As you plan your move, remember asking friends to help you sort your items, pack, or run a garage sale is a good idea. However, asking your friends to move your stuff isn’t always wise. Here are reasons you should avoid asking your friends to move your items and leave them to professional household movers.
Safety
While your friends might be strong and fit, they likely lack the experience to move heavy items safely. For instance, you could lift something incorrectly and sustain a severe back injury. You don’t want to be responsible for injuring a friend. Moving heavy furniture is a job for professionals.
Experience
Experience is also critical to moving items without damaging them. Moving companies train their movers in every aspect of the move. Many companies simulate moves in training houses. They also train their crews in packing a truck.
Even if your friends have moved before, they won’t have the experience a professional mover has. In addition, your friend will feel terrible if your furniture is damaged, and the incident could also damage your friendship.
Efficiency
Repeatedly doing the same task increases efficiency. Because movers have done it so often, they can load and unload your items smoothly and quickly.
Your friends won’t know the best way to complete each task. They’ll need more frequent breaks. Moving day will be much longer with friends helping than a professional mover.
Reciprocation
If your friends agree to help you move, you’ll probably need to reciprocate when they move. But, unfortunately, their request may come at the worst possible time. So if you want to avoid paying them this favor, you shouldn’t ask.
Equipment
Professional movers know what type of equipment they’ll need to complete the move successfully, and they’ll bring it to your home on the day of the move. For example, they’ll have items such as:
- Moving blankets
- Furniture covers
- Tie downs and e-track straps
- Dollies
- Hand trucks
- Piano moving equipment
- Safety markers for the vehicle
- Floor protectors
- Ramps
- Large amounts of bubble wrap
You and your friends are unlikely to have access to all this equipment. At best, you’d have to spend considerable time and money to acquire it. At worst, you might move without it and damage your home or furniture.
Cost-Effectiveness
Having your friends help you may seem to be less expensive. However, when you consider it more closely, professional movers are generally more cost-effective in the long run. This is because when friends help you move, you have hidden costs.
- You’ll have to give up more of your time.
- You and your friends may not know how to move and pack an expensive vase or work of art. Damage to the items may far exceed the cost of hiring professional movers.
- You or your friends may sustain an injury. The cost of injuries in the United States was $4.2 trillion in 2019. An injury could cause you or your friends to require hospitalization and miss work days. In some cases, the damage could be permanent.
Stress
Hiring professional movers is less stressful than hiring your friends because the movers will come into your home, take over, and handle the task efficiently.
Moving Done Right
Avoid relying on friends to help you move. Instead, contact experienced professional movers today for a free quote.