Oh, and actually that wasn’t the end of it.[Part one: pickup, and botched delivery before we arrived.] Today, June 9, I heard from my friend that the driver had contacted him (not me, not the manager or dispatcher) to get access back to our apartment. Because he had accidentally delivered someone else’s stuff as well as ours. I told my friend not to do anything, and that we would handle it, since I didn’t trust these people to figure out which stuff was ours without me there. He didn’t have the keys anymore anyway, he had left them with my other friend who lived in the neighborhood. I called the dispatcher/manager Sasha, who had called earlier in the morning to see how things went. Sidenote: when I told him how terribly things had gone, before finding out about this development, he asked why I hadn’t called. I told him I had tried calling three different phone numbers, the only ones I had. I asked him why he had scheduled our delivery a week before our earliest possible date, without calling me, and he said “well, that’s the only mistake I made.”

Anyway, I called Sasha back to ask him about this mistake, and he seemed like he didn’t know about it. Then the driver called me to tell me that he had accidentally moved someone else’s things into our apartment. I told him that I would try to arrange access, but only if I could talk to the other customer. I wasn’t convinced that anyone from Fidelity was competent to tell the other persons’ stuff from ours. Next thing I know I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. No introduction, nothing by text, just a phone call.

The other customer, Murali, was obviously distressed, and upset with the company as well. I told him that I thought I could get them access, but only if he went with them. He agreed. Then I had to try to get ahold of my friend at work, figure out when she could get there to let people in, field endless anxious texts from Murali (understandably), and try to get ahold of Sasha to see if another driver was able to do this. This took dozens of texts, four or five phone calls that seemed to result in no actual communication with Sasha, and me finally telling Murali that he had to call Fidelity to figure out the truck, driver, and movers. Over the course of 3 hours while we were driving through Missouri.

In our first conversation Murali told me that the original driver, Jared, had been supposed to deliver his things after our delivery on the 8th. He called Murali that afternoon and told him he was “running late” after leaving our delivery, and that he’d be there by 8pm. Then he called and said he’d be there by 11pm. Then he told him sometime around noon on the 9th. All of this before he’d contacted my friend with keys (he didn’t call me until I had called Sasha to tell him about everything). This led me to believe that he had tried, unsuccessfully, to gain access to our apartment without letting anyone know about it. Only after failing did he try to call my friend to get back in, without letting Fidelity or me know. No evidence of this, but why else would he keep telling Murali he was “on his way” without getting in touch with me (or my friend whose number he had) to get legitimate access to the apartment.

Anyway, I left it for Murali to arrange the movers, and got confirmation from my friend that they would be there at 7 (not 5:30 as they had originally said). She texted while they were there saying things were underway and I thought finally this was all over. Nope.

After the movers and Murali left, my friend called to say that they had not been able to move out Murali’s couch, which was still in our apartment. She said they tried, but had started damaging the door and wall and she told them to stop. She also said that even though it was different people than yesterday, they were even less professional. Just minutes after arriving, two of the movers got into an extremely aggressive argument, one threatening the other. They kept arguing the whole way through, and, ultimately weren’t able to get Murali’s couch out of the apartment.

Now, I still have to deal with someone else’s couch when I get there. This nightmare just seems never-ending. So tired. So stressed. And pretty helpless, in Albuquerque.

[Part 3: http://alluringlyshort.com/2014/06/11/what-i-learned-about-moving-aka-the-move-part-3/]