Well, I'm pretty much moved into my new apartment. Unpacking went much faster the second time around, so if I keep up this trend of moving to a new apartment every month, by September I'll have It down to a science! (Please oh please let this not happen).
I was a little concerned about how we'd get everything from point A to point B. My parents were a little busy meeting my newborn niece, so there wasn't a great chance of them bringing the trailer up, and most of the people we asked about helping us had some kind of activity going on Saturday. Not to mention that Saturday is often my busiest day of working, but was the only day my other roommates could move. And while the old apartments had elevators of respectable size for transporting larger and heavier items of furniture, the new apartments have no elevators. Just three flights of stairs.
But moving the furniture was actually pretty simple. My roommate who was moving from the same place as me and I split the costs on renting a U-Haul trailer for a day, and the elders quorum presidents of both our old and new ward were able to scrounge up enough help that all the furniture was moved in a matter of a few hours.
The new apartment is brand new, so for the first couple of days nothing worked. The AC didn't work properly until it had been running for three days, we didn't have internet yet, the washing machine wasn't hooked up properly to the water, and the ice maker still isn't working. For these reasons, though my roommates moved in and stayed immediately, I opted to stay at the old apartments until my time was up. After all, I'd already paid for that wifi and AC. My bed was big enough I had to put it on the trailer, but my mattress is a memory foam one that came rolled up in a pretty small bag. I figured I'd keep my mattress behind and sleep on it on the floor until July 25th, move out day. Then I'd just roll it back up into the bag, stuff it in my car with a few other odds and ends, do some cleaning, and scram! Out of there with hours to spare.
My first problem came on the morning of the day in question when I attempted to roll up my foam mattress.
It didn't want to roll.
When it did, it was about four times the diameter the opening of the original packaging. I tried sitting, then laying, on the rolled up mattress to squish it down into shape, to no avail. Finally I turned to the internet for help.
Turns out you can't put a foam mattress back in the original packaging. You can vacuum pack it to take up a bit less space, but you'll never get it in that bag again. And trying risks damaging the layers of foam. Heck, leaving the mattress on its side for too long can damage the layers of foam, though the internet lacks unanimity on how long is too long.
But the moving van was long gone, and Sheila (my car) is not big enough to lug around a mattress. So I did the best I could.
Yes. I cannibalized the straps from the original packaging bag, and fastened it around my best attempts at rolling the thing up, by hooking the straps through the cheap carribeaner I use to keep my keys together. It barely held for the entire drive back to Meridian.
I'd planned out in advance how I'd make everything fit in the car, but with my mattress three times as big as I'd anticipated those plans got thrown out the window. Still, I was bound and determined to make everything fit, even if I had to drive with a box in my lap.
It didn't get quite that bad.
Next came clean up. I'd managed to get everything in the car by 11, so I figured an hour would be plenty of time to clean the apartment.
I started by vacuuming, using the vacuum I'd borrowed from my roommate-in-both-locations. I vacuumed the floor, the moulding, the walls, even the windowsill--and then, to my dismay, I ducked the ends of the cord to the window blinds into the end of the vacuum hose.
The little plastic caps managed to jam at an angle which made it impossible to just pull the cords out. Believe me, I tried. My next thought--I needed something long and skinny I could push through the house to dislodge the plastic caps. But everything was packed except a few pieces of cardboard. Oh, hey, cardboard, that rips, right? I tore off a long strip and ran it through the tube.
A bit of wiggling, a bit of creativity, and a few minutes later--I had the window shade cords AND a big piece of cardboard stuck in the vacuum hose!
Now I only had half an hour left, and I was starting to panic. Getting desperate, I went to the kitchen to borrow a knife so I could cut the cords--the only option I could see before me. As I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to saw through a pair of window cords, a sudden thought came to me: the knife in my hands was long, skinny, and, best of all--rigid.
So I spent another few minutes trying to use the knife to dislodge the cords. Turns out the knife wasn't skinny enough. But now I had new determination to find a solution less drastic than damaging the window blinds. So I borrowed a rattail comb from my roommate and finally, finally, I was able to remove the cords with a sharp tug.
So now I just had to clean the walls and Windows and mirrors in the remaining... 5 minutes until checkout.
It might not have been my most thorough cleaning job.
But, I turned everything in on time and hit the road.
Anyway, my new apartment is in the middle of nowhere. Heck, I can't even play pokemon go here, the little features don't even show up. I have to play:
While going grocery shopping
In line at the DMV
And when I visit the library.
So there is at least something to be said for making my errands more entertaining.
But anyway, I'm moved in and unpacked, and this may be further from everywhere exciting, but it's home now and not a bad one.
Sign I made for my door.
