Moving and Packing Juice

Moving houses can be a big pain in the ass. It can be an emotional experience, but not always a sad one. You could be leaving a place in hopes of something new and exciting. Someone could be evicting you for being loud and annoying. Perhaps you just bought your first piece of real estate that you own and now you are really a grown-up.

OR you are me, and you just got rushed out of your apartment by a roommate that lives in her own world and can't be pinned down to commitment and a little Chinese couple that wants you out a day early. This type of moving is classified as "hectic and painful". One day may not seem too early, or like they are asking much. I would agree with you, had I had somewhere to go, or enough notice.

When I showed up to move on Tuesday afternoon, the landlords wife was already there moving my things out to the back yard. Impressive! I was being moved out and I had still paid to live there till midnight. I know the REALLY mature and civilized thing to do, is to arrange to move the last Saturday of the month.

That involves a LOT of coordinating with landlords and tenants for BOTH apartments. It gets REALLY tricky when there are people in the house before you get there. It gets really complicated when the house mate you live with is going traveling and packs two suitcases and goes, leaving behind a whole house full of clothes, toiletries, furniture and kitchenware. Its unfortunate that I had to remind her I wouldn't be dealing with this mess on her behalf and that I had to explain why it isn't "good faith" or "good karma" to leave a house full of your crap when you move out. As said by the passive stoners from high school "not cool man, not cool."

Once that was dealt with, I had to pressure my very nice, new landlords that have a very sweet three year old to juggle, between renovations to our new house and full time careers. The LAST thing I wanted to do was pressure them, but it had to be done. The alternative to moving into my place a day early was sleeping in a van with all my belongings or moving back to the other side of the city, then back downtown on the weekend. Did I mention my new house is a five minute walk up the same street from my old one? To move my belongings back the other side of the city and then back downtown was something I really didn't want to do. I also work downtown, so that added a few hours onto my commute; not the ideal situation.

The issue wasn't the moving out early or the accommodating other people. I consider myself to be an accommodating person. However, dealing with pushy landlords and housemates that don't know how to clean up their shit is not what I assumed I was signing up for at 25 years old.