This review is a little late as we wanted to wait to unpack everything and with the move occurring…read morejust prior to the holidays, well... it's taken a while!
We were very pleasantly surprised at how this move went. After reading many, many, MANY, reviews on different companies, I scheduled Hollander to provide an estimate along with 3 others. Frank our estimator was flexible with my schedule and arrived promptly on the day of the estimate. After many questions and addressing several concerns, he provided a BINDING estimate, which many others would not provide. A date was set and after a couple of revisions to the date made on our part, they were still able to get us moved out & in to our new place before the holidays. Frank provided me with his cell# and I reached out to him on evenings and weekends to address any questions/concerns I was having, both before and after contracting them.
On the day of the move we thought we were ready, however when the driver, Stephen, arrived - promptly at 8am - he informed us we would need assistance in packing the rest of the "loose" belongings. WOW! Did we ever! You ALWAYS have more than you think you do! He arrived with a crew of about 8 for a 2-3BR townhouse and as soon as he assessed we needed more boxes, packing and space, he contacted our rep. We renegotiated a new rate for the additional materials & time and the crew just kept going. They came in a spread a red spandex carpet on all floors, removed doors from hinges to avoid damaging, and got to work. They were so thorough, almost too thorough to where they packed my dog's bed and toys, packed my computer bag which I had some important papers for closing, and packed some of the recycling paper being used for the move. That's ok-- part of that again, was our fault for not being better prepared, but did mention to the driver they should ask about those types of things prior to packing. He agreed and also noted that he manages them tightly so the customer doesn't incur any additional overtime charges, which we appreciated. They were done by right around 5pm. During the entire time, the guys were professional (mostly bilingual english/spanish and english/polish?) and courteous. They joked around with each other like grown men do, but were never vulgar or offensive. Always addressed me by "ma'am' or "senora' and a couple times joked 'senorita'. We bought them lunch even though we were told it was not necessary. They hustled their butts and we felt it was the least we could do.
All of our mattresses were bagged, furniture covered with moving pads, dishes were well packed w/ thick paper, moving boxes were sturdier than our Home Depot boxes purchased. They also provided nice picture boxes for the tv's, mirrors and large scale pictures. We were allowed to keep all the boxes, including the wardrobe boxes with bars, which made it a lot easier to focus on assessing damage of incoming boxes as opposed to hustling to get things unpacked.
After getting plenty of reassurances from our rep and from the driver that our belongings would not be put into storage at our destination we were comfortable about the transit. They promised delivery by the same driver, in the same truck and door to door. We candidly took pictures of the truck license plate and truck i.d. number to make sure we would not be deceived in case of loss or damage. No need for the worry. Stephen and his other crew member (sorry, forgot his name) made the drive to Florida, over the Thanksgiving week and delivered ALL our belongings safely (for the most part). There were a couple of wine glasses that didn't make it, a couple of boxes that were moist but no damage to items, some picture glass broke but pictures and frame were safe. Everything is accounted for. Only reason for the 4 stars and not 5 is for those reasons mentioned before and the fact that we had to pay to send some things back that should've stayed, and some things in the basement weren't packed (old electronics equipment and tools) that we had to bring with us in the SUV that didn't allow us room for the chemicals/cleaners that they couldn't transport. We ended up leaving all our household cleaners and paints behind. But not the worst thing that can happen in a move of this size.
This was a difficult move as some things were already packed from a previous move and we were moving cross country. All in all we were very pleased with the service from Hollander/Mayflower, and as a Realtor I would not hesitate to use them again. The cost, after the additional time and material revision on the day of the move, was very much in line with other quotes. As this was a binding estimate and contract, we paid with a cashiers check on the day of our move so we never encountered any credit card issues.
Thank you all for making this (hopefully last) move a positive experience.