts but want to pack professionally, you can get professional packing boxes from any removal firm at about $4 a throw. Bear in mind that the cost can stack up. For tips on professional packing, AFRA offers a free moving guide kit.

Under lock and key

Should you decide to sink stuff into storage, a removal firm offering space is the best option if you know you will keep your gear locked up until a certain date, Hanley says.

The reason: you pay only for the cubic metres you use, whereas with a storage specialist, you pay for all the space in your unit whether you use it or not. But, if you find that you change your mind and need to retrieve items before the date rolls up, the firm might refuse access or charge a fee for it. If there's any danger of that scenario unfolding, you might be better off using a storage specialist instead, which should not cost you too much. Kings Storage in Bomaderry on the NSW South Coast charges $110 a month for the use of a three-metre by three-metre shed. Otherwise, renting a small storage cage from one of the many city specialists starts from about $80 a month.

Storing whitegoods

You can store whitegoods as long as you like if you prepare them properly. Remember to anchor the motor mechanism within a washing machine before removal. "There are more damages caused by failure to do this than any other single thing," Hanley says, adding that securing the motor is not the removalist's responsibility.

To help ensure that your fridge does not start to smell, wipe the inside with vanilla essence. Leaving the door ajar also helps.

Stress reduction

When things go wrong, bear in mind advice from Dr Sarah Edelman, a psychology lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney.

"Human beings have a strong preference for order and control," she says. "We become anxious when we are in a messy, chaotic environment or when we don't feel in control.

"Moving house by necessity requires us to live with a degree of chaos for a period of time. Many people are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, and the number of things that they need to organise."

She says that, even when you enlist a good firm, moving house means plenty of grind. To reduce the strain, plan: write a to-do list and follow through.

Don't rule out input from friends altogether.Take up offers to help on the day, but be specific with instructions.

Finally, accept some disorder because resistance is useless. And be realistic.

"Don't assume that a new house is going to make a new life for you," Ridden says. "A different house doesn't make you a different person with a different life.

"Some people try shifting to a new house thinking that their whole world will be different from here on - and of course it isn't."

Who to contact Australian Furniture Removers Association 1800 671 806 or www.afra.com.au Bow Tie Removals (02) 9311 4311 or www.bowtieremovals.com.au Salvation Army (02) 9264 1711 or www.salvos.org.au Kings Storage (02) 4422 1955 or www.kingsstorage.com.au

Courting disaster

Just about everyone has a relocation horror story to tell but just be glad you are not Ms L Furlong. At a NSW tribunal conducted earlier this year, the Sydneysider sued the removal firm Citymove for badly damaging some of her furniture during a move from Rozelle to Dee Why.

The firm had told her that the standard two men and a four-tonne truck would be adequate. However, as it transpired, the truck was too small, obliging two trips.

On one trip, the truck broke down in Mosman. Another truck was summoned and the furniture was moved onto the second truck.

Somewhere along the line, some bad handling must have occurred because, in the aftermath, a $3000 leather couch had a broken frame and a deep scratch in the headrest, among other injuries. Several chunks of stone were chipped from a $5000 marble dining table. A $1000 mirror was also chipped.

The judge said: "The respondent admitted in evidence that it is not the respondent's practice when loading goods onto its trucks to either cover them in blankets so that one item does not rub against the other or secure them by straps to the side of the truck."

The judge ordered the company to pay $6000 damages in accordance with its "We break it, we fix it" guarantee. Not bad, but doubtless the claimant still feels sore.

© 2006 Sun Herald

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