Of Moving

I have relocated myself a few hundred kilometres from where I was.
I am now in a different state, with different types of people and attitudes and generally an overwhelmingly different atmosphere altogether. It's like an entire world of difference in the beginning.

Good thing it's not at all as busy as the last place I was in!

So this was the first time I moved on my lonesome. I tried asking family and friends for reliable movers but got no satisfactory answer, i.e. most people forgot who they employed and some merely hired lorries and did their own packing. I was willing to pack most things on my own but I needed some other people who actually knew what they were doing. Hence the decision to hire movers.

Generally, people do not 'move' at this stage, preferring to stay with family or leaving most things at their own home with their family. However, this does not apply to me- so yes. Hiring movers was something I decided to do long before I even graduated, for various reasons. But let me say that generally, housemen do not 'move' on a large scale because it is very likely that they will move somewhere else for MOship.

That said, let's get on to the moving process.

On Finding a Moving Company and the Entire Ordeal (Almost)

1. Finding

It is better to find movers that the people you know have employed before and found reliable enough to recommend. This may not be the case most of the time, so you have to search on your own. Unlike retail stores, moving companies do not generally set up shop with the rest of your usual retail outlets, so it wasn't as easy as going to a street or into a mall to survey them. Hence I took to- what else?- The Interwebz.

That's the internet btw.

Googling 'movers Malaysia' already comes up with many hits, most of which international relocating companies which I know are very efficient and trustworthy but also very costly. Thus I decided to look for more obscure names. I found one that I thought looked promising, but after filling their query form  for a quotation I got no response even after a week. So I started looking elsewhere.

Most companies available online ask you to drop your moving details and number so they can call you up and arrange a survey session to give you a quotation, before you agree on any company's services. I just wanted to fill online forms and not have to talk to anyone to avoid showing how noob I was. In the end though, being noob is part of a growing process- so don't be afraid to feel noob. More importantly, it is important that you meet the people from the companies face-to-face. More on that below.

I looked at several blogs to get recommendations of movers, and one blog recommended going to movers-malaysia.com for an almost hassle-free comparison of several moving services at once. That's what I did. I filled out the form with as much details as I knew, prayed a little and pressed 'Send' for all the companies that they recommended based on my current area. That evening, I received two calls and one email, all from different companies.

The people who called set a date and time to visit my house and survey the things needed to be done before giving me a quotation, which is an estimated price for all the needed services. As for the punctuality of the survey, one was late by a few hours; the other was late for a day. They both gave me almost the same quotation.

The one who contacted me by e-mail gave me a very thorough response with elucidation on their total services and total costs. It was very cheap compared to the rest and I was impressed.


2. Deciding

So now I have three possibilities, only from filling a single form online! That's kinda amazing.

But- and that's a huge but- it's not enough. Take it from me. Unless you're comparing between different multinational moving services with a proven track record of excellence, three of obscure moving companies is on the low side for comparison. I only learned this now, in retrospect, so try to at least get quotes from 5 different companies. No strings are attached when getting quotes; don't feel guilty about doing a little surveying of your own, as it is entirely expected.

What you need in movers is reliability; efficiency; trustworthiness. These, I can now say, are rather hard to come by with most companies. Appointments set for a certain date get postponed to another date; appointments set for another time will always be delayed for another hour or two (sometimes 4 or 5) with many different excuses. I guess you can say they are rather busy bees, these movers.

The lowest quotation I got was from the e-mail. He answered all my queries politely and thoroughly, and the rate was surprisingly low- I got an average of 1.3 to 1.5k with the phone calls and physical surveys, but this particular guy was willing to offer the same and more for only 850.

I found this dubious, and it doesn't help that he did not want to do a physical survey, his reason being my online descriptions were enough.

When in doubt, do the following:

1) Google the moving company name and look for their sites/reviews. In this country there aren't many people reviewing companies and leaving them online, especially the obscure ones. Furthermore, most movers do not have a working site. This is troublesome.

2) Ask the movers to e-mail you their exact quotation with the company letterhead and pictures of their previous work/lorries/etc.

3) Ask for their company address. Perhaps you can use Google Street View to look for it, or even drive there yourself and at least see if the company exists.

The one with low quotation had very nice manners on mail, but had a very generic name that happened to be a famous moving company in another country, gave me a non-working site (saying it's under maintenance because they are opening branches in other states), and despite all the thorough explanation before, when I asked them for their full address, gave me only a vague street name and vague area- no postcodes, lot numbers, or anything that allows me to pinpoint an exact place. In fact the street name and area name are both so common that they usually come with numbers at the end, which he conveniently did not include. Not to mention he refused to do a physical survey. He also did not ask me to further reconfirm my decision after answering my query for his address; I figured he figured that the jig was up.

When the quotation is too low, be careful- it may be that your things will be moved with other people's things in the same lorry, which is not the biggest issue, or a total scam, whereby after making an initial deposit they disappear off the face of the Earth (read: internet). I did not want to risk it. I stopped contacting them.


3. Process

I asked both of the remaining companies to give me a black & white quotation via e-mail. The slightly more expensive one did it by that night, as promised. The other one which was late didn't send me anything, and called me the day after (it was missed as I was doing other stuff) but did nothing to follow up any further.

