I would like to say bye-bye to the readers of this site as it is highly possible that my site will be closed soon for a few years. If my new house buying ceremony will sail at the end of this month then I will most likely kill one or two workers who will be moving me. This will lead to a few years on jail from where I will not be able to support this site.

I have been taking with few moving companies and recognize that one is more moronic then another and I truly do not feel comfortable to trust them to move me. The rest of my non-audio object they can mode fine but with audio object I do have problems. I have heard many horror stories about movers. There are some items that will not trust anybody to move but and will do it myself but some of my things are insanely heavy and need to be handles by professional movers.

So, any of audio guys have any do and don’ts tips for moving of audio equipment by moving companies?

paul williams wrote:

Get two companies - one for the general household goods & one that specialises in piano's and the like - they are used to dealing with both difficult items & obsessive owners ;-) Other companies would be those that specialise in delicate industrial or medical equipment, there should be some in the phone book.

Well, I did interview people who “shall” care. I spoke with a few teams from our local Berklee College of Music. Then I have learned that besides a desire to do job it need be also an experience to move the things. I do not feel comfortable with semi-pro students, even if they claimed “did over 50 jobs”. To move a sofa across a bridge from Boston to Cambridge it is not the same as what I am planning to do.

I also interviewed the companies that specialize on the moving of “museum rarity”.  I was not impressed with them. They have theories of super packing the things but it is not what I looking. The pros are very confident about what they do but I do not give damn about their demonstration of own professionalism. Instead I am looking the movers who would be able to suppress own egos and follow my own instructions. I want them do not rush and I want them literally to ask me “HOW I WOULD LIKE” a given box or a given piece of equipment to move, before they even pick it up.

I very much do not deny the obsessive nature of my job, in fact it is how I present myself to the movers when I talked to them. But, hey, if I am WILLING to pay them for the explicitly SLOW move with insisting of multiple SLOW trips then do you think I have a point?

The problem with audio move is that movers do not know the specific of the items that they move and they need to ask how to move the items. I have no time to explain to them that Vibroplans might be lifted but when it is on ground then no sliding allowed. I do not want to explain to them that amps need to be lifted only from specific position and hands need to be applied only in a certain way. I am not will be able to explain to them that a given box has DHT tubes with very fragile 70 years old filaments and that a stress might not break the tubes but will shatter the heaters. I cannot explain to them that my LPs need to be cared in alphabetical order and that they are grouped by instrument of the concertos and by the name of performers. I will not be able to explain to them that tuners are aligned, have very fragile parts in them and a simple shaking of a tuner will drop the tuner sensitivity. I do not want to watch them how they put my equipment on floor – most of them lower it to an inch or two from floor then drop it….

There are silicon small things like this and I would like to make my own decisions HOW the things shall be moved. I would like be able to delegate my wish how to move the things and to insist that it will be followed.

Jessie, you know it is sometimes disgusting to read your posts. In some cases you write posts that are one to one with what I would write and if not correct spelling then I would swear that it was written by me. A few days back, talking with a guy and describing to him how I would like to have my move organized I used the same concepts and even the same words as you did.  I thigh that I am unique in my mania! My ego is hurt!

JJ Triode, yes, I am do not mind to give let say $100 per person extra to the movers if it assure that they will obey what I say. I am not sure however how to configure this agreement. I hate people who declare their intention of giving big tips if the job gone well. In my view that insults people who respect what they do. In my photography business when people tell me from the start that I will be getting a “big tip” I have a strong aspiration to walk out of the job. So, I do not want to shoot myself in foot by creepy flashing a promise of the “big tip”.

I recently spoke with people from Intelligent Moving Company. They are a small three-crew moving company located in Cambridge, MA.

http://www.intelligentlabor.com/

Interesting that after informing to the owner of the company my “demand” he did not find my demands idiotic (like others did). He even told me that if I do not remove tubes from my amps then I might damage the tube sockets during the move. After speaking with a number of other companies when people asked me “What does it mean thousands of LP records?” I feel very positive with this Intelligent Moving Company… Might be it would be it?

scooter,

actually this is something what I am planning to do: to have a few selected items that I will moive myself in my car and then let the rest to be move in by movers. The place is not far from Back Bay. It is West Woburn, right equidistant between Winchester, Lexington and Burlington- 30 minutes drive from Back Bay if no traffic. The box with tubes, the tuners, transport, box with tonearms, tweeters, phonostage (with very vulnerable air capacitors) I will load in my car and will drive very slowly myself. If to look slowly then there is not so many super vulnerable objects and they are not so heavy. I think the rest will do OK with good movers if I watch HOW they do it.

It was truly a horrifying night and I have no idea where it came from. I woke up absolutely broken with horrible pain in all body.  I presume that it was inspired by my two recent site post:

Romy the Cat wrote:

Last two week I was slowly playing with my analog setup. Since it will be more or less permanent setup, well as permanent as anything else in our life, I would like to do it once and never do it again.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I can only sympathies with Kevin, to move with all of it truly difficult…

… but why Baltimore?

This nigh I had a horrible dream that I need to move to Baltimore, Maryland? I woke up with disgust 20 times over this night and 20 times in my dream I return to unscrewing some kind of bolts and packing some household and audio things into moving boxes. When I woke up I felt great that it was not what I was doing but I knew that when I go back to sleep that this nightmare will come back to me. A truly ugly night and I am truly a certifiable psycho.

Leaving fun of being psycho aside I was searching in the darkest corners of my subconscious why it was Baltimore. I have absolutely nothing in common with Baltimore. I never was there. Well, I remember that when I drove to Washington DC, from Phila I did see Baltimore from Rt. 95 but it was about it. In the same way I saw many other US cities, so why Baltimore?