AIBU to think there must be an alternative to hiring a removals van?

[Rememberremember]

AIBU in thinking there MUST be an alternative to hiring a removals company when you are only moving a couple of doors down the road?
It seems bonkers to have to pay over a grand (local rates are expensive!) to load lots of stuff in a van, drive 30 metres and unload it all, but apparently as everyone in the chain needs to exchange at the same time there isn't an alternative as the properties all need to be empty simultaneously.
Any ideas?!!

Get a load of friends together to help move stuff? But tricky when things will be heavy and they’re not professionals, things will still take a long time. Not sure!

Get 1000 friends to turn up, grab one thing out of your house each, stand around while all the legal stuff gets done and then carry it to the new house. Horses or well trained dogs are also an option.

You pay per hour so since the distance is short, you’d pay less.
or if you have a huge family/ lots of friends willing to help - you can organise them to help move your stuff.

Depending on the furniture, it can often move walked out and along using strong straps—but you also need fairly strong people to help.

You hire a self drive van and do it yourself. If all your stuff fits in that is. Or you could move everything into storage and out again over a day or 2.
Absolutely knackering, would never do it again!

Carry it down the street yourself?

Hire your own van?

These are your options really

Ask whether you can put stuff in the garden a. Hour beforehand

Friends and cars/ by hand. We moved about twenty minutes away and I counted 16 trips in one day, I was delirious by the evening 😅

You can hire a ‘man with van’ type service which will be cheaper, and take a risk on anything getting broken, but if you’re not going far that might be an option.

There’s often people advertising this kind of thing on FB marketplace.

I’d just pay for removal and try and negotiate as it’s a short distance. There’s always more stuff than you think. The logistics. If you start carrying it across and leave outside it might get taken/people think it’s free. It will probably rain. People offer to help them back out. At least everything boxed and loaded in van and then taken in new house you know it’s safe.
We have diy moved when young flat to house ‘not much stuff’ and it was exhausting.
We moved next door but one at work and had professional movers and we needed it. Boss initially had suggested we all help carrying across.

Could you get rid of some non essential stuff in advance ( someone’s garage, storage unit) etc and only keep what you need

Get 1000 friends to turn up, grab one thing out of your house each, stand around while all the legal stuff gets done and then carry it to the new house.

Forming a chain and passing the items along would be more efficient than each person carrying one thing. You might be able to hire trolleys for the heavier stuff.

But all your stuff must be out of the house before the new owners come to take possession. That's what you pay the professionals for - emptying a house quickly and efficiently. With insurance. Who pays if one of your mates smashes something of yours?

I genuinely think, having done moves with and without movers, this is a luxury worth paying for. It’s one of the most traumatic and labour intensive things to do yourself!

Get all the neighbours to come and stand in the street and form a human chain to empty the house?

To be honest even if it was just a few doors away I would still get a removal company to do it, I’m never moving myself again.

Some people make the classic mistake of under-estimating how long it takes to empty a house. See previous threads about new owners turning up to find vendors sitting having lunch in the kitchen and not having packed a thing.

Um, not really - might be cheaper to hire a large van yourself for a day but the largest you can get as a private hire vehicle is probably a LWB transit type and that might not be big enough for an entire house.

Its the time and the space you're hiring, not the distance it then covers.

We hired a 7.5 ton truck (I'm old enough for my driving license to cover it) and did it ourselves over two days.

We're getting quotes of 3.5 grand from removal firms. We were lucky though. We had the luxury of moving to an already empty house with a couple of weeks until the buyers of our old house were moving in, so were able to take our time and flit back and forth in yhe car for the last few little bits and pieces

Our friends moved across the road from their old house so they hired a van, loaded it with the white goods and heavy things the night before completion and we all moved the smaller stuff onto the lawn the next morning and into the new house as soon as keys were exchanged. The van didn't move, it just got unloaded into the new house after completion.

We had this recently.
Luckily we had a weekend in between exchange and completion, and the house we were moving to was empty. Seller offered to give us the keys on the exchange day, so we moved everything over weekend with help from friends.

Our back up was to hire a Luton van, put all the furniture in it the day before moving, park it outside the new property to unload, and then move the smaller bits.

A lot of people seem to be missing the fact that OP is in the middle of a chain so doesn't the keys to the new house until she's handed over the keys to her current house. There's no going back and forward over several trips.

We moved the same distance once, and got everything boxed up, moved downstairs, then to the end of the garden and then we and friends moved it to the side of the road and shuttled back and forth to the front garden and then inside. It was all very straightforward in the end, fortunatly it wasn't raining

We were in a similar situation, Moving 1 street away, we hired a van and did it ourselves. It was horrible mainly because there was a massive storm that day, our possessions blowing down the road.

But our biggest problem was that our sellers despite having no onward chain were very late moving out, way after the money had gone through and it had a massive stressful knock on effect. As a PP said I do think movers are a luxury worth paying for in hindsight. Or if you can hire a man with a van and then an additional van yourself that might work.

I think you can hire those big flat trolleys they use to move film equipment and stuff. That plus shopping trolleys from a supermarket plus one man and van. But that would need several people and trips.

You’ll need to move some non-essential boxes to a friends or relatives house a few days before. Hire a van, load as much as you can into the van the night before but you’re going to need to leave space for big things like mattresses. Get a couple of friends or relatives round the morning to move the remaining things out, have a panic when van Tetris isn’t working.

Move the van up the street on completion (you’ll want to be carrying your washing machine, couch, mattresses, wardrobes as short a distance as possible at both ends). Unload. Thank your friends or relatives and get everyone some pizza and beer in to thank them for helping you. Collect your non-essentials as quick as possible.

Echoing everyone else though - removals are a luxury I’d insist on. Especially if you don’t have friends or relatives nearby to help you. We moved ourselves once (which is how I know you want as little distance as possible to carry your heavy stuff) and I’m never doing it again.

We always DIY it - hired a 7.5 ton truck last time, a friend to pack it then another to help unpack.