My partner and I moved from our 2.5 story downtown Toronto rental home to our 2.5story owned home which had just had a full paint job and floors sanded. Arby visited our place about a month prior to moving and gave us a quote plus helpful advice about the number of boxes we'd need, how long the move would probably take as well as a detailed description of the team he would be sending. This was compared against another company's quote plus an online quote and the expedience of providing the estimate, the estimate itself, the high Homestars rating and the fact that it was a small, family run operation all tipped the balance in their favor.
Move day Arby's son Anihl and his 4 man tream arrived about 20 min. early and worked incredibly quickly and efficiently, in fact, I'd flag to anyone planning to use Arby...be ready! They really know how to move! At the same time, the team was respectful and careful, dismantling what needed to be and wrapping what needed protection. I had made prior arrangements with Arby to plastic wrap our white sofa and did have to point this out to Anihl and his team as they were just going to wrap it as usual, but they were happy to carry through with the request. A few of our pieces of furniture already had dings or scratches and they carefully pointed these out to us so that no issues arose later.
Once at the new house, they were careful not to bump or mark up the newly painted walls and made use of paper on the newly sanded floors. We have a LOT of books so we appreciated the amount of heavy lifting these guys had to do over the full, 10+ hour day at both locations, and after moving close to 400 boxes over the course of the entire day, I'd say about 85% or more of the boxes ended up exactly where we asked them to be placed, any confusion more due to our labelling than their misreading.
The estimate of one large truck and one small truck needed to be augmented with a followup small truck to pick up the last load...our 10 or so wardobe boxes. Arby himself completed this run while his move team waited to unload them, by now in the pouring rain.
Barely a drop of water came into our new home due to the clever system they set up to bring the last boxes in.
My only real critical comment is one that I've experienced with other moving companies as well ( we've moved 3 times in the last 4 years), and it's about the placement of 'Fragile' boxes: Boxes marked 'Fragile' were carried with due attention, yet both with Arby and other movers, quite often, I would find a 'Fragile' box placed underneath 2 sometimes 3 other, non-'Fragile' boxes. This obviously puts the fragile contents at risk so in my mind is really Moving 101. I pointed it out to Anihl and this was duly and respectfully conveyed to the rest of the team.
And on a lesser note, but one worth mentioning, I labelled most of our boxes on both the top and one side both in terms of room and contents, so that as the boxes stacked up I could still locate things. I requested that they try and pay attention to this which once mentioned they attempted to do.
The moving team worked straight through from 8:45am -about 7:30pm without any visible break. They barely even accepted water and cans of pop! Very polite, clearly working as a team who enjoyed each other....very nice energy to have around.
So big Thanks to all of you at Arby moving. We hope not to be moving for some time now but will happily recommend you to anyone we can.
I'd tried to give a 9.5rating but it only let's me indicate 9 or 10. High 9's!
