We are moved in… What a journey!

Moving is a hassle, everyone knows that. You have to load up all your junk, transport it to another place and then sort it all out again. It is not a fun process but we all have to do it once in a while (or in our case every year) so you just learn to deal with it and you try to be smart about it. We tried really hard to be smart about, things worked out a bit screwy anyway though!

Our moving plan:

• Load the truck up and clean the old place 7/30/06.
• Finish cleaning up, get the keys to our new place, do the old place’s inspection and then begin moving things into the new place 7/31/06.
• Finish unloading stuff and begin unpacking the place 8/1/06.

We knew it was going to be physically hard, we got family to come by and help us, we scheduled the utility shut off and turn on for the same day, the mail was being forwarded we had the rental truck and come 7/31/06 we began the move.

I had my first day of camps that morning from 7am-1pm so I was off teaching while things were underway. We were freaking out about having to be out of our current place by noon that day so Nathan called the office to see if we could stay longer, they gave us till 4pm. Everyone continued loading things and cleaning the old place.

When I got home at 1pm I learned that the new landlord still had not gotten back to us about the key exchange. We then began freaking out about not hearing from the new landlord, we realized the new lease (with the landlord’s phone number) got packed in the wrong place and was now buried in the moving truck under oh at least 50 boxes and various furniture items. The computers were also packed away so we did not have any way of reaching the new landlord. We tried to dig through the moving truck to try and find the lease but that didn’t work too well. Nathan ended up going to the new landlord’s house to set up the key exchange and all that fun stuff.

We had to call the old apartment complex back to push back the walk through since the new landlord would not be available until after 4:30. They were nice enough to give us an extension till 5pm. We then finished cleaning up the place, packed the food and got everything packed into the truck and various other vehicles (including the cats). At 5pm the old landlord came to inspect the place. She assured us the cleaning and repairs were up to the standards and that we would get out $150.00 back but that they would not know about the $400.00 pet deposit we left until after the “black light guy” came through to check for urine on the carpets and walls. We are naturally irritated that we would not be present for the “black light test” but we are in a hurry about moving into the new place since our food and pets are waiting in the car for us. We hand over the keys and head over to the new place.

Our new landlord meets us at the new place with the keys. He had just changed the locks and patched a few things up. We looked around, talked with him a bit and begin moving things in. We discover that the power is not turned on yet but we figure it will get turned on soon, we called APS just to make sure though. They told us the power would be on by 7pm. A friend and ex-boss who is our house guest goes out to buy us taco bell for dinner while we wait for the power to come on and try to bring boxes into our dark home without tripping over other boxes.

At 7pm the power is still not on and it has gotten pretty dark and impossible to carry boxes through the dark house and up the stairs. We take a dinner break and call APS back. They tell us they have record of the power being turned on and that we should check the breakers and all that fun stuff. We verify that all the breakers are reset and turned back on again; nothing makes the power come on.

APS continues to insist that the power issue is due to something electrical in our place. We call up the landlord to verify that there is only one breaker box and that there isn’t anything else we could possibly reset to make the power come on. The landlord comes by to check the breaker box with us and confirms that everything is reset and on. Then the APS tech then asks us what color the tag is on the meter… We tell him it is red and he says “somebody didn’t do their job”.

Finally at 9pm an APS guy comes out to our place goes to the meter flips a switch and changes the tag on the meter.. The song Alleluia begins playing in my head and the power miraculously comes on!

Needless to say we were pretty exhausted at that point so we got things situated inside, locked the truck up and went to bed in our new home. Since then I have had two days to continue unpacking and situating the house.. We are noticing that we have way too much stuff and we have been trying to get rid of the unnecessary.

We posted a few free stuff listings on the web and in our community email lists. We are glad people came and took all our unnecessary things away. Things are looking better but are still pretty hectic. I am glad the moving and cleaning part is done and I can’t wait till everything is unpacked and put away. How is everyone else doing today??