ANOTHER U-Pack question

[SonoranSongbird 3]

Has anyone else dealt with this? Basically, I live in an old historic neighborhood with narrow brick streets. I'm on a corner, and neither street has parking on the side of the street my house is on. The street to the side of the house has legal parking on the opposite side, but there are almost always cars parked there. The street in front of my house has legal parking on the opposite side, but not directly in front. I do, however, have a big wide driveway behind the house.

Has anyone dealt with this? If so, what did you do?

The options I am going to ask the UPack lady about are:

1) parking it in my driveway, if they can (this would be ideal, but I doubt it is feasible)

2) parking it directly in front of my house and arranging for them to pick it up 3 hours later (we are hiring a moving company to unload that does local moves and charges by the hour---I am afraid we will get heat exhaustion if my poor fiance who is not used to this kind of weather does the heavy lifting himself)

Other than that, I really don't know what we can do. My fiance suggested that we could rent a UHAul and pick it up ourselves from their terminal. Has anyone done that? I can't imagaine they allow it. Any other ideas?

It is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo hot here. Just thought I'd throw in a gratuitous plea for sympathy.

[trailmix 77]

You have my sympathy!! Loading your stuff is never a fun deal!!

I thought we were going to have the same problem, we lived on a Drive, so a big-ish road with lots of parking, but we didn't realize until a few days before they were going to deliver it that they wouldn't just leave the pod, that they wanted to leave the whole trailer!

Luckily parking was available right in front of the house on the day they delivered it - we had originally planned on leaving it there for 3 days as it worked for us as we would get a lower rate (based on the day of delivery) - but ended up just having the movers pack it and it was out of there by like 6 that evening.

I'm not sure what you mean when you said 'rent a uhaul and pick it up yourselves' - you mean a pod? I'm pretty sure they will say no to that.

One alternative is to pack a uhaul at your house and drive it over to upack and pack the pod there - they would probably be ok with that - they do it for the 'rent space in a truck' option - sure worth asking.

How long/wide is your driveway? Then again, with a narrow street I doubt mr. truck man would be able to manouver it in there.

I was just trying to find a post I made regarding the size of the trailer etc, the upack woman gave me the dimensions needed for the trailer - can't find the post - however they should be able to tell you.

One other note, we weren't leaving for a few days, however I didn't think that was a big deal, until I mentioned it to the Upack woman and she hurried me off the phone so she could let someone know - the whole 'your stuff can't cross the border until you do' thing. We ended up crossing the border the day after our stuff did anyway.

Here is what showed up at our house (we only used 1 relocube but there are 2 on the truck for whatever reason).

[aravis227 1]

Has anyone else dealt with this? Basically, I live in an old historic neighborhood with narrow brick streets. I'm on a corner, and neither street has parking on the side of the street my house is on. The street to the side of the house has legal parking on the opposite side, but there are almost always cars parked there. The street in front of my house has legal parking on the opposite side, but not directly in front. I do, however, have a big wide driveway behind the house.

Has anyone dealt with this? If so, what did you do?

The options I am going to ask the UPack lady about are:

1) parking it in my driveway, if they can (this would be ideal, but I doubt it is feasible)

2) parking it directly in front of my house and arranging for them to pick it up 3 hours later (we are hiring a moving company to unload that does local moves and charges by the hour---I am afraid we will get heat exhaustion if my poor fiance who is not used to this kind of weather does the heavy lifting himself)

Other than that, I really don't know what we can do. My fiance suggested that we could rent a UHAul and pick it up ourselves from their terminal. Has anyone done that? I can't imagaine they allow it. Any other ideas?

It is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo hot here. Just thought I'd throw in a gratuitous plea for sympathy.

I think they DO actually allow you to pack and unpack at the terminal. When I looked into Upack that was a significantly cheaper option than having them deliver it directly to your house. Definitely call them and ask about it.

I think I also read somewhere on here about someone doing exactly that with the Uhaul and not having any problems...I'll see if I can find it.

