How long do you think it takes for you to move from one home to another? Not including a long drive, the organizing, wrapping, packing, cleaning, touching up paint, renting/returning a truck, loading/unloading the truck, unpacking, and rearranging can add up to many hours of heavy labor. How much would you pay for a service that did it all in one day, including cleaning each item before packing it?
Design Taxi recently featured a video put together by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs entitled "Moving In Japan". It shows teams of highly-trained movers carefully wiping down each object, packing everything in specially-designed boxes (for shoes, dishes, suits, etc.), cleaning the old apartment, moving everything into the new apartment, and arranging it to your exact specifications. That alone blew my mind, but there are so many little touches, too, such as putting up wall protectors during the moving process and wearing clean socks into the new apartment. Amazing! The cost of a move is between $535-$1,600, which seems like an utter bargain. As I live in a studio, I'm guessing my price would be in the lower end. If I, hypothetically, make $15/hour, that would put the price of the move at about 35 hours of my time, and I think it would take me quite a bit longer to do it all myself. And I hate moving.
If the service is as good as it's promoted to be, it's not just thoroughness and speed that you're paying for, but also peace of mind. Whenever I pack to move, I start out with bubble wrap and good intentions, but by the end of the seemingly endless process I'm wrapping precious ceramics in t-shirts and hoping the boxes I've scavenged hold together. Having specially-designed protective pouches designed for each item would make me breathe easier, as would the attitude of one of the movers interviewed: "We understand that your posessions are your life, and our goal is to handle them with the same care and respect that we show to you."
The only part of the process that didn't appeal to me was this: "Smaller items will be put away on exactly the same shelf as they were in your old apartment." For me, part of the appeal of a move is a fresh start, a chance to arrange things beautifully with clear eyes. Some of my things are where they are because I want them there, but many have just hung out in a certain spot so long I never notice them anymore. Or I actively dislike where they are, but I'm not sure what to do about it. A move would let me break bad habits, and keep things packed away that I want a break from. This is a tiny quibble, and it sounds like the Japanese moving services would have no problem with not putting everything back the way it was.
So, my fellow frequent-movers, would you sign up for a service like this? Would you go for it if it was half the price, or even if it was double the price? Those of you who have moved homes in Japan, is it really this good?
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(Image: Screenshot from "Moving In Japan", via Design Taxi)
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Yes and no. Japanese apartments tend to be smaller and Japanese people probably have less stuff. The cost seems to be based on this. I doubt that a service like that in the US would ever cost that little. The lowest quote I got to move a one-bedroom apartment was $700. I don't like the packing and unpacking process, but I don't know if I would trust people with my belongings.
I was fortunate enough to have my company pay for a move from Southern California to Houston in 2007. The movers did a superb job.
They wrapped each item well, and packed my things in sturdy boxes. The service didn't include unpacking, but I was quite happy with what they did. I think the move was something like $4,500, included transportation half-way across the country and, for me, already working in Houston, was a godsend.
IIRC, one item was broken. BUT that certainly could have happened in a self-move, too!
I was fortunate enough to have my company pay for a move from Southern California to Houston in 2007. The movers did a superb job.
They wrapped each item well, and packed my things in sturdy boxes. The service didn't include unpacking, but I was quite happy with what they did. I think the move was something like $4,500, included transportation half-way across the country and, for me, already working in Houston, was a godsend.
IIRC, one item was broken. BUT that certainly could have happened in a self-move, too!
I had a company pack my stuff up when I moved from South Korea back to Canada. I was amazed at the service, I paid CDN$1,500 for 8 cubic feet. This included them coming to the house and wrapping everything up to be water tight and in about 3 hours they were done. I even needed it to be stored as I travelled for a couple of months and by the time I got to back Canada they had driven my stuff from Vancouver to my city which is about 1,200km with 3 guys to unpack! I don't think I can rent a UHaul for that much!!!
We recently moved cross country, and the company paid. I have no idea how much it cost, but suspect it was in the $10K range, based on what I've heard from others. I loved it, and our movers. They used sturdy, specialized boxes, took an exhaustive inventory, packed our 1300 sq ft house (complete with rowdy dogs) in one day, put everything in storage for a week while we drove across the country, and delivered when we requested, all with no hiccups. The ONLY thing I wish they would have done differently was to pack my nice knives better, but when I pointed out a dent on one of them, they immediately bought me a new one, so I can't really complain about that. All of my previous moves (including one other cross country move) have been of the "borrow a friend's truck, buy everyone pizza" variety, and the difference in the stress was remarkable. In the future, I will never move myself again if I can possibly afford it - totally worth it.
