If you’re considering moving to, from or near Slidell you need to be careful what moving company you choose.  This is not an idle decision.  Choosing a poor mover will leave you with problems far beyond moving day.  Your Slidell mover must provide careful, considerate service.  They must have their own packing supplies, the time and patience to do the job right, respect for your space and belongings and the experience to know how not to nick a door frame with your sofa.  This is why you need professional movers.

We’ve all got family that says they’ll help us move.  They want to show off their physical prowess, their moving expertise or maybe just get brownie points for letting you use their truck or driving the U-Haul.  You don’t want to hurt cousin Bruno’s feelings, but you don’t want to hurt your cabinet’s drawers, either.  Alright, let Bruno help: let him help us. We don’t mind the extra muscle and we’ll make sure you don’t need to call an EMT to help reattach Bruno’s shoulder and pride.

If there’s one warning to take away, consider those Slidell moving companies that pretend to be professional but leave you distressed to say the least.  Consider this review of one of our competitors.

Damaged Furniture and NO REPAIR??

By brian – Dec 31, 2009

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!! I hired S & S Moving to move a very heavy double vanity upstairs to my master bathroom. They sent three grungy kids to my home who didn’t seem to have a clue how to move a heavy piece of furniture. After about 20 minutes they decided to put my bathroom vanity on a furniture dolly and strapped it in. I had to instruct them to use blankets and/or towels (which I had to provide) to keep the metal dolly from scratching the furniture. They proceeded to move the piece upstairs. I couldn’t supervise the whole process because there was limited room on the stairs. It seemed to be moved successfully and I paid the $175 fee. I then went upstairs to gather the blankets and towels they had used to protect the furniture and discovered that they had been strategically placed over the top to conceal significant damage to one of the corners. Wood trim had been crushed and scratched by the weight of the piece. I called S & S Moving immediately and reported the damage. I was told that a furniture repair expert would be out to repair the damage withing a couple of days. I never heard back. I called again two days later and got a run around. I was told things like “He isn’t in today”, “He’s working from home”, “He’s gone for the day”, etc. It has been over a month and a dozen phone calls and no repair to my damaged furniture. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!

(maps.google.com)

Some moving company just have no ethics at all.  When I read this yelp review of U-Haul I literally shuddered. It’s for the Gretna U-Haul but it could apply Slidell or any other one.  There’s a reason U-Haul and other self-movers are the cheap choice. No customer service is right!

What should have been a 20 minute trek turned into a THREE HOUR + fiasco. Once I crossed the GNO bridge I saw that there was in fact a parade going by. I immediately called U-Haul and asked two employees if there was an alternate route to get to my destination. One of the employees told me to take a street that the parade was rolling on!!! Long story short I talked to at minimum 5 employees for an hour and no one, not even the manager, offered me an apology for the misinformation I was given.

I just have to comment on this. There is no way Nichol’s Moving would ever treat a customer this way – it’s unconscionable.  Even on Mardi Gras day, if you call Nichol’s you get top notch customer service.  As a bonus you don’t have to drive your own moving truck through a parade!

People who are moving in New Orleans often are amazed to find out how much a shotgun really holds.  (No, not that thing you take hunting.)  Those long, skinny shotgun houses don’t look that big from the front, but they go way back, and you’ve probably got a lot of wardrobes, pictures, and knick-knacks filling that space.  You’ve got your hands full with family and work.  How are you ever going to get it all packed up?

Relax.  You don’t have to do it yourself.

At Nichol’s Moving and Storage, we have packing options to fit anyone’s needs.  Let our moving pros pack your possessions properly.  We can pack up your whole house or just one closet.  Choose Kitchen Packing if you want us to take care of all those breakable glasses and dishes and leave the other rooms to you.  Our movers have the expertise to make sure your mirrors, artwork and china get to your new home intact.  We can even unpack the boxes for you at the other end.

If you’d rather do the packing yourself, we can help you there too.  Use your own materials, or save time and money by choosing one of our packing bundles.  You’ll get enough boxes, tape and paper to finish the job without a bunch of runs to the store.  Just don’t forget to label the boxes so you remember where they go!

From the North Shore to the West Bank, Nichol’s is your New Orleans area moving expert.  Let us make your move easy.

Okay, hotshot, you think you’re ready to move. All your clothes are packed in suitcases.  Your dishes are packed with care, in boxes marked “Kitchen” and “This End Up.”  Your paperwork is in a brightly colored binder, right there on the kitchen counter where you can grab it and go.  You’ve sent out your change of address forms, set up a date for the cable guy, and you’re all ready for the moving company.  But you still feel like you’re forgetting something.

You’re all ready to move your stuff, but are you ready to move yourself?

How are you getting to the new place?  If you’ve got a car, and you’re just going from Harahan to Metairie, you can just drive yourself.  But if you’re moving to Southeast Louisiana from far away, or you don’t have a car, this might take advance planning.  If you’re flying, plan your flights well in advance and leave yourself a little wiggle room for cancelled or delayed flights.  If you don’t have a car, see if you have friends who can drive you, or make room in your budget for taxi rides.

Make sure that you know where you’ll be staying during the move.  If you’ll be staying at your new house, it might take a while to get your bedrooms ready.  Consider bringing an air mattress with sheets and pillows.  Otherwise, find out if you can stay with friends or family, or reserve a hotel room.

