This week on Outside the Box, the TSI team is welcoming Sam from Abodo. Abodo has been used by more than 7,000,000 renters to browse, filter, and tour apartments in cities across the United States, with listings from over 300 cities.
You and your partner are known as DIY superstars. You remodeled your kitchen and put in a new backyard. Your attic was unused, so you turned it into an office, and you take care of almost all of the repairs in your home without having to call any techs. Now you have to do a 1,500-mile move, and although you think you can handle anything, this is one time you should call the cross-country moving pros. Here are eight reasons why:
1. Peace of Mind
Doing a DIY cross country move isn’t just a matter of making a to-do list and packing boxes. You have to figure out where you’re going to get a truck, how big it has to be, how you are going to secure items in the truck, how you will protect them, and most importantly, how you are going to get big and bulky items into the truck. If you hire professional movers, you will not have to worry about any of this.
2. Reliability
Whether you’re moving from a suburban home in Los Angeles to a cheap Pittsburgh studio apartment or anywhere in between, Craigslist can be a great resource for many vendors, tradesmen, and techs. But above all, you need reliability when it comes to a cross-country move, and Craigslist isn’t exactly renowned for its reliability. It takes a lot of preparation to even get to moving day, and having movers arrive late or not at all can be your worst moving nightmare. With certified professional movers, you won’t have to be concerned about reliability, since pros consider that job number one.
3. Safety
Search the Internet for comments about DIY cross-country moves, and you’ll find some disturbing info with advice like:
- Consider driving all night so you can park your truck during daylight hours only.
- Always park where you can back your truck up to all walls so no one can break in through the liftgate.
- Never stay in a hotel or motel that is not on the interstate.
With pro movers, the security problems are theirs, and if something does happen, well-vetted moving companies will carry insurance to take care of your losses.
4. Accountability
It’s important to know where your stuff is, and a good pro moving company will have an excellent tracking system that you can likely access online. You won’t have to wonder where your belongings are at any given moment because professional movers understand that you demand good tracking capabilities.
5. Lifting
You remodeled your kitchen and carried 15 sheets of drywall inside from the truck. Those 5-gallon paint buckets weren’t light either, but you had no problem with them. It wasn’t fun to push that overloaded dumpster full of construction debris down the driveway to the street, but it was no sweat.
If you’re halfway up the basement steps with a heavier-than-you-could-ever-imagine stove balanced on your knee and you get that maxed-out muscle feeling, however, you’ve got an issue. You may think you are superman or superwoman, but you haven’t seen the lifting challenges that pro movers have, and you certainly do not want to be the guy-gone-viral at the foot of the basement steps crushed by a washing machine.
6. Inventory
If you do a DIY move, you are going to have to purchase insurance on the items that you are moving, and you need to somehow record everything. Yes, you can video your belongings, but you will still need a written description for the insurance company. If you hire professional movers for your cross-country excursion, they will inventory everything, and they will have the proper systems to properly and efficiently record all information.
7. Speed
Ok, you may be an efficient worker and you know how to get things done. That’s fine, until you get the freezer stuck in the doorway and you have to dismantle the door frame along with the freezer door handle just to get the appliance outside. Pro movers know which items are going to cause trouble, and they plan ahead so that they can load things up as quickly as possible.
8. Minimizing Damage
What are the amateur mover’s famous last words?
“That ain’t going anywhere!”
A hastily and illogically packed truck is an invitation for a mess, or even an accident, as a shifting load can cause your rented vehicle to quickly spiral out of control. Loading a moving truck is a job for professionals that have a plan before they begin to place items in the truck. It’s not fun to open your liftgate after the completion of your DIY move only to find a jumbled and broken mess.
If you want to try a DIY cross-country move, that’s admirable, but we urge you to consider professional movers for all of the eight reasons listed above.
Long distance moving you can trust
TSI specializes in long distance small moves.
About the Author: Sam Radbil is the content manager and a contributing author at ABODO. Sam previously worked as a content and media specialist at an Austin, Texas software startup. He has a Bachelor's degree from St. Cloud State University and a Master's degree in strategic communication from American University in Washington, D.C.
