I gave extremely detailed notes about the street progressively narrowing and the difficult driveway, emphasizing they'd need to reverse in or reverse out; there was no area in front of the house to turn around; I recommended using an excellent driver to maneuver.
The driver attempted to reverse and failed miserably. It's no exaggeration to say that he tried for 20 minutes, tearing down smaller branches from trees and coming perilously close gauging the wooden fence. When I yelled 'STOP', that he was about to hit the fence and must reverse to the right so as to move away from the fence, he only moved nearer, coming closer to digging into it. As I was yelling directions, the man who seemed in charge explained that the driver had to drive into the fence to avoid the truck falling down the embankment on the opposite side; except there was at least 2/3 of a meter of room between the truck and the edge. As he drove further into the fence I yelled again for them to stop, go back to their depot and return in a small van but the main man said you only had the one truck.
Eventually they gave up driving the remaining 30 or 50 meters to the house and left the truck there. They and I brought out my things.
Once done, the main man checked the manifest looking a bit confused and kept asking if what they'd packed was really all there was; I read with him what I'd hired them to move:
1 laundry basket, 1 medium rolling suitcase, 8 or 9 plastic totes, 2 roughly 38cm x 30cm boxes, 2 large carrier bags of books, 4 medium sized paintings and 7 vacuum-sealed packages of clothing, several of which arrived torn open.
Driving forward out the driveway was almost as bad as reversing. More trees fell victim until my housemate guided the truck down and out of the driveway. This took easily another 20 minutes. I'm not even sure of these times because time stopped for me during all of this. Finally, after leaving a trail of shredded leaves and broken branches behind them, your men went on their way to my new home.
Meanwhile, I sat in my car and cried and screamed for 10 minutes.
When I got to the house, they'd already arrived and after asking, began unloading. Another mover was with them and they unloaded really quickly. They also brought up a large chair and box left in the carport by friends which were too heavy for me to move; this very was kind of them.
When the main man came for payment I first used an international bank and as that was sending he asked that instead I use an NZ bank, which I did; this was the reason for the double payment.
I tipped the man $50 much to his surprise; he began to refuse but I'm American and when we receive a service, we give a tip. The tip was only because of his patience when I broke down crying in front of him while trying to pay and his unflagging cheerfulness throughout the day.
This day left me exhausted, emotionally wrought, actually physically sick, and very angry. What should have been a simple 25-30 minute job turned into more than 2 hours of frustration, and embarrassment..
It left my former housemates with the impression that I was incompetent, stupid, and malicious, since I hired obvious amateurs completely out of their depth, and allowed the casual mutilation of their garden and trees.
The move is done, thankfully; the damage is not. I'll have to pay for an Arborist to tend to my housemates' trees, and I may not get my bond back.
Reviewed
2 weeks ago