Shipping the household

I shipped the car on Tuesday. The usaautosystems.pl representative could not guarantee a specific date for pickup, so I gave them a range between Monday 03 and Friday 07. They called me on Monday that someone will show up on Tuesday around noon. I got another call at 11 on Tuesday and at 12 the guy knocked at the door. What was susprising was the he didn’t know where he should he take the car to exactly. He also didn’t know what documents he should take from me. After a call or two the destination was cleared up, and I was pretty sure that only the title was needed.  He didn’t give me any official receipt, just wrote a couple of words on a sheet of paper. I checked his driver’s license if it agreed with what he wrote and gave him the keys. He loaded the car on a trailer with two other ones that were already there. All that was in a typical Polish improvisation style – the guy was Polish. He was even planning to make a similar move later this year, so we chatted a little bit why one would want to do something like that. I felt less crazy after that.

The movers – one older guy and three kids less that 20 years old came on Thursday at about 8:30 a.m. The company contracted for the job was called New England Household Moving and Storage. They were done at about 2 p.m. Everything went fast, I would say too fast. They packed a couple of things we didn’t want them to pack. They packed a shelf with some opened bottles of of olive oil that for sure will drip unless they not too far from standing position. My wife tried to tell the older guy what to take and what is supposed to be left, but he was clearly annoyed that she was slowing him down, so she went upstairs to watch the other guys. The lesson is: before the move clearly separate things you do not want to be packed. Don’t plan on telling the movers what should be packed as they go.  They want to be done quickly and the simplest way to do that is just to pack everything they can see.

No documents were needed from us at packing and loading time. We got a copy of “Combined Uniform Household Goods Bill of Lading and Freight Bill”. This was created by the movers and had a list of all the boxes. I figure this is less important as the container is not unloaded until the customs in Poland, or perhaps the destination. When we were moving from California to Massachusetts  the boxes were loaded on an 18 wheeler with stuff that belonged to two other families. Accounting for all the boxes was much more important then.

The same day the person managing the move at Rainier Overseas sent me an e-mail to submit the inventory for insurance ASAP. Of course I didn’t see the the e-mail until today (Friday) as the movers had packed the charger for my laptop (not their fault, it was not where it was supposed to be). I bought the iGo universal charger for $99 at Radio Shack that fortunately is at a walking distance and I was back online. I am not sure if the insurance is mandatory, I responded that I decline the offer. I never insure things that I can afford to replace. All the stuff that we shipped is probably (financially) worth less that the cost of shipment.