The Moving Adventure

It has been a crazy month. Moving across the country is not something to be taken lightly (despite what people might say...looking at the BF right now). This all started back in May when Matt signed the paperwork to work at IBM in Ontario. 

The planning began, rather slowly (a little begrudgingly) at first. I had lived my whole life in Alberta and had just found out that the only relative I had in Toronto was moving back to Alberta the month before we left. Swapsies!.

Matt and I had agreed that container moving was probably the best option to us, as we had no apartment destination yet. We'd be flying out to TO and finding a place. So I started collecting boxes because, having never moved before, I thought it would give me more piece of mind to pack the apartment up myself. This thought was affirmed when I called around to get more information from moving companies in Edmonton. I would either get no response, or in the case of one company, I got told I didn't know what I was talking about before I'd even explained my situation (what a gem of a man that was). Matt and I had decided to go with a container moving and storage company called PODS because they offered flexible storage options AND they had really good customer service people (people that didn't make me feel like the protagonist of a sexism story, Yay!).

With the POD scheduled and the flights booked (July 23rd 2014), I started planning the last month we were in Alberta, filling our calendar with friend visits and family going aways, etc. It was very bittersweet to see all my buddies because I didn't know when I'd see them in person again. (Gush.)

Anyway. As I packed I realized that the small POD we'd booked was definitely not going to fit all our stuff (Matt would like to interject, "Your Stuff" here). So PODS was called and they even arranged the bigger pod to come the same day, thank gad. I have a lot of china... and books... and kitchen appliances....

We had salad too. Honest!

We had salad too. Honest!

Moving day came and with the help of Matt's friend Ian, Matt's parents and my friend Jess, we loaded up the POD. It took all day. (Also, if you follow the Talky you'll know that I had a broken toe this whole time. That was entertaining.) But we did it! Then we went and celebrated with dinner and beer. We spent one night at the BF's 'rents and then our last Alberta evening at my friend Julia's place. Julia's BF made us an Alberta steak dinner to remember. 

The next morning Julia graciously drove us to the airport at 5am where we deposited our bags, and my plants, boarded a plane to our new home. 

Renting in Toronto is a little different than in Alberta. Here, if you want to rent a condo, you get a realtor. Unlike in Alberta, where a condo building's property management company deals with renting condo suites, here it's done via realtors and the actual condo owners. Let me clarify. In Alberta, if you own a condo and want to rent it, you go to your building's management company and say "Hey! I want to rent my unit. Can you do that please?", and the property company says "Sure!". In Toronto, it seems that most property companies who run large condo buildings don't have anything to do with the actual unit occupancies. This has both up sides and down sides. For example, it makes looking for a nice rental suite really easy. Step 1: Get a realtor (you can call listing agencies to snatch a realtor); Step 2: Sign on to the Toronto MLS; Step 3: Pick a bunch of listings; Step 4: Go see the suites and pick one; Step 5: Sign a lease - Yay!  Downside: it makes actually seeing the nice rental suites a pain. As a prospective tenant can't just go see a place. We tried calling up listing agents to see if we could see their listed suites but got turned away because only realtors can show suites. So we got a realtor. However, then it turns into a bit of a coordination nightmare as the listing realtor and the showing realtor have to be on the same page at the same time to have the suite shown. Blaa. 

Anyways. We managed to look at 6 places before deciding on one we loved. Then we ran into another AB/TO difference: Lease Negotiations. Like if you're buying a house, the realtor will put in a lease offer typically less than the asking monthly rent and with certain conditions. This, for me anyway, was terrifying. Because of the fast paced rental market here I was worried we'd lose the apartment because someone else may offer more or have less conditions on their offer. I gave myself heart burn waiting for a response. Everything turned out ok though. We got a call from our realtor at 1am to tell us the offer had been accepted and we now just had to meet up to sign the final lease. Gad. And I thought the moving would be the most stressful part. 

