Not A Smooth Move: Part 1

Despite all our planning, it was inevitable that some things would go wrong during our move. Earlier in the week we purchased furniture for the entire apartment and scheduled the delivery for today. The sofa was delivered fine, but there were a few discrepancies with the larger order for the rest of the apartment. Obviously, with a few phone calls, it was easy to get that straightened out, and the missing items will be delivered in about three weeks with no additional delivery charge. That was the easy part to deal with.

When we signed our application for the apartment, we went ahead and decided to let a service submit the orders to get our electricity and gas set up. The realtors spoke highly of the company, and there was no charge to us for the convenience. It turned out that the company only submitted our order for gas, but somehow "forgot" to submit the order for our electricity. So while we were able to move all our stuff to the new apartment, we still had to spend one more weekend in the university apartment. Ugh.

In between loading the van, I made some frantic phone calls and sent a nasty email to the service company. A rep called me and asked us to check some basic things at the new apartment. Michelle was there to handle all the deliveries while I was at the old apartment loading stuff into the van, so she checked out everything and verified that there absolutely was no power. The rep called the provider after I relayed these details and seemed genuinely surprised that this got overlooked at their end. He assured me that he would make certain that my order was escalated immediately on Monday, and promised me that the connection would be taken care of then as well. In addition, we will be getting AU$150 off our first bill (they bill the electricity quarterly here), so that was a reasonable compensation in my view for the major inconvenience.

After we unloaded everything at the new apartment, we made use of the van to do some further shopping. We got a small television, dvd player, vacuum cleaner, drip coffee maker, patio furniture, grill, miscellaneous office items, cleaning supplies, and non-perishable groceries (had to skip the perishables...no electricity for the fridge). We unloaded all that, got coffee to go from a local McCafe, and headed back to the university apartment.

The day was long and exhausting, and we have to get up around 5:30 a.m. tomorrow morning for the final sweep of the old apartment, drop all the remaining items off at the new place, then return the rental van by 8 a.m.