A long tenure · IV
Twenty years or more
The hardest ordinary move there is. Not because the furniture is difficult, but because two or three decades of accumulation includes a great deal that has to be decided about rather than simply carried — and because the last time this household moved, removals worked differently.
Most of this job is decisions. We plan for that rather than pretending it is a carrying job with more boxes.
How a long-tenure move is run
Why these moves are quoted differently
Two reasons, and we say both out loud. The measured volume is higher than the rooms suggest, because it is distributed through a boarded loft, a full garage, a shed and often a bedroom that stopped being a bedroom years ago.
And a large share of it needs a decision, not a carry. Decisions take time, they cannot be hurried, and a firm that quotes this as a same-volume job somewhere else will run out of day and start pushing you.
Start early, in small sessions
One cupboard. One corner of the loft. One shelf of the garage. Short sessions, spread over weeks, with a break between them. That is the pace at which people make decisions they do not regret.
A single determined weekend produces exhaustion, a skip, and — reliably — at least one thing somebody wishes they still had. We would rather you booked us later and did the sorting properly.
Other people's things, and inherited things
A house of this tenure frequently holds belongings of grown children, of a parent who downsized, or of somebody who died. None of that should be decided about quickly and none of it is ours to advise on.
What we can do is hold it, listed, until the right person has had time to look at it properly. And if something might be worth something, get somebody qualified to say so before it leaves the house — we move furniture, we do not value it.
What has changed since you last moved
More than people expect. Packing materials are better and matter more. The refusal list is longer and enforced. Parking is controlled where it was not. Cover is stated rather than assumed. And chains are longer, so completion hours land later and load-and-hold overnight is now a normal option.
There is a section on the home page setting all of this out. It exists because the question comes up on almost every survey of a house somebody has been in for decades.
Twenty years or more
Questions about twenty years or more
01 Will it take longer than a normal move?
Almost certainly, and the quotation says so rather than hiding it. Higher volume and a large share of it needing decisions rather than carrying — both are real work.
02 How far ahead should we start?
Months rather than weeks for the sorting, in short sessions. The removal itself is booked on the usual timescale; it is the deciding that needs the run-up.
03 We cannot face the loft. Can you empty it?
We can bring it down and list it so you can go through it at ground level, or in storage, rather than on your knees under a rafter. A great many people find that the difference between doing it and not.
04 What do we do about things we are unsure of?
Store them. The undecided pile is a legitimate category and forcing it closed in the week of a move is how people end up regretting a decision permanently.
05 Will you value anything?
No, and we will not offer an opinion either. A crew's off-hand guess about a piece of furniture is worth nothing. We will tell you who is qualified to look.
06 Can you take things away for disposal?
We will move them to a relative, a buyer or a charity. Licensed waste disposal requires a permission we do not hold, and we say so rather than arranging it quietly.
How long have you been there?
Both addresses and the number of years in the one you are leaving. That second answer tells us more about the job than anything else you could send.