Pros:
Very cheap rates, which should have been a warning…read moresign for me.
Polite and courteous
Very responsive prior to signing contract
Cons:
Very poor time management: they arrived consistently late on both days we had them scheduled for and the final move, estimated to take about 6 hours, took 14. That's right. Instead of 9 AM to 3 PM as originally planned, they arrived at 10:30 AM and did not leave until after midnight. I will not say they were finished at midnight because they also failed to move all of our things out of our home that we requested.
Either desperately understaffed or having very poor understanding of requirements of proposed work; when coming to pack a 2300 sq ft house, they arrived with the owner and his wife as the sole staff to accomplish the job. They estimated they would be done in four hours; 6.5 hours later, they were nowhere near finished but decided they were done for the day.
They returned the next day with a ten foot box truck, the owner, and two other people to move our things from one three story house into another, larger one. Bear in mind they had not even started disassembling our multiple bedframes and much of our stuff was totally unpacked. The truck proved hilariously inadequate for the task, and they ended up having to load and unload it three times while still ultimately leaving behind a significant portion of our belongings, a whole sofa, and much of our yard furniture.
The initial crew of movers was reasonably careful and professional, if woefully outnumbered relative to the task. But as the day dragged on, and they made more and more trips between the two houses, the professional and competent movers started to disappear and be replaced by actual teenage children. I don't mean this metaphorically, actual HS students, one of which asked for our Wi-Fi password as he had to call his mom for permission to stay out late to finish the job. Eventually a crew of six movers were involved in the last trip of the box truck, but by then it was after midnight.
Lack of care with our items:
As a result of the crew being replaced as the night wore on less and less care was taken as the adults were replaced by children as above. Anything they could get their hands on and would fit into a box was thrown into boxes willy nilly. Hammers were put into boxes with unwrapped and loose glassware. Used toilet brushes were thrown in with linens. Ceramic statues were jammed in with unprotected glass lamps. No furniture pads were used at any point during the move and we lost three floor lamps, a bookshelf, and an antique desk to damage. They claimed about the later that they had concerns about being able to move it, which they conveniently did not share until the time came to unload it from the truck and they saw the damage they had already done to it.
Curiously, they had no problems sharing their concerns in advance about a couch that would have been inconvenient to move and they had to be persuaded to leave in our old garage instead of in the middle of the yard.
Several huge gouges were also made on our new hardwood floors by a couch being dragged across it by two people instead of waiting long enough to have a larger number of people try to lift it. We heard and saw this happen ourselves.
Rather than roll up handwoven Persian rugs as part of the packing process, they left all of our carpets down while loading the trucks, with the result that all of them have extensive muddy footprints that we still haven't gotten out.
Multiple dishware items were put in the same protective sleeves, sometimes as many as three drinking glasses in a sleeve meant for one. This is despite the fact that we had multiple cases worth of protective sleeves unopened after they finished the job. Similarly, boxes were dangerously overstuffed even though we had over two dozen unused boxes leftover at the end of the move.
Possible theft: they moved the kitchen drawer in which we kept cash, and the bills in marked envelopes were all accounted for, but the crisp $100 bill at the bottom of the drawer disappeared en route. The owner denied personal knowledge and may have been truthful but this is the downside of going through eight different movers in a day.
Difficulty following directions: we asked them not to bring anything stacked on a certain counter in our kitchen, so they also helpfully neglected to bring anything in any of the drawers or cabinets underneath that counter as well, including all of our silverware and mixing bowls. We asked them to only pack and bring items from shelving units in our basement, and so they scoured the basement and systematically brought everything we wanted them to leave behind.
They also insisted on payment in advance before each stage of the work instead of when completed as initially agreed upon. In retrospect this is not at all surprising. Still seemed to expect a significant tip after all was said and done.
