I just got back from a very long weekend in which I helped my friend Lauren and her boyfriend Eric move. Lauren is a notoriously bad packer. The last time she moved, I opened the door to her U-Haul and was greeted with an avalanche of loose belongings. Lauren had run out of time, and started to just throw her stuff in the back of the truck. Being the OCD organizer that I am, I was appalled. Things just went from bad to worse after that. Lauren had moved boxes that were essentially empty, and proceeded to get rid of whole boxes upon arrival at her new place. Determined not to let this moving horror happen again, I told Lauren that the next time she moved I would fly down to DC, help her pack, and then help her move.
I realize that it was a stupid offer. Who really wants to give up a long weekend to help someone move; even for your best friend. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it) Lauren had done almost no packing by the time I got there. Now, I have done my fair share of moving. Nathaniel and I are nomads: we're generally moving every five years or so. Most of my belongings are stored in Rubbermaids, ready to be packed and loaded into the next moving truck. The nice thing about Rubbermaids is that I don't have to replace them after every move and they stack into perfectly-sized towers. Now I realize that it's not practical for most people to have an abundance of Rubbermaids
to be used whenever the need to move manifests itself, but it did leave me wondering what reusable (read: eco-friendly) moving options were there. You can recycle boxes from friends and family, but these boxes are rarely the same size, which makes for stacking difficulties.
I thought back to the client of an advertising agency I worked for in the past. They were presenting a new biz pitch for Rent-a-crate in the morning, and the office was burglarized the night before. Pretty much everything in the office had been packed into the Rent-a-crate and was easily carried out of the door. Now the irony of the situation is that the Rentacrate had worked so well that someone was able to use them to steal everything. If someone was able to use Rentacrates to easily and quickly pack up an entire office, then why can't they be used for moving a house? I was so impressed with myself until I visited the Rentacrate website. It seems that the idea had not escaped the Rentacrate people either.
Rentacrate offers rentaboxes and a foldable plastic wardrobe box. The rentaboxes are available in two sizes and can be purchased in sets of ten, or rented by the week. The wardrobe box fits a standard wardrobe bar, and is guaranteed for up to 50 moves. Prices are available upon request.
~ Meghan