It may take a while to get your cooking supplies unpacked, so be prepared for a few days of eating out or calling for takeout.  You can use Yelp or Google Maps to check out restaurant reviews in your new neighborhood, or just ask your new neighbors.  If your new house already has a fridge and a microwave, pick up some TV dinners and plastic forks from the store.

You don’t have to be exhausted from your move.  With a little preparation, and a little help from your friends at Nichol’s Moving and Storage, you can rest easy in your new home.

Moving in New Orleans or anywhere else can be a stressful experience, and it can be exciting too.  You’re trying to get everything ready to go, you’re amazed at how much stuff you really have, and you’re imagining how you’ll arrange everything in the new space.  It’s easy to get busy and distracted, but don’t forget to take care of the boring stuff too.

Make sure to take care of all of the relevant utilities: cable TV, electric, phone, water, gas, and Internet.  If you’re moving within the same service area, you may be able to simply transfer your service to the new address.  If not, you will need to arrange to get your deposits back and set up new accounts.  You may need to bring your lease or deed to set up service.

You can file a change of address with the Postal Service online, or just pick up a form at any post office.  You will still need to tell others your new address: your employer, your bank, your friends and family, and any newspapers or magazines you subscribe to.  If you have homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, you will have to change that over as well and you may want to ask about rates on your new home.

If you’re moving to a new town, like from Treme to Thibodaux, return any library books you have checked out.  If your children will be attending a different school, be sure to get their records from the old school and enroll them at the new one.

You may want to keep important documents in a special binder, so you know just where they are instead of digging through a dozen boxes just to set up your electric service.  Don’t let your move get derailed because you left your lease in Luling.

Don’t feel like throwing things away?  Don’t want to rent a dumpster or U-Haul to move your junk?  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and you’ll be surprised at all the organizations that will come to your home and get rid of the stuff you don’t want.

Pack up everything you DO want – see previous posts for our philosophy of what that really is – and then call goodwill, habitat for humanity, churches, etc.  There are lots of needy people in and near New Orleans who will be happy to have what you can give.  Tell them to come on buy and take whatever they may need.  Before you know it all you’ll have left will be your packed up boxes and a few things you can probably throw in the trash bin.

Is someone moving in to your old home already, or moving in next door?  Find out who it is and ask them if there’s anything you can leave for them.  You may not feel like keeping that half empty bottle of bathroom sanitizer but they’ll probably be happy to use it to get rid of your germs.  If they’re moving in next door before you’re moving out you might even be able to barter pasta, cleaning supplies or what have you for boxes and packing material as they discard them.  Everyone wins!

OK, the moving trucks are empty and your new home is full of boxes.  You’ve traded your old keys for new ones and it’s time to relax!  Right?  Wrong.  You didn’t plan ahead, and now what could have been a stress-free first-night campout in your new home has become a night of toil.

If your going 5 miles, 50 or 500, there are a few things that you need to do to make the first few nights in a new home easy.  You want to make sure you have all the stuff you need for two or three days of camping:

• Toiletries for everyone
• Music, preferably battery operated.
• Easy food: pop-top cans, water bottles, things you like to eat unheated and do not require refrigeration
• Kitchen utensils and dishes (no use bringing food you can’t eat!)
• Cleaning supplies of all kinds: Rubber gloves, sprays, soaps, glass cleaner, scrub brushes, johnny mops: you do not know what you’ll find when you start living somewhere, and you do not want to lay your toothbrush in someone else’s bathroom no matter how fastidious they were.
• Batteries.  Lots of batteries.
• Clothes.  It should go without saying, but you need to be dressed at some point.  Bring a few changes to last until laundry gets sorted out.  Make sure these are appropriate for where you’re moving to not from.  If you’re moving to New Orleans from the north, pack lighter clothes.
• Sheets, blankets, pillows, assorted bedding.

And make sure you call ahead to turn on the electricity and gas or oil.  It might take a little longer to activate than you think.

You never truly realize how much stuff you’ve accumulated until it’s time to move.  Packing, hauling, unpacking a reorganizing all that stuff can be overwhelming, even if the move is just from Slidell to Houma.  Solution?  Toss the rubbish and keep the rest.

Why waste time and gas on something you don’t really want?  Why waste space in your New Orleans apartment with something you squirreled away a year ago and never use?  Moving anything you don’t love or need is just plain pointless.  Here’s how to solve the problem:

1. Make three piles in each room:
   1. Keep
   2. Toss
   3. Sell
2. Separate all the items in that room into those three piles.  For those items it doesn’t make sense to pile up, use color-coded stickers, tape or markers.
3. Take all the stuff in the ‘toss’ pile and decide whether you’re going to donate it, put it on the curb and place a ‘curb alert’ on craigslist or just junk it.
4. Proceed with packing that room, then move on to the next one.

It might seem like a lot of extra work when moving is already a lot of work, but just tossing everything in the truck and hauling it to Shreveport will eventually cost you a lot more sweat.  If you don’t feel like taking the time and doing it right, do this: rent a dumpster and go through everything in your home.  Ask yourself, “When was the last time I used this?” “Do I need this? Do I love it?  Will I end up buying a new one, anyway?”  Decide that you’ll commit to throwing away the things you can’t really justify keeping.  You’ll be surprised how addictive it is, and you’ll love how much gas, space and time you end up saving.

Tip 4.2?  Use see-through trash bags.  You don’t want to pack everything up before leaving Metairie and then accidentally throw out the bag with your clothes and keep the bag with your old, rotting produce.  Use transparent, sturdy plastic bags for things you don’t want to box up so you can tell what’s in them at a glance.