The choice was obvious by then.

Given the quotation, I asked the chosen company- the one that was more punctual and reliable- to send me the appropriate packing materials for my things as I would prefer to pack my books on my own. This process was delayed several times. As for payment, they said I could pay when everything has been settled, which is more fair to me as that ensures they won't run off with my stuff once payment has been made. I'll make sure this is the case from now on, too.

Note to self: Find another way of obtaining packing material e.g. bubble wrap and boxes because the material they provide may not be the same as what they said they would provide, and not meet my expectations.

I packed like mad the week before the move, until revision  for my actual work was almost entirely eliminated from my thoughts. On the day itself, they came over and closed the boxes (I didn't close the boxes yet as I anticipated revisions to my packing but they didn't seem to care) and packed the rest of the miscellaneous stuff that were bundled together but still not put into boxes.

I asked if there were documents to be signed- that was a no. From what I read online, you're supposed to sign several forms with some insurance documents too, but that may only apply in the states (or with more reputed movers).

Then we left. I didn't go with the lorry but alone.


4. Outcome

They arrived shortly after I did despite using the non-highway roads- probably because I can be slow.
Moved the stuff to the house.

Then when I told them to assemble my furniture, I was met with confusion and slight resistance. The guy who said it was okay reluctantly started on my desk. Over two hours later they still weren't done.

I noticed that despite my insistence that they read the given instructions (which were really clear, as it is IKEA after all) and showing them Youtube videos of people fixing the things, they refuse to do either and preferred to half-heartedly flip through the manual whenever they think is necessary, skipping steps along the way. I offered to help but was refused. Anyhow, after 2++ hours the guy told me they couldn't do it and packed his stuff up, along with his friend. He made to leave but had to wait for my payment.

I flipped, of course. I yelled at him and demanded to know why he said it wasn't possible. It was made to be possible, I could do it myself given more time. He said they aren't used to assembling new things and could only assemble furniture that they themselves disassembled, which- to be honest- was a load of &#@$. Then I asked why he said it was possible when I first showed them the flat-packed furniture and asked if his team could assemble them for me upon arrival. He initially weakly made the excuse that he thought I was going to assemble them first, and then ask them to disassemble them again. This was a pathetic claim. This was also around the time I started yelling really loudly to his face.

There were other things exchanged and he apologized several times, saying it's not my fault. Duh it's not. It was agreed upon ad it's not like he didn't contact me 4 or 5 times at least after the agreement, during which time I reconfirmed again and again that the assembly of my furniture is possible.

I was so upset that I told him he should just leave. He gave me a small discount which he claimed was his and his friend's (there were 2 people trying to fix that small table) payment for that day. I gave him the money and told him again, angrily, to leave me. I guess they were quite eager to do that by then.

He said something about asking some IKEA person to come over and help me assemble it the day after. Obviously nothing of the sort happened. I didn't wait either.

Conclusion: What do you think?

Assembling IKEA Furniture

It ain't that hard with the right mindset and attitude!

I started assembling the remaining things that night, finishing the table within the next 20 minutes and the wardrobe within 2 hours. Then I waited until the next day to start on my bookcases as they require hammering and by then it was really late and I didn't want to wake anyone (i.e. the neighbours) up. All things considered, I think I did quite well on my own.  

 
It's highly recommended to have the basic IKEA toolbox called FIXA with you- it costs (if I'm not mistaken) less than RM 30. Would be even better if you had those automatic screwdrivers because that speeds things up (I don't know what they're called- power screwdrivers?).

Basic FIXA tool set- all you need to assemble any IKEA furniture! The FIXA line actually is not just limited to this.

FIXA power drill/screwdriver. Would have bought it if I had more money; not necessary but perhaps more speedy.

But most importantly, you need the ability to be patient and read the manual thoroughly. It's hard not to do it correctly if you read the manuals thoroughly, because they even illustrated the major but common assembly mistakes, and put large crosses on those incorrect methods. As for the claims that there are very frequently missing screws and other bits in the flat-packs, I can safely say that in my brief experience nothing of the sort happened. In fact the wardrobe I was assembling had extra parts. I know because I count out all the parts and sort them into tiny piles before I even start assembling. Oh, on that note, also ensure you have ample space.

Basic instructions from IKEA, available on the first page of most furniture assembly manuals.

Basically, any able-bodied person who is sane and has the strength of a normal adult could do it- so long as you don't buy the especially large and especially well-made (heavy) furniture, and so longa s you can drag your furniture around on the floor. 8Case in point, I am the least fit person I know and I still could assemble and then drag around the tall, large furniture. Lots of grunting and sweating were involved, not to mention bruises from bumping into the parts or having them fall on me. I just read the last sentence over and realized it could sound very, very wrong and it doesn't indicate an extreme level of perverseness, but is actually normal.

Anyway.

I assembled large IKEA furniture and smaller, simpler things too and succeeded in all of them. The table is being used right this moment, after I fixed what the movers gave up on; the wardrobe is filled with clothes, the bookcases are holding books and the other stuff are functioning well. So even with almost zero knowledge of furniture assembly, I feel rather accomplished.

Now to rearrange more stuff, after I get some zzzs.


P.S.: I'm loving this house so far!