Then They Stole Our Ladders

When we moved in September, the movers left a lot to be desired. For instance, we desired ladders. Because they stole ours.

As I mentioned last week, I bought the movers lunch. I tipped them $20 each. And the next day, we realized the ladders never made it off the truck.

You might think it was simply a mistake. We did, too, at first. But the more we thought about it, the more we felt it had been done on purpose. And we had plenty of time to think, since the company's office was closed for the long weekend.

Near the end of the move, trying to speed things along, I had climbed on the truck to collect a couple loose items. Specifically, our 6-foot metal ladder and 2-foot wooden stepladder. The movers asked me to leave them on the truck, so they could reach the few boxes left on the top of the stacks.

They'd already borrowed tools from our toolbox to do other parts of their job, so I knew they hadn't come fully prepared. Of course, they'd also damaged the toolbox in the move, so I knew they weren't fully competent. But at this point I was too tired to protest. If it got us to the end quicker, great.

Then they didn't follow protocol with the final checklist. Rather than bring one of us on the truck to confirm everything had been moved, like they did room by room at the old house, they signed off on things from the front step. All I'd gotten was a view from the back of the truck (where it had looked like only large piles of furniture pads remained). They'd either taken advantage of our exhaustion, or been too exhausted themselves to do things properly.

On Tuesday we finally got hold of the company, and voiced our concern. They said they'd ask the crew and check in storage. After a week there was still no sign of the ladders. It had gone from possibly a mistake to clearly a theft. Either they'd planned to take the ladders all along, or they'd found them the next time they opened the truck and thought, "Hey! Free ladders!"

It took another few weeks (plus multiple phone calls and visits), but eventually we were reimbursed. As for the movers, it turns out only one was an employee. The rest were that guy's crew, paid by him. I have no idea what, if anything, happened with them.

Selling a house sucks. Moving sucks. But on the plus side, now we have new ladders.