IMG_6901.jpg

With keys in hand, we went and bought an air mattress and a couple chairs to sit on (having just breakfasted on the floor) and awaited all our stuff. We signed our lease on July 26th and our POD wasn't due to be in Toronto till August 2nd, so we had a while to wait.  In the mean time, we set up the internet, we organized the POD delivery and the elevator booking (37th floor yo!) and we hung out with Heather, our one friendly Toronto native, and Taylor, a friend of Matt's on internship with IBM. Yay friends!

On August 8th, in the early morn, our POD of stuff had arrived. The BF had booked movers to help us unload the POD, which I now see as the best decision of the whole trip. The two dudes had the POD emptied and all our furniture, boxes and miscellaneium into the apartment in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Best $200 we ever spent.

Now all the boxes have been mostly unpacked. Mainly, my kitchen is set up. We need to buy a desk for Matt, a couch for the living room and a bunch of shelves for our massive book collection and my four sets of china....  But other than that, it's nice to have a bed and a functional kitchen and a table to sit at.

Move Success. Now come visit me. STAT. 

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

The Greenest 2140 Miles

So the BF and I just moved across the country (Inner 'AHHHHHH!'). All in all, our options to move our stuff had been plentiful and we booked passage of our stuff using a PODS container. Moving my plants however, that's where the fun began. 

I started out heading to a then local greenhouse to see if they had any ideas. I talked with Jim Hole (one of the Hole brothers and part-owner of The Enjoy Centre). He said that travelling with plants is pretty tricky and suggested the best and safest way is to find someone to drive them across the country. The BFs mom agreed and said that when they moved from Ontario to Alberta a super nice mover actually took care of them in the cab of his truck the whole trip. Problem is we weren't planning on driving (my car definitely wouldn't have made it) and a PODS container unfortunately doesn't come with a plant-friendly moving man. 

So what next. I had to decide which of my leafy friends were to come with us and who would have the responsibility of caring for the ones left behind. A hard decision. My plants are my babies and it was hard letting them go. My Aloe Vera was definitely coming with me. And I had developed a soft spot for the orchid I had rescued from the trash at my last job. The jade and my mother's vine would have to wait till christmas to come to TO. The rest, all my tropical plants, my shamrock, my spiky plant, the african violet and my flower succulent, would all find new homes with friends. Now that all my plants' future homes were decided, I continued the search for safe passage across the country. 

Our friend Laura suggested we travel via VIA Rail. They apparently would transport plants! Yay! But, of course, not in summer. Boo. The nice lady at their call centre said that it just gets too hot in the baggage cars during the summer for any plant life. So nix on the train. 

At this point it looked like we wouldn't be able to accompany my plants. So we looked into whether we could ship them Fedex or Purolator. It wasn't as expensive as I thought (Yay!) and with Premium Care it would be handled without any automated systems, only people. But, technically, they don't transport live plants, so we'd have to sneak it....

So apparently travelling with plants is like travelling with vials of deadly viruses: No one really wants to take them, and if they do accept to, they don't guarantee that they'll arrive all in one piece. 

Stressing out my plants the week before we moved.

Stressing out my plants the week before we moved.

Our last resort was to fly with my plants in baggage. I was sooo thrilled by this. Not.

Peggy the Rhododendron lady at Westjet said that if we could fit the plants in a regulation sized box we could count it as one of our checked bags. Yay free! The downside: She said that it "is handled like all other luggage however", which basically translates to "they will throw it around, bash it like a piñata, and definitely turn it upside down". I was very happy for her honestly, one plant lady to another. 

But it seemed that there was no other way to fly the plants. It wasn't until we were driving to my friend Julia's place (to stay for our last dry Alberta-y night) that she suggested checking it as fragile baggage. Julia is a cellist and flies regularly with her cello as fragile baggage. What's good enough for a $15,000 cello is good enough for an heirloom aloe vera. Since this was our best alternative I had to pack the living bejesus out of my plants. I put them in a sturdy see-through rubbermaid container with lots of packing paper in the bottom about a week before the move. Gave them a little water right after I packed them as they would have to be dry to go on the plane (no roots freezing in water allowed!). When moving day came I stuffed the container with lots of paper so that all the limbs of the aloe were supported. Then I stuffed the top as well.