I've moved 7 times in Japan (apartments here suck, unless you have a lot of money, so I'm always searching for a good deal). I've only used a moving service a few times, and yes, they were very careful with walls and floors and packed items like plants that I had no idea what to do with them. But they were never as awesome as the ones you describe, lol.
Last year I moved a 2-BR apartment using a Japanese moving company in Brooklyn. They came the day before moving day, packed up almost everything in boxes custom-built for household things (special boxes for dishes and glassware, special boxes for clothes), and they built custom boxes for my art collection of 50+ framed photographs and paintings. We did the wiping down and cleaning ourselves. On moving day they showed up right on time, moved everything to the new place, unpacked most of the stuff, all in 6 hours. Total cost, less than $2,000, this is probably half of what I would have to pay a normal moving company and probably wouldn't have gotten such good service. So yeah, I'm all for Japanese movers.
Parker 18 -- What is the name of the Japanese moving company you used in Brooklyn?
Please let us in on these moving genies.
Hehe. Whenever I see photos of Japanese houses, there is one low table, a tatami mat, one bench, one potted plant and 3 shirts hanging in the closet in an otherwise spotless white cube of a house, so maybe that's why it's so fast and cheap to move?
I had a friend who was not quite ready when a firm of executive movers came and while he was on the phone, they saran-wrapped his breakfast cereal bowl and packed it away, with the cereal and milk in the bowl. But by gosh they delivered and unwrapped it too.
I just love that the people in the picture are dressed like the Super Mario brothers.
The last time I moved, from a 2 bedroom house to my current house, it cost me $250.
Yeap. This was the only mover who was willing to come to my house to give me an estimate based on the amount of stuff (all other companies would just give me estimates based on my guesses ["how big a truck I would need for my stuff" - how am I supposed to know the answer to that - they are the pros] and he said I would paid a minimum of 3 hours even if the actual moving time is less. That was fine with me.
I had everything packed, and on the day of moving, it was me, BF and 2 friends. We helped carry everything out of the house and the movers (1 mover and 1 apprentice) basically just loaded the stuff into the van.
I was not moving very far, it was only about 5 km distance, and the "unpacking" was pretty much the same. The movers unloaded the stuff from the van and we brought it into the house. The movers carried the heavier pieces and the furniture.
Yes, elbow grease was involved but it was by far the best move ever. We were done in just below 3 hours.
I should add that I had bridge financing that allowed me to take posession of the new house a week before the funds from the sale of my existing house was wired in, and during this week we did move some stuff ourselves (it was mostly gardening stuff and some knicknacks that would be difficult to pack etc. The bridge financing was suprisingly cheap, I think it cost me only about $60 for the entire week but it was definitely worth it.
Hi Rocktsrgn, my husband and I will be moving cross country this summer. Could you tell me who your company used to move you. Thanks
@JnJ-NYC: they are called Shuclean Moving Inc (http://www.shucleanmoving.com/). They are green movers, so they pick up old newspapers from Japanese stores around town, reuse moving boxes and bubble wraps, etc.
My friend moved using moving service exactly like this in LA a few years ago. He packed a couple of boxes of valuables himself and put them in his car; other than that, he didn't lift a finger. On the day of the move, a team arrived at his apartment a few minutes before he left for work. They started, he left, his dogwalker stayed with them most of the day, and at the end of his regular workday he went home to his new apartment, where everything was put away according to the instructions he'd given about where things should go, and there wasn't a moving box in sight. It was like magic.
I moved 3 times with the help of a Japanese moving company. Twice, moving from the US to Japan and back again and once within Japan. They packed up everything very carefully, wrapped the walls, took off their shoes, this was the international move (company paid for it - maybe $9,000-$12,000, they also handled the paperwork, customs, storage, ocean shipping, etc). Nothing broke or was damage.
When we moved to a bigger house within Japan we packed our stuff with the boxes the moving company gave us. Again wrapped the walls, no shoes. The movers picked up boxes and packed the moving truck, we didn't have to pack the clothes that were in the drawers because they just picked it up with straps and moved it, as is. Very strong men. They also wrapped the furniture while in the truck. All moves was finished in one day. Love this service, wish we can use it every time we move.
Having always done the packing, unpacking, cleaning, ect on my own, this sounds absolutely dreamy!