Moving In Madness Part 1

I moved Princess Three to college this weekend. I can TRULY say that this was the WORST moving in college experience of my life and I am SO exhausted. Princess Two lived in this same housing several years ago when she attended the same university and she loved the housing so I suggested that Princess Three live in the same housing.

 

We needed to be there at 8 a.m. to pick a room of the four in the apartment so we went up the night before and stayed at her friends so we could make SURE that we could get a good room choice and have the time needed to move her in and get her settled so she could focus on finding her classes and getting to know campus.

We arrive later than usual on Friday night due to heavy rain almost the entire 5 hour trip and my car is rear wheel drive so I didn’t dare go more than 50 in the slow lane for much of the trip.

We purchased a new computer and were up very late transferring all the data via a back up drive from her old computer to the new one. The old one was one I purchased for Princess Two when she left for that same university four or five years or so ago. It was used then and Princess Three really did need a new computer. I was sleeping on blankets on the floor so my night was not a restful one and having driven five hour in the rain with a loaded car and making sure Princess Three was always behind me in her car left me really stressed and I had a hard time falling asleep.

We get an email that night before going to bed about how there was an issue with the new carpet for the apartments and that the carpet wouldn’t be laid until Monday and they would have to pull everything out of the apartment for them to lay the carpet as they have to stretch it from one side to the other. I freak out wondering how my thin Princess with a bad back is going to move all the stuff out by herself and where she would put it all on the first day of class so of course, now I really have a hard time trying to sleep. I think I finally got to sleep about three a.m.

We get up and rush over to the apartments at 9 a.m which was the earliest they said we could go and another mother is there with her daughter and picking rooms. There is carpet cut throughout the apartment sitting out but none of it is actually laid and we can’t even see into the bathrooms since there are all the doors for all the rooms and closets in one along with a dresser and mattresses in the other. The Kitchen is filled with three dressers, three mattress sets, a couch, four stools, four cinder blocks and a few other things. We can’t see the floor or the fridge, stove etc. We can’t move anything in since not one room in the place has carpet laid.

 

The manager tells us that since the girls didn’t get the heat turned on, they won’t stretch the carpet because it will buckle when it gets warm so until Monday, they won’t install it. The other families are a distance away as well and our cars are FULL of stuff. We ask the manager what to do and she tells us to put stuff in the pantry. Um…. The shelves are thinner than a closet shelf and there are five. I ask her how the girls are to go to the bathroom all weekend with all the doors etc in there and she tells me they can sleep on the mattresses on the carpet as long as they move them out before Monday when they leave for school. I ask where they are to put their stuff then. She tells me into the guys apartment upstairs. NONE of the girls are from the area and don’t know anyone in the place.

By this time I am getting really upset. The place smells like a carpet factory. I am getting a horrible migraine and the manager tells us to go shopping for food for the girls. I ask her how she thinks we could put it away with all the chairs, dressers, couch and mattresses in the kitchen. She has a toddler in her arms and just looks at me blankly. The other mothers resolve is to unpack everything and put it out in the girl’s room. I ask her what she thinks they will do with it when they need to put the carpet in on Monday and she tells me that the carpet men can move it.

 

I tell her that carpet men DON’T move furniture and this is reinforced when she hears the manager tell them that they all have to move their own things out before school on Monday. I tell the manager that she is making her problem our problem and that I don’t care if the carpet buckles, that is their problem but they need to get the carpet men in TODAY to lay the carpet.

 

If they had given us a few weeks notice of the back ordered carpet, we could have found other housing or planned on moving her in the next weekend or something and have her stay with friends but by the time they sent the email, we were almost there and didn’t get the email until we had wi-fi much later.

She is just the manager, not the owner, not the carpet guy. I ask her to please ask the carpet men to lay the carpet so the girls can unload their items as I DO NOT want my daughter moving things on the first day of school by herself with no help and not knowing people. She is by far my most timid daughter and doesn’t even ask me for help most of the time. I know she would have done it herself and hurt herself in the process. As it was, we were tripping over scraps of carpet and carpet edges and I thought, “If someone falls and breaks their leg on these scraps and pieces of carpet, they will pay out more then having someone come to stretch the carpet again later.”

 

So, I start picking up the scraps and taking them outside to the scrap pile at least making her little part of the crazy world safer. All the while it is now pouring rain like crazy outside.

The manager talks to the carpet guy and I walk over and BEG him to lay the carpet. He tells me he will get it done and start on Princess Three’s room and it will be done in an hour. 

To be continued.... I didn't take pictures until he was almost done so I don't have pictures of what the kitchen and bathrooms were like because my camera was loaded in the car with all her stuff.