When we got to the airport, we checked our luggage and proceeded to the oversize baggage area, aka the kinda secret fragile baggage area. 

Secret fragile baggage screening too!

Secret fragile baggage screening too!

Hmmmmm....

Hmmmmm....

All wrapped up and ready to go!

All wrapped up and ready to go!

I said my final goodbyes, not entirely OK with seeing my plants being conveyer belted away, and boarded the plane to our (and their) new home. 

After the flight I waited (not really patiently...) at the fragile baggage claim. Success! They looked perfect! Not even a piñata mark to speak of! Now for the hard part: Don't shock the plant more than necessary. I had read on blogs and moving websites that the move itself won't kill the plant, but the stress of being introduced to a new environment so fast might. And frankly, my plants were already pissed at me for putting them in a box. And then I took their air and sunlight away.

I brought it back to the hotel and opened up the lid. It was very humid and warm in the tub. Since our room faced north there was basically no light to speak of but I gave the aloe some water (about half a cup) and the leaves, a tad droopy, perked right back up. (The orchid, it turns out, is really mad and is now proceeding to turn yellow. What a complainer.)

After the initial unpack and water I didn't touch or move or even breath on the plants. Reduce stress! I was worried that even having opened the container I had killed them but they seemed to want to live. 

The next step was moving it again, about three days later, to our new apartment. I repacked the paper on top of the aloe, loaded it into the cab, and less than 10 minutes it was back lid off and a half a glass of water happier. This time, as it was in it's final destination for the foreseeable future, I unpacked all the paper from around it's limbs as well. The orchid, such a drama queen, I unpacked fully and placed out of direct sunlight in the kitchen. 

IMG_6898.jpg

Both plants, though worse for wear, are looking like they will pull through! I won't be moving the aloe out of the container for at least another week though. I'll update when my trooper of a plant is in it's final final home. 

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Moving Prep

Matt is finishing his Masters in Computing Science at the University of Alberta. After he's done, as Alberta doesn't have any jobs in his specialization, we'll be moving. I don't know where yet. Which is not as stressful as it sounds. It's actually super exciting! What's more, I get to use my anal retentive organization skills to plan to move to a bunch of different places at once! (Harhar)

I've never moved farther than 20kms from the place where I was born (well, T.O., but that was temporary and we had no stuff to move there). Since we have a small-ish apartment now, about 800-900 sq ft, I'm thinking it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to pack ourselves -says the girl who has never moved-. So I went online to do some research. At first glance, I noticed most moving companies will pack up your stuff and move it pretty much in one day (if you're moving within the same area.) They charge by the weight of your stuff and the distance travelled. It's a clever idea because the average human being has no idea what their armchair or bed frame weighs. Also, with regards to distance travelled, the company compensated for gas and truck rentals. Very clever, Moving Companies, very clever. 

There are more options than just moving trucks though, especially if across-country. Since I've never moved before, never mind more than 3400kms away, and we have no idea where we are going to be living, container moving seems to be a really good idea. In theory, with delayed delivery, we could pack up our apartment, fly to Wherever, take a week or two to find an apartment, and then send for our half-ton box of stuff after we've signed a lease. Fancy!  

Preliminary moving research has yielded this:

  • Online quotes systems are shoty at best. (Even if they work, typically the estimates are super vague as to what they cover.)
  • It's a bitch to find a website that's not been beefed up with a bunch of calming vernacular. (Which actually provides any useful information.)
  • Most moving companies have now delved into the idea of container moving and storage. (However, trying to get any numbers on how much it costs is like asking for water half way into the desert.)  
  • There are a lot of awesome videos on how to pack your home. I had no idea there were so many different types of boxes and packing techniques. It makes me feel that someone could indeed move people for a living. Expertise is a thing, apparently. 

Anyway. I think I will investigate container moving a bit more. It sounds like a good plan as we still have no idea where we will be living and when we can expect to have an apartment. 

Also. Apparently moving plants is a bit of a business in itself.... So that'll be fun! D=

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist