Saying No to the Culture of Death

We have finally made the move to Canberra. To me, moving is a real scourge. There is all of the packing and unpacking to complete, and then one has to find space for those things that I do not want to throw away. On top of this there is the scourge of my husband who wants to throw out everything without regard to whether or not the things are useful to me. We have over 400 boxes to be unpacked, and we have been working on this task since our arrival here last week.

We had used the removalist company in a past move and at that time I was quite satisfied, but this time I am feeling disappointed. The packers were Irish, and I also mean that it was their nationality, not just what they did. First of all, the woman packer got into our bedroom on the first day of the prepack, and that meant everything was packed. I was shocked when I discovered that she had packed everything. On top of this a pair  of pearl earrings continues to be missing, and we cannot find the remote control for the TV set. Someone took an expensive bottle of after shave from the main bathroom area that was not to be packed. The company has said that they will purchase a bottle of the same brand.

The pre-pack and uplift took three days, and then we had to move the animals as we drove from Sydney to Canberra. I took the cat in my car. She cried at first but she soon settled down to not making a noise. Upon arrival at the house she refused to get out of her cage for a day, and even then she ended up with her nose flat against a wall. However, she has come out of the shock of the move. The dog was also well behaved on the trip to Canberra.

The unloading was to take place over two days. On the first day the crew was late because of delays due to an accident. On the second day they did not turn up until the afternoon, and there were two containers to be unloaded. They ended up working in the dark because they started on the job so late. 

To add to our woes we had to find our computer equipment, and this was not easy because of the way that they had labeled our boxes. In the end we found everything so that we got our computers running over the first weekend. However, we did not have the ADSL.

On Monday morning I contacted Bigpond, our provider and the young woman was not at all helpful, so I asked to speak to a supervisor, she got upset, said hang on, but then she allowed the line to drop out. I think that this was a terrible example of customer service. So, I contacted them again, and I did as the operator asked, but still no luck. Eventually I got onto another man and a woman, and both were extremely helpful in sorting out the problem. It turned out the previous owner had put in an order to cancel the telephone line on 8 October and this held up our order. Once that was sorted we had to wait another 3 days before getting back online.

Now it is a week later and we are still unpacking. My husband has just found the remote for the TV set top box that was missing, as well as the cross that we had placed near the door of our old house. So at least we are getting somewhere.