As I stated in an earlier post, I was incredibly worried about fitting our entire apartment into a PODS unit. For weeks in advance of our PODS arriving, I was mildly obsessed about loading everything up. Not only was I worried about everything fitting, I was also scared we wouldn’t have enough help to get it done in 4 hours. After all, we were doing this on a Tuesday morning when most of our friends would be working. In fact, I even had a nightmare about loading the PODS and it was a total disaster. Clearly, this was preoccupying my brain.
Luckily, there was no need for me to worry. I can say with 100% confidence, loading the PODS was a total success. First of all, they arrived on time which is always a good thing when you have recruited outside help. They even called about 15 minutes before arrival to let us know they’d be there. PODS offers a special city service that requires the driver, ours was David, to stay with the truck. He was really knowledgeable and offered a lot of helpful hints and advice. As soon as he opened the door, I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew immediately we would have enough space, but the challenge would be organization and working efficiently to get done in the 4 hour “city service” time limit. We had managed to recruit 4 of our friends, Dan and Dean (both who work, but didn’t have to go in until later) and Melinda and Violet (both teachers with the summers off).
David suggested we load all boxes first, but I didn’t listen and decided to start with some of the bigger furniture and fill in with boxes. I should have listened to him. He watches people load these things all the time—he knows! But, I got cocky and decided to do it my way. It worked, but as it filled up it got a little bit tricky and ended up less neatly organized that I would have preferred. One of the really great things was that there was a lift on the end of the truck where we could just stand with the heavy stuff and David would raise us from the ground. That was awesome for some of the bigger pieces and saved some difficult lifting onto the bed of the truck.
It may not have ended up as pretty as I would have liked, but, in the end, we made it all fit! It took us about 2 and ½ hours. We were so impressed with our hardworking friends—everyone said that it went so much easier than they expected. Yay!
Now, our stuff is on its own adventure on the way to be stored in Louisville. (I sometimes like to imagine Toy Story scenario where everything comes to life and has its own storyline when there are no humans around.) As for the security of our items, they are locked in with two of our own padlocks and we keep the keys. David cautioned us to make sure we do not lose the keys because replacing the door is some ridiculous amount of money. When I asked him why we couldn’t just cut the locks, he said cutting them without damaging the door is virtually impossible. Yikes! The warning scared us enough that we are keeping the keys in a very safe spot. As added security, he also had me sign an orange plastic label connected to a zip-tie. This way when we receive our items we will know that no one has been inside the unit.
Now, we are able to track our PODS as it makes its way to Louisville where it will wait until we need it again. I’d say the whole thing was a resounding success. I guess the real test will be when we open it up and see if our stuff made it in one piece. Hopefully it did, but if it didn’t…well, it’s all just stuff. We have too much of that anyway!
–Brooke
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