So we have moved. We have been at this house for over two months now and we are still not fully unpacked. We are doing it bit by bit and to be honest, I’m sick of the smell of cardboard. The whole move ended up being a botched up job.

When the removalists delivered the stuff, they just dumped it anywhere. The furniture and boxes were just abandoned and stacked on top of each other with no consideration to where it all went. They had no idea, one even asked me what an ensuite is. What chance did I have?

The house we have now is much smaller than the one we had. I have to sort out what to keep and what to throw away/sell/put in storage. I’ve already packed, marked and put in storage about 50 boxes but there is still a lot more to do. Most of the stuff that is going to storage is my antique china and it has to be catalogued and the boxes marked. It’s a big job that I started before we moved. I didn’t finish it before the move. Fortunately I started with the most valuable items so they are safely in storage and catalogued and I moved those boxes myself.

What is making the job harder than it should be is that the removalists lost a lot brackets that I need to put furniture together so that I can put things away. I have to order new parts and some I am still waiting for. The removalists made such a mess of things. We had the removalists pack for us thinking that it would be a time saver. To save paper, they used my linen to line boxes for padding so even though I know there is china in one box, I can’t put it in storage without unpacking it to remove the things that I need to use such as towels and sheets. I don’t think I have a complete set of anything yet. Where do you put all this stuff while you’re unpacking it to jput together and put away? The linen is actually going in boxes just for linen until I can sort it later. They packed things in our suitcases to save on boxes so instead of just putting the suitcases away, I have to unpack them first. Then, instead of putting sets in one box together, they spread them around several boxes. For example, you find the vacuum cleaner and the nozzles in one box but where are the hoses? The result is that you can’t use the vacuum cleaner until you have unpacked the other boxes and come across the remainder of it and in the meantime, the vacuum cleaner is stacked somewhere, not where it should be, waiting for it’s parts.

Some things they just threw in boxes and they are all jumbled and covered in muck. One box is covered in toothpaste because the toothpaste was squeezed during the move. I’ve had to clean every single item in that box before putting away. Another box had the same thing but with the shampoo. As I’m unpacking, I also have to wash down things that are covered in whatever was spilled or squeezed or broken. It is taking forever for me to do with my limited time.

A lot of the times I’m unpacking a box and crying from the damage. Nothing is broken outright, I wish it was, then I could just throw it away and be done with it, make an insurance claim for the more expensive items, but some of my antique china has hairline cracks that can’t be seen, it is only when I test it that I know it has been cracked. So I have to test each item and throw away what has cracks as it is valueless.

It just goes on. I have two antique china cabinets that I can’t open because I can’t find the keys. This means that I can’t put things in them. But to find the keys, I have to unpack boxes to look for them. What do I do with all this stuff that can’t be put away? If I can’t find the keys at all, I will have to chase antique keys on ebay until I find two that work. They lost the keys to the filing cabinet as well. It is locked. I will have to get a locksmith to come and open it for me.

I tried so hard to supervise, but there were too many of them for me to keep an eye on. There were 5 men taking the furniture away and 3 women packing. They were spread all over the house and a lot of the time, the men were removing things from the furniture and dumping it anywhere to take the furniture. I had arranged for the packing to be done on one and half days before the move but the company ended up sending the removalists and the packers at the same time. Such a mess.

So far, we have still to unpack and put away maybe antoher 30 boxes but there is still a lot of stuff just lying around waiting for a home. The main bedroom, bathroom and kitchen are the only rooms that are completely done.

After the move, we relaxed with some champagne, note the dust and the mismatched glasses. How can a table get so dirty during one short trip?

Time to relax after a long trying day. At this stage, we did not know what awaited us when we started to unpack.

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