Wridgways - a stuff up

It was a late night yesterday. With the removalists due we didn’t get to bed until about 2.00am, but the garage was almost finished. And so, after a lousy sleep, worrying about everything we had an early rise, and up at 6.00am. The removalists were scheduled to arrive at 8.00am, so we had to make an early start.

Eventually the removalists came and they started to mark off various boxes and items in the garage. Then not so far into the morning there came a time when there was a lot of standing around happening by the workers. For some reason the activity of everyone had ground to a very slow pace. I asked one of the men, “How’s it going?” It was just a causal question with no particular deep and meaningful intent behind it. Though I guess I was surprised to see the guy leaning against the wall and not really doing anything. But the guy’s response caught me off guard, “I don’t know. It’s not up to me.”

Wow. Something was up. How come I didn’t know?

Then along came Mark De Lacy from Wridgways and made himself known to us. He said the uplift had been called off until some traffic control people could be organised, that is, called off until the next day. He spent a long time talking with us. He apologised, and explained the dangers and difficulties of this particular job.

The issue of concern was access to the block. Because the removalist truck couldn’t be driven into our driveway (we had a steep block) or parked at the side of the road next to the drive (there is no footpath, just an earthen gutter), and because the block was situated on a main road (which was almost true) that a different approach to the upload would have to be adopted.

Mark then went on to explain how our furniture would be transported. Perhaps he was trying to deflect our thoughts from a lost day. He said our container load of furniture would be shipped by train, and he could guarantee a freight booking and said our stuff would probably be in Canberra next week. He couldn’t say exactly when it would arrive, but definitely this month.

Emily rang. She was the grumpy Wridgways person who, the other day, said I shouldn’t call into the office without telephoning first. She said the local Council would provide a service that included some lolly-pop men for a fee of $900, which she wanted us to pay for. These would be the traffic control people.

I dug my heels in. We had a quote. I told Emily that the person who had provided the quote had seen the property. He had walked up the driveway and knew how steep it was, and had driven on our street to get to the property and knew how much traffic it carried. Surely if something was difficult it would have been included in the quotation. Emily said she would check the quotation, and rang off. I was annoyed the uplift had been cancelled. I was doubly annoyed that Emily was asking for more money, out of the blue. I hope my anger showed on that phone call. I was seeing red. I’d had enough of Wridgways.

I rang my workplace who had forced me to use Wridgways. Apparently, at least one other person was having trouble with Wridgways, and I was asked to provide a report of my experience with them when I got back. Apart from that request, I didn’t get much help other than sympathy from this person, as pleasant and understanding as she was. I asked if I could dump Wridgways right there and then and go with another company. We had had a quote from Dawkins Removals, but that was before I knew we had to go with my company’s preferred removalist. She said I could change removalists if I wished given the circumstances.

I rang Scott at Dawkins Removals to see if he could do the shift, but in the mean time Emily rang back and offered to split the cost. She said the Council would put on three men at $47.90 per hour, and half works out to be $453.70. That amount needed to be paid in cash on the day of uplift. If we didn’t pay the amount immediately the uplift wouldn’t take place. Does this sound like blackmail? Dawkins was willing to do the shift. They were more expensive, but had built in the various hazards they had recognised on our block, and would shift our pot plants too, but unfortunately could not come as soon as we needed them. Wridgways had us over a barrel. I told Emily that I’d pay the fee.

I also said to Emily that we would be leaving the house early on the next day to pick up a rental truck, and to pass on this information to the men doing the uplift. I emphasized the fact that the house would be empty but unlocked tomorrow and that the men should start work in our absence. We didn’t want further delays.

Our original plan, had things gone to plan, was to have the removalists to do the uplift today. We had banked on that, because we had booked a rental truck for the next day, and would be loading our rental truck throughout the next day, and had planned to drive off to Canberra when loaded, hopefully sometime in the afternoon. This was going to be a nuisance with the Wridgways people and us trying to load both trucks at the same time.

The removalist people departed.

S and I spent the rest of the day lunching at a restaurant in Eltham, trying to take our minds of this shemozzle. A little bit of pleasantness amongst the chaos. On the way back I called into a steel merchant and bought some steel bar to help in fixing some anchor points to the ute so that the camper van could be secured. I’m not looking forward to this job.

We also spent the afternoon shifting some plant pots in readiness for loading into our truck on the next day. Some of those pots felt like they were glued to the ground. I could barley budge some of them. To say nothing of trying to get them down the steps through the garage and down the driveway. The hand truck was invaluable. I'm glad I bought a heavy duty unit.