I had to move somewhere quickly after a relationship broke down violently, so a workmate offered me his flat while he went on holiday
I knew it would be scruffy, as the guy was an antisocial nerd who rarely changed his clothes. Still, it was a short-term bolt hole and I was grateful.

I didn't expect the fridge to be full of clumps of dog hair, the grey, threadbare towels all over the bathroom covered in mysterious brown stains, or the decomposing pigeon in the fire grate, with ribs on show. It had presumably died after falling down the chimney and must have been there for weeks. Scuzzy bugger.
(Porcupine, Thu 8 Jan 2015, 9:40, Reply)

We moved house last March.
I booked Pickfords for 8.00 am, everything was packed and ready to go.

At 7.45 my very stressed wife got a phone call from the van driver. Our road was quite narrow, only room for one vehicle to pass at a time. I had tried to block enough space for him to park outside, using my bike and car, but he couldn't get the van into the space.

He told my wife he couldn't get into the space, and this would be a big problem.

My wife, being a fiery latino, took the very sensible decision to ask (in so many words) what the fucking hell she was supposed to do about it.

Van driver not unexpectedly said 'Nothing, don't worry about it', and pissed off. Pickfords again not unexpectedly then told us their van drivers weren't there to be shouted at, and cancelled the move altogether.

Luckily we found a company who managed to send a bunch of people with a couple of smaller vans, who did it all that day, but for a while I was pretty much ready to start a divorce.
(username failed moderation, Thu 8 Jan 2015, 9:32, 15 replies)

a chum moved house a couple of years ago and did use a professional local firm of removers to complete a short haul job.
He did not pay for the packing service and when you see how much extra space mismatched boxes take up in the van i recommend to anyone that they at least get same size boxes. Removals team were pleasant, talkative and fast. So fast that completion had not taken place and therefore they went back to base.

Completion was slightly delayed but at 1pm the news arrived and stage two begins. Into the car to drop keys off and pick new keys up. That all goes well, what can go wrong. We arrive at new house and there are three removal vans - two from our firm and a clapped out Ford Transit Luton of around 20 years of age. That is odd.

Our removal team don't look happy the owner is still moving out, which of course he should not. Yes, the previous owner who is a consultant surgeon has managed to demonstrate why paying cheap is not always wise. He would have been better off with Mr. Shifter such was the lack of competence of these men with a rust pile (furrins an all)

I mentioned our removal firm had two vans. One team had turned up to help their mates out on a Friday so they could all go to the pub. What happened was the surgeon was offered to use the spare van for the dregs of his stuff and his removers could then load their van from the yard and let my friends get on with moving in. That is what happened and life was sweet.

The surgeon had actually been out of the house for a year and only a few items were in the house but the level of incompetence was staggering. His level of cheapness was soon revealed in the scant regard to building regulations on an extension and the main bathroom.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Thu 8 Jan 2015, 9:18, Reply)

anyone who moves house is a wanker

(Synchromesh gearbox, overhead cam, Thu 8 Jan 2015, 0:55, 4 replies)

I moved house once, it took about 20 minutes
for me to burn the episodes to a dvd. Boom!
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 22:40, 1 reply)

Red carpets
I was lucky enough to move to France with my job, which mean that the company paid for & organised the move. This was a good thing, not only because I didn't have to pay the big bill, but also because I had a 4 month old child at the time, so could do without the extra stress.

It was a 'full service' move, meaning the company came and packed everything up rather than me having to do it. And they were very zealous - they wrapped & packed a load of empty bottles I had meant to take to the bottle bank, and also a couple of wastepaper bins, complete with contents. It's lucky my young child was out of the house as I'm sure they would have packed him up otherwise.

The moving company insisted on an English foreman travelling with the van to work with the local team of French unpackers. Sounds like a nice idea, but the foreman didn't speak a word of French so it was my wife and I who had to explain everything to the French guys, including getting them to stop smoking and get back to work, and also to work an extra 30 minutes at the end of the day to finish off rather than have to come back the next day. We'd only been in the house for about 30 minutes before we moved in, so when the movers asked me which bedroom a piece of furniture should go in I answered confidently 'the one with the red carpets', only to have the guy come back 5 minutes later to tell me that the entire upstairs of the house had red carpets...

