Gone in Nine Minutes – the future of moving is here

Moving containers take a great deal of stress out of moving and they offer the potential for saving money at the same time. PODS stands for Portable On Demand Storage.

In a recent example of a PODS move from Charlotte, NC to Floyd, VA, this PODS container was delivered by truck and was placed in the townhouse driveway in less than ten minutes.

A day later, all of the furniture from the two-bedroom townhouse was loaded into the container by trained professionals in three two hours and the homeowner locked the container. There was no messing around with inventory lists and box counts. The owner’s stuff goes in the container and it is locked up, period.

The next day the fully loaded PODS container was picked up and removed by one driver. Here is the slide show of the PODS container being picked up and removed in nine minutes. Turn on the captions feature on Flickr to get the full effect.

Compare this to the extreme circus of traditional moving company activities. In a traditional move, a huge van pulls up and blocks the street for several hours while a crew of people cram your possessions around or on top of somebody else’s household furnishings.

The driver is making an inventory list and giving directions while workers carry boxes, lamps, and furniture on to the truck. Near the end of this activity, workers are creating and sealing boxes for all the odd things that are left over, like your golf clubs and the weed whacker and the left over skate boards. (All in same box – marked with a cryptic number)

When you are given the box count, it is a miracle if the count means anything to you and you hope that it is complete. You sign the inventory anyway and hope for the best.

When a moving truck arrives at your new home, it is a different truck and your household possessions have been rearranged and crammed in around somebody else’s possessions. You can tell because they loaded your furniture into the side of truck "A" and they are taking your furniture out of the top rear of truck "B".

Your furniture has been piled high on top of other people’s furniture and they have to hand your furniture down piece by piece in 108 degree weather. They are passing your heavy living room furniture down ten feet while hanging off the back of a van with no lift gate and no ladders.

Images of unloading a Mexican bus come to mind while this is going on. The only difference is there are no crates of chickens.

Four hours later when the dust clears, you find that some of your possessions are missing  and you start negotiating with the driver to get the situation handled.

Container moving offers a great deal of flexibility and it does not hold you hostage while movers madly scramble to unload a truck and get your furniture placed in inclement weather. If your new home is not ready, you can store the containers until you are ready to unload them. If they get delivered and the weather turns inclement, you leave the containers sealed until you are ready to unload them

I have written about SmartMove which neighbor Tom King and I have used successfully. Their smaller containers offer a little more flexibility in tight situations and steep driveways, but the delivery and pickup of five containers took an hour versus the 9 minute pickup I witnessed with this recent POD move made yesterday.

See the images on Flickr to get the full significance of what this new container moving system can do. From the arrival of the truck and its driver, to the departure of the truck, driver and POD container, it took only 9 minutes from start to finish!

That’s hardly enough time to drink a cup of coffee! Compare this to your last move…