Renting

[gamblor916]

The house I co-own with my sister is going to be sold so long story short I need a place to live. I've thought about buying an apartment but the idea of being tethered needlessly to a giant mortgage is not appealing to say the least so I've decided to rent for a while.
What suggestions and tips have people got, especially with a lot of us lugging around sizable collections?

[tron07]

If you have sufficient downpayment, get your own place... you can do it up as you like.

With a rented property, you would probably have to move every couple of years, and moving around isnt easy.

Problems with renting in Syd;
-Your rent increase every 6 month or so, unless you stay in lousy surburbs and then risk getting break in, etc...
-Owner want to sell, take back to stay ownself, etc... forcing you to relocate
-difficult to get a rented property, as supply is pretty limited and lot of demand, lot people looking to rent
-have to deal with the hassle of relocating, need to change address, hire movers, your furniture might not fit your new place, etc...
-you will need to pay rent, might as well pay your mortgage
-you cant really make any modification to the place as its rented, hardwood flooring, partition, nailing the wall, etc.


If you dont have downpayment, then you dont have much choice but to stick with renting.

[GoktimusPrime]

What suggestions and tips have people got, especially with a lot of us lugging around sizable collections?
I'm just gonna assume you've never tried moving a large collection before, so please forgive me if any of this sounds very obvious. :)

When packing your Transformers, transform them all to alt mode as it's more compact and more resistant to breakage compared to robot mode (esp. with G1 figures), then you'd pack them in boxes as you would when posting toys - fill them with as much material to protect them as possible, bubble wrap, torn up shreds of paper, those foam bits etc. and naturally you'd put the smaller toys toward the top and the bigger toys toward the bottom. Put all weapons/accessories either in a separate container, and/or in zip-lock bags (you may also choose to put the individual toys in zip-lock bags for extra protection too). Naturally if you still have the boxes for some toys then that's even better. :)

Separate the toys into different boxes for different series, e.g. G1, G2, Binaltech etc. and clearly label the boxes with a permanent marker. This makes it handy when unpacking and setting up your new collection room. I remember the first time I moved out of my parent's home I just packed all my Transformers into boxes without specifically labelling what was in what... then when I moved into my new room, I had to unpack all my toys and lay them out in order on the floor for several days while I gradually shelved them in order. I had 2 flatmates at the time, so I ended up sleeping on the couch for a while until all my toys had been shelved and I had enough floor space to move my bed in! I personally wouldn't trust removalists to move my toys. I'm happy to use them to move furniture and other stuff, but for valuables I'd move them myself.

Hope that helps, and best of luck with your move! :)

[sanbot]

What suggestions and tips have people got, especially with a lot of us lugging around sizable collections?

Take advantage of storage space at your parents place if possible and be selective with what you take.

[shokwave2]

Renting sucks. I've moved 7 times in 8 years. Forced to move due to owner selling, owner breaking up with boyfriend and wanting to move back in, owner not paying their mortgage and and the sheriff knocking on our door telling us we have 5 days to vacate. We've only moved once because we wanted to. All the other times were not our decision.

Tips on moving:

- Get everything into boxes or garbage bags (clothes). There's nothing more time consuming then loading up a car/van/truck with small, loose items. The bigger the boxes, the better.

- Leave all your cleaning till after the house is empty. Don't let your gf/bf/sis clean while there's stuff still to move. It will just get in the way and get dirty again. Give yourself one whole day to wash the walls, floors, etc.

- Try to leave rarely used/unused items in boxes/storage, as you'll probably be moving in 6-12 months. My garage is half full of boxes of things that either won't fit it in the house we're in, or don't need right now.

- Move you're beds, lounges, fridge first. You probably won't move everything in one day, and you'll want to be sleeping/sitting comfortably in you're new place for the first night or so.

IMO, if you have the money, buy your own place. No one want a mortgage, but i'd rather be paying off my own palce then paying off someone elses. I wish i could get my own house but at this point in time we can't.

Good luck with the move.

[gamblor916]

Lots of good advice here, good stuff :)
It's lucky a lot of my collection are reissues or newer items so I have most of the boxes and inserts. I'm still amazed by the amount of crap stuff I've accumulated though. I'm not looking forward to moving my glass cabinet, or table top. Worse is moving the sofa. It was a massive pain in the bum getting it in through the narrow doorway in the first place.


Take advantage of storage space at your parents place if possible and be selective with what you take.

Oh I have stuff there and they're not overjoyed I can tell you. There's four of us, each with stuff still there including my brother's 4 wheels and tyres when he changed his rims :rolleyes:

[GoktimusPrime]

Removalists are really good when it comes to furniture. I remember when my flatmates and I moved into our first flat on the top floor, we struggled to haul a big heavy sofa into the flat, but when we moved out we hired some removalists -- two little unassuming looking dudes -- and they just picked it up, carried it down several flights of stairs, loaded it into their truck, then came back up to load more furniture without so much as breaking a drop of sweat! :o