Suspiciously the only items we couldn't find after the move were two pairs of kitchen scissors which had probably been used by the movers. And every single item had a bright yellow sticker on it, which could only be removed using a solvent. This wasn't so bad when it was on the back of the object, but on the front of the fridge, on the front of a stereo, on the frame of a bed...
(Smale is stuffed, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 16:15, 2 replies)

I managed to lose almost all of my music
We put all our tapes and CDs in a black bin bag, which ended up in the garage. Right next to the black bin bag that was due to go to the local charity shop. Not a wise move... When I realised, I legged it down to the shop, but there were only a couple of shite CDs left which I didn't really like anyway. Bugger.
Also, a rat ate my bible. Nothing in the garage was safe from the fuckers.
(teasus likes tea, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 15:05, 5 replies)

I can't imagine this producing many replies, as most of the people here still live with their parents.

( Muns, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 14:33, 9 replies)

I once saw Alexei Sayle in the northbound car park of Keele Services on the M6.
I was moving house at the time.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 13:37, 2 replies)

When I left home I met a man from the motor trade.
Bye bye.
(McChinaman banned, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 13:09, 4 replies)

Not mine, but the removers we used
When I was a nipper in 1972, we moved from NI (norn arlan) to 'the mainland'.

We got on well with the movers, particularly as they took the same ferry etc. They were sharing stories with us and we asked about the worst they'd had. Chap said it wasn't necessarily the worst, but made them laugh.

They turned up at a house, and when they arrived, the family stood up from the breakfast table and left. They hadn't even washed up.

So.... They duly, as arranged, packed the house, and the breakfast table, memorising everything, and, at the other end, completely unpacked the house and put the dirty breakfast dishes exactly as arranged at the original house.
(jerrykew He who codes last, codes least, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 13:08, Reply)

I once loaded the majority of my possessions into a van,
and transported them to another residence in order to start living there instead of where I used to live. It was a wild, wild time.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 10:49, 2 replies)

yeah yeah fobtl
but i thought this was quite interesting. i think i'd get a bit creeped out knowing this was underneath my floorboards:

themetapicture.com/amazing-secret-dungeon-discovered-under-my-new-apartment/
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 10:29, 10 replies)

My Recent Move
So we (my partner and I) have been living with my Mother for the last year while sorting a place for us both. My partner's move was reasonably straight forward - remove the window to extract the sofas from the front room, then chuck all the furniture in the back of the van (Top Tip here, if you're moving, rent a Luton Transit with a tail lift - makes life loads easier. I got lucky and borrowed the works van) and transfer it to the garage. Repeat the next day for any loose stuff. Don't bother unpacking drawers, just pallet wrap them and load them on the truck.
The move to our new place couldn't have been easier though, as it was 5mins down the road. We didn't even bother to unpack the fridge and freezer, just wheeled them out last, strapped them into the side of the van, and shot down the road before plugging them straight back in the other end.
Rentacrates are also dead easy to work with, still got a few knocking round ATM.
( Alex Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver!, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 9:59, 1 reply)

I've stayed on a houseboat.

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 9:48, Reply)

I like the idea of painting messily in brown paint
"HAVE YOU FOUND THE OTHERS YET?" or similar, before wallpapering one of the rooms, if one is going to move.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 9:30, 4 replies)

3 Times
I've moved 3 times since leaving home, all of them on the 13th of December.
Easy if you are renting but damn amazing when you are buying / mortgaging.
(Suck it and Sea, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 9:23, 1 reply)

Gotta lotta bottles
Moved house once. One of the plus points in choosing the new place was that the kitchen was amply supplied with cupboards and storage space.

When we moved in we found the previous owner had thoughtfully left every single bloody one full of empty beer bottles. Not a single one we could even claim the deposit back on either.

No, we did not recycle them.
(Rise and Fall of the Atomic Cabbage Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?, Wed 7 Jan 2015, 1:57, Reply)

cooking fat
"I dont think she'll live very long", at least that was my original opinion on the kitten which turned into "Minnie" the git-cat-from-hell (as far as the other cats in the house were concerned). I'd brought her home with a severe intestinal condition and did not expect her to survive the post-op care let alone thrive and put on weight. 2 years later we needed to move and the 5 cats were coming as well.
Moving day came and four of our cats were being their usual fat lazy selves and not helping in any way but making it very easy for us to box them up and get them ready to move. Minnie, however, had buggered off and was nowhere to be seen. We left a cat carrier with the neighbours and told them to take her to the vet when she finally turned up and we would sort the bill. She was rehomed to a household where she became the only cat and as far as I am aware this was a much more suitable arrangement.
(gearanach #wankwankwank, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 21:32, Reply)

