Overall Transitions

This assisted living facility referred me to this company. I was pressed for time as I had received about three days notice I needed to move my mother out of the nursing rehab center, so did not look at other providers and quite frankly did not pay close enough attention to the details of what they were offering. They sent me a bid for $210.00 an hour and wanted an additional hour to be paid for "overhead". This was supposed to pay for the services of two men and a truck. On the day of the move, they showed up with three men plus the owners husband as the supervisor. The owners husband seemed more interested in telling me how many businesses he owned before going to work with his wife, how they met, where they lived, where they used to live, etc. etc (TMI) rather than carrying out an efficient move. When we arrived at the new place, I asked them to put together a small bookcase - two of the them worked on it while two others stood and watched. Then, at the end of the move he hands me a bill for $910.00 for a move that took 2.5 hours. I was in sticker shock so I called the owner later and questioned the bill - even with the extra hour they charged at $210.00 an hour it should have only be $740.00. The husband, James, calls me back and explains to me he had added the extra man because it was "late in the day" and he thought it would make the move go faster and so the charge was now $260.00 an hour - he just forgot to tell me about it. He was extremely condescending. The final part of this story is we decided to move my Mother back to the retirement home and we used Smooth Moooves. This was the same move in reverse, except I had more things to move as I had bought quite a few things while my mother was in assisted living. They sent two men (no supervisor), completed the move in 2 hours (in rush hour) and charged me $250.00 and the movers were polite and extremely pleasant. I would definitely use them again. Maybe the other services they offer to help with elderly relocations are valuable and fairly priced but if all you are doing is moving, look around and find someone more reasonable and efficient.