Discussion Thread 🗳️ Saturday 3 May 2025
There was one that just doesn't have insurance, and had lots of reviews saying they break things.
As a positive I now have a bunch of quotes that all agree on the rough amount of stuff and likely time taken to move, so I can focus on the cost per hour and any extra charges (like the $500 surcharge for travelling over 30km the expensive place wanted). That place also thought it would take 3 men instead of the 2 everyone else is quoting for, which is why it was so much higher. All the others are between $1500-$2000, the expensive one was estimating $3500.
I'll probably just go with the same removalist I had last time as long as they quote within a reasonable range. It was 19 years ago and the business has been passed on to the original owner's son since then, but I was very happy with them.
I've started off with removalist quotes by getting a couple online, hoping for a rough ballpark figure. One was over twice the cost of the other. Accidentally including a trampoline in the list of things I am moving may have had an impact, although the total m3 they estimated was roughly the same. I almost added 35 outdoor umbrellas to the list on the other, due to resting my finger on the touch screen, but fortunately realised before I submitted it.
Technically. Mr Woof had a bath yesterday, so I guess it should be Miss Meow's turn. I suspect if I tried it I would end up with many claw marks.
All the exciting things I've ordered lately and the first thing to arrive has to be the mop bucket. Still, it is a very nice mop bucket. And it has wheels, so it can roll with me as I move around the room. Plus it's in a nice bright hazard warning yellow with "wet floor" warnings on the side, so Miss Meow and Mr Woof will know to be careful. Although it would probably be more useful if I actually had the mop.
That is a lot more bold and eye catching than the Ring camera stickers!
Yes, that's what I'm looking at. Then the one subscription and app will cover them all.
Security cameras have definitely improved a lot since I last looked at them. Everything used to need hard wiring for power and all the apps were pretty glitchy last time I investigated.
I'm going to get the Ring doorbell, cameras with solar power and gutter mounts for the front and back, plus one in the main area inside. That should cover all the main approaches, and being a new estate most of the theives in the area will be targeting all the empty houses filled with brand new appliances anyway.
Slowly working down the moving checklist. Power & gas connection is organised, and mail redirection done. I need to look at insurance, which is a bit of a nuisance as my current policy ends 3 days before the moving date. Removalist is the next major thing to organise, and then lots of lots of address changes.
I looked at NBN yesterday, it looks like it has FTTP installed already. That will be good, as I'm looking at getting a Ring doorbell and some security cameras. Money is just flowing from my accounts like water at the moment!
Countdown: 1 week from key collection. 1 month from final move date.
Miss Meow did much the same, along with head butts and a lot of meow. She is also on a diet, but I don't think she is losing enough weight. She is already convinced she is starving to death, further reductions will not be taken well. At least she is well fortified for the stress of moving, if she decided to hide for a couple of days and not eat it would probably be good for her.
Some use stuffed animals instead, which also looks pretty silly. They often get the scale wrong too, most often on purpose to make their items look bigger. You always need to buy with a tape measure in hand and not rely on what things look like.
They are all Temu stuff. A lot of the bigger cat stuff is shipping from Australia these days, so it should be arriving in a couple of days.
Mr Woof is now clean and I am very damp.
I won't have my fully enclosed bath I can bathe him in at the new place, I will have to work out a new location. The covered area outside should work fairly well, I just need a way to organise water that is not freezing cold.
Nonsense, she much prefers the sock drawer 🤣
The tree scratcher is probably more for my entertainment than hers, although she does like the uprights for scratching on. I'm trying to stop her clawing up the new couch, so as many alternatives as possible is a good thing. Her main hobby though is progressive snoozing, with a series of ever changing nap spots being utilised on a daily basis. She likes the fluffy beds on the floor, hanging baskets, inside her little tunnel, and the aforementioned sock drawer. So she will probably use most of those types of spots, and the other climbing stand (which is a much more boring wood) will also double as stairs onto the small kitchen trolley that I will be re-purposing as her dog-safe meals area. The hammock on the window will get morning sun so should also make for a good napping spot.
I haven't forgotten Mr Woof either - his needs are a bit simpler and he doesn't really need anything new, but I got a couple of fluffy rugs to go in front of the bedroom windows, which are the ones that face the street so he's likely to want to keep an eye on things from there.
I have now officially spent a small fortune on stuff for the new place. A fair bit of it is stuff that needed to be replaced anyway, and some of it is just because I want the place to look nice. It's been a bit tricky to work out how to place all the furniture, but I think I've got a layout that will work (pending measurement for a couple of things). It's a fairly square lounge/dining area, with foot traffic that will cross somewhat diagonally from the rest of the house to the door to the back yard. I'm not sure it would be possible to get a decent layout if you had a tv. A big couch or dining table would also be tricky.
The biggest purchase is a (very small) dining table and a couple of chairs. I spent nearly as much on new furniture for Miss Meow too - I had been planning to recover the tree she currently has as the frame is good, but it's not really going to fit in the new place. So now instead of one big corner unit she will have two smaller units and a window hammock. I also bought a couple of pink fluffy footstools that look like her cat bed on legs that I expect she will use for snoozing.
I've also bought lots of dull but necessary things - new doormats, drawer and shelf liners, suction cup shelves for the bathroom, felted end caps for all the furniture to stop it scuffing the hard floor. I also upgraded my mop and bucket as the main living area is all hard floor.
Edit: Miss Meow is going to have a little garden themed corner, including a
I just realised it is not Friday. This is a good thing, as I don't have to go to work untiil Saturday.
Imagine going through life looking at everything to try to find the imperfections. Life must really suck for those people. There is enough bad stuff in the world without giong out of your way looking for more.
I wouldn't worry about their nitpicking - let them make their own life worse with their obsessive search for flaws, leave them to it and don't let them drag you down.
There is something about moving that brings out the need to decorate. I have bought a cheap rug, I'll see how it works with everything else before deciding if I want to spend the money on a proper one.
There is a lamp in my cart. And a pendant light. Cushions I intend to make myself.
I started looking at furniture and now I have a cart full of stuff. This is possibly also a gateway that will lead me to looking at rugs, and once I do that who knows where it could end.
They would all be good things. I'm also hopeful that my local member, Michael Sukkar, might lose his seat as well. It was very close last time - it looked like he had lost initially, then it swung back to him as the postal votes were counted. He won on a 0.2% margin, and I saw some recent polling saying he is now predicted to be leading by 0.02%, so it really could go either way.