I've moved A LOT.
I can go from being "Not ready to leave" to "That's it, all done, where's the van?" in less than 8 hours.
The last time I helped a mate move from his old flat to his new one he couldn't understand how I was so organised.
It took him over a week to realise that I'd left a fair bit of his stuff behind on the basis he'd probably not need it anymore. In hindsight, maybe I SHOULD have figured he'd miss his cat.
*Prouds*
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Tue 6 Jan 2015, 20:20, 2 replies)

Move? Me?
Carried the missus over the threshold in October 1978
Bought the adjoining property for £3000 cash in 1980
Got as many local council improvement grants that were available
Knocked the two together in 1982
Whoopee – twice the size house and 3 kids now
Fourth kid
Kids all eventually leave
Mortgage paid off
Retired
Nice large(ish) house in the country
Never had to move
They’ll carry me out in a box
Think about the Stone Tapes we’ll have left
( CharlesDexterWard no rush eh, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 19:19, 8 replies)

Don't look behind the wardrobe!!
My old flatmate really was a dirty bastard. Never used to wash up, room full of mouldy mugs and so on

. He had been away for a few days, and I was on my way out when I noticed that his bedroom window was wide open. I went into his hovel to make the house secure, and I notice his wardrobe. Wide open, a massive stash of magazines featuring ladies over 50 and 60, and realise that the wardrobe itself is pretty much glued to the wall by ancient wanky tissues. Filthy cunt.
( Kung_Fu_Russ ran out of amusing signatures on, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 19:12, Reply)

I had a flat
so I couldn't move.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Tue 6 Jan 2015, 18:27, 2 replies)

I moved house once.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 16:52, 4 replies)

In the process
We were expecting to move during the week between Xmas & New Year (Tuesday 30th), as we thought everything was done. Both of us had booked time off, ready to go.

Monday 22nd, we get a phone call from the people buying our house solicitors saying that in a document which our solicitor had checked through, she hadn't initialled a change of date which she had written wrong. "No problem", my wife replies - "is everything ok"?

"No, and she's not in until January the 8th, so we can't do anything until then."

Thing is, all the solicitors work in the same firm, in the same branch, in offices next to each other. And when my wife went into the office to complain that afternoon to the Senior Partner, there was our solicitor, in her office. Gits.

But this pales to the quote of £2300 to move a double bed, piano and a settee 150m down the road to our new house, including £100 to rent a set of "settee cloths" to stop marks. No thank you, Britannia.
(The Kitchen Sink, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 16:27, 1 reply)

I helped my friend Tim move...
...to his new flat. He'd done it properly, hired a van, and when we arrived at the new place we agreed that he would carry the boxes, and I would carry the bin bags. Each bin bag weighed a ton, and there were 10 or 11 of them. The new flat was up four steep flights of stairs, and I was in a bad way by the time I got to the 8th bag. I tripped and the bag split, scattering a very large number of well-thumbed Razzles, Mayfairs, Clubs and Men Onlys all the way back to the doorway.
It turned out that every one of these bags was devoted to his collection of pornography, and when I refused to carry any more he flew into a rage and refused to give me my reward pint and packet of crisps.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 15:25, 11 replies)

Someone took umbrage over where I'd parked the hire van, and smashed the back lights, thus costing me my deposit.
Another time, I arrived early to pick up the van, and so attempted to purchase a bacon sandwich. In the Bury Park area of Luton!

Two hilarious anecdotes, for the price of one. No need to thank me.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 15:18, Reply)

Nothing stressful about it
Plan, prepare and above all do not listen to anything that any of the so called professionals say:

1. Estate agents - only interested in you until they get their commission. Use this fact to get them to make it all happen

2. Solicitors - wankers, the lot. £000's of pounds for moving a piece of paper from one tray to another. Use an online company that employs minimum wage clerks

3. Removal company - putting stuff in a box, driving from A-B and dropping box in a room is not difficult, so don't quote me '000s for it

4. Banks - I can transfer £25 to my mate in Australia in 2 hours. Why must I pay you to move money from one branch to another?

All of the above rely on dealing with people who are scared of the whole event and who can't see that while the 'extras' are only 0.05% of the whole transaction, that is still a shit load of money out of your pocket. Like weddings.

But for God's sake, keep buying houses or the whole country will go bust.
(LetsGetDownToIt, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 14:05, 7 replies)

i went from one house to a flat
it was very moving
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 13:40, Reply)

1st

( MEATSNAKE Richard Hammond, Tue 6 Jan 2015, 13:22, 10 replies)