MOVING YOUR HOME CONTENTS
This book is focused on moving your mobile home, but it is worthy to note that if you are moving an occupied dwelling you will also need to move the contents. While there are many different options for moving your mobile home contents, one of the worst ideas is just leaving them in the home and hoping they arrive in one piece. Often, this is just exactly what they
don’t do.
When your mobile home is moving down the highway, it rarely goes in a straight line. As the wind blows it about, the driver re-corrects the steering and so it proceeds in a shaky forward path. Every time it moves slightly from side to side, it shifts the lad and can cause things to slide across the floor and ultimately fall over, crash into each other, or shake apart. This makes for less than ideal shipping conditions. On top of that, when the home turns corners or goes into a curve, it is even worse. A box you put in the far corner of the living room can easily end up in the kitchen upon arrival.
So if you want your furniture and fixtures to arrive in one piece, use your money and time to pack them and move them like anybody else would. Be advised that things left in the mobile home are likely to arrive after hours of being shaken and shifted, and they may well be broken.
If you are moving a multi-section home, it is
never a good idea to move items within the home. One wall of the multi-section is always going to be a plastic sheet, flapping in the wind as the home races down the highway. This plastic is likely to break loose in transit, and will offer you no defenses from your contents flying right off into the highway.
One more note. It is not unheard of for homes to flip over in transport because a driver drives off the side of the roadway. If that happened, obviously, your contents would be completely destroyed, and strewn about on the edge of the highway.
In summary, if you care about your belongings pack them and move them conventionally. If you take the shortcut of moving them in the home, be prepared for an unpleasant ending.
Image used with permission from http://jmason.org/albums/2004-12-Big-Bear/tn/moving-boxes.jpg.index.html
By Frank Rolfe
Frank Rolfe is a mobile home park investor and owns over 100 parks with his partner Dave Reynolds. Frank also leads regular Mobile Home Park Investing Bootcamps through the MobileHomeUniversity.com.