Edited July 21, 2008 by aravis227

[SonoranSongbird 3]

Okay, I wasn't clear on this. My fiance loaded it up with the help of his brother and sister from the house in Edmonton he just sold. It is now either on its way from Edmonton or waiting at the ABF terminal in St Louis. It is the delivery at my house---OUR house now---where we have the parking issue. What I meant by picking it up ourselves (and I agree, it is almost unfathomable that they'd allow it) is to transfer it from the trailer to a Uhaul (which we CAN park in the driveway) at their terminal here in St Louis.

Ugh. Okay, the woman from UPack is going to call me back. I'm sure she will have an idea of what we can do (this MUST be something they have dealt with before) but I thought I'd ask here in case there are solutions neither of us has thought of that I could ask her about.

[trailmix 77]

I think they DO actually allow you to pack and unpack at the terminal. When I looked into Upack that was a significantly cheaper option than having them deliver it directly to your house. Definitely call them and ask about it.

I think I also read somewhere on here about someone doing exactly that with the Uhaul and not having any problems...I'll see if I can find it.

Absolutely you can pack the truck at the terminal - if you are buying space on a truck by the foot - I think Sonoran is talking about the relocube though.

[SonoranSongbird 3]

Oh, thank you, Arivis! You posted after I did so I hadn't seen that.

I haven't seen the trailer because I flew to Edmonton to drive home with him AFTER he had loaded it already. But he said it was a 26 foot trailer with one section for his stuff. It would easily fit in my driveway, but manoverability is an issue.

I'm on hold with the UPack lady.

[aravis227 1]

Oh, thank you, Arivis! You posted after I did so I hadn't seen that.

I haven't seen the trailer because I flew to Edmonton to drive home with him AFTER he had loaded it already. But he said it was a 26 foot trailer with one section for his stuff. It would easily fit in my driveway, but manoverability is an issue.

I'm on hold with the UPack lady.

I can't find the exact post I was thinking of...hopefully the Upack lady gives you a good answer!

[SonoranSongbird 3]

Talked to the Upack lady and she was super helpful.

FYI--for anyone else with similar issues:

Yes, you can pick it up yourself from their facility and unload it there. You can also arrange to have them pick it up a few hours (instead of 3 days) after they drop it off. The other suggestion she made was to ask the city for a permit so we can park it in front of the house (she said something about them blocking off an area with yellow tape so that no one else would park there).

Proviso---I did not ask if this is the same for any city. The other thing is, if we pick it up ourselves, we will need to call them to change something about the delivery place (I don't really understand why, since I assume they will deliver it to the terminal in St Louis before bringing it to my house anyway).

About relocubes--this is what we thought we would be using. For whatever reason, though, they told him that the relocubes are only used for cross-Canada moves. What he loaded was a 26-foot trailer divided into five sections. I think one section is roughly the equivalent of a relocube (supposed to accomodate approximately one room worth of stuff). I know a lot of people here have used the relocubes so I assume it's either a recent change they made or maybe they just didn't have any cubes available when he booked it.

[SonoranSongbird 3]

Relocubes---it wasn't that he couldn't use them for an international move, it was that he would have to go load it at their facility because they didn't have the equipment to transport the cube to his home. That actually makes no sense to me, but that is what he told me they told him. But what I said above (that they are only available for moves within Canada) is not accurate. I can't edit it now.

[trailmix 77]

Relocubes---it wasn't that he couldn't use them for an international move, it was that he would have to go load it at their facility because they didn't have the equipment to transport the cube to his home. That actually makes no sense to me, but that is what he told me they told him. But what I said above (that they are only available for moves within Canada) is not accurate. I can't edit it now.

Hi Sonoran,

Yes, it doesn't really make sense...but it does when it comes to U-Pack

I read the website, I ordered the free DVD etc etc - yet they didn't mention until the day I called to tell them which day to show up that they would be sending a huge honking truck instead of having a fork lift place it on the driveway (a la DVD and website information).

Basically I think they all have different rules.

I would still use them again though