When it comes time to decide if a move is within your budget, you should ask for a San Francisco moving quote. Cummings Moving Company offers free moving quotes for anyone who is considering relocating.. A moving quote will help you determine the costs and services that are involved in relocating your items, making your decision a lot easier. Some of the items that factor into the cost are:

• Distance
• Manpower Needed
• Trailer Space Needed
• Location Access
• Items Moving
• Storage

A lot of these factors are impossible to determine without inspecting your items first hand. However, if you would like an instant quote you could call us today for a free San Francisco mover quote.

• We encourage our customers to designate one person in their household as the main point of contact and the primary decision maker in relation to their move. This will aid in clearer and more accurate communication between you and the moving company.
• With the exception of especially large or heavy ones, all dressers and Chests can be left full with clothing. Please remove all fragile, valuable, or heavy items.
• All jewelry, expensive, small electronic items and firearms are the owner’s responsibility to pack and to move them.
• Do not water plants for at least three days before your move. Plants with pots less than 9″ in diameter should be boxed.
• If we will be using elevators on your move, please reserve the elevators before hand. Complete access to the elevators will ensure an expedient and efficient move.
• If street parking is difficult and will restrict easy access for the movers, i.e., your residence is on a street car or bus line, there is a bus stop in from of your building, the street is narrow or windy, etc., you will need to arrange for parking for the truck through your local police department. Each truck will need 35-40 feet for parking and maneuvering. Additionally, when scheduling your move, please take into account parking restrictions, such as commute time tow away zones and street cleaning schedules.
• Please inform us prior to your move with any changes in pick up or delivery address(es), additional pick up(s) or deliver(ies), packing material or packing labor needs not previously scheduled so that we are properly prepared to provide you with a professional and efficient move.

These easy San Francisco moving preparations can save you plenty of time and stress come moving day. So after have preparing for a San Francisco move, all that will be left to do is let our professional movers do the rest.

After finding your home, and it’s time for moving to Palo Alto let our movers transport your belongings there. While our Palo Alto movers cannot move your possessions via bike, our Palo Alto moving company has the most state-of-the-art equipment. We try to remain as lean as one can in the trucking industry with yearly inspections to make sure our trucks are in premium operating condition.

The program integrates state regulation, public outreach and industry collaboration to give you a choice, to make doing the right thing easy and to help manage this growing challenge together.

For more information click the link below:

Whew!  I am exhausted already.  Oh wait!!  You still need to hire a mover.  But do you have the money?  Maybe you can just hire someone off of Craig’s List.  You like their company name – 3 Poor College Students Just Trying to Get By.  Or  maybe you should look online? There are 10 sites to choose from – all promising you competitive quotes.  But you don’t want to be THAT consumer telling horror stories of a moving company holding your goods hostage unless you pay 3 times the amount you were quoted.  Over the Phone.  Sight unseen.

What’s a customer to do?

1.  Don’t hire an unlicensed mover.  The Moving Industry in the State of California is regulated by the Public Utilities Commission.  In order to obtain a license, a moving company owner must go through a rigorous background check, be extensively tested on the laws regulating the industry, complete quarterly and annual reports, along with maintaining millions of dollars of insurance coverage on their trucks, their employees, and their crew.

2.  Check with the Better Business Bureau or Yelp.  .Does the company have a good rating or do they have an excessive number of complaints?  Are the complaints reasonable?  Were they resolved?

3.  Ask for references.  The company should be able to provide you letters of commendation and a short list of customers who they have recently moved.

4.  Ask your friends, family, co workers, and real estate agent.  They will have a quick list of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

5.  Call the California Moving & Storage Association or check out their website.  They are a reliable and professional organization which represents 450 mover members in the State of California.  Mover members strive to provide honest, efficient, and quality services to the California household goods moving consumer.

6.  Call at least 4 moving companies and schedule at least 2 in home written estimates.  Make sure the company is providing you a NOT TO EXCEED bid, which includes all related packing materials, labor, valuation coverage of your choosing, and storage if applicable.

7.  Go with your gut.  Do you trust the mover?  Do their references check out?  Are they licensed and insured?

8.  Once you hire your moving company, make sure you are on the same page in terms of expectations.  Does your estimate include packing or are they expecting you be packed and ready to go?  What does that mean to them?  Can you leave your dressers full or do they need to be emptied?  Will they be providing wardrobe boxes on your move?  Can the truck park directly in front of your home?  Is there any issue with access?  Does parking need to be reserved?  Will the moving company disassemble and reassemble your furniture or do they expect you to do that?  What should you do with your electronics?  What forms of payment do they accept?  When do they get paid?

With a little investment of your time doing your research, you can save yourself a world of headache and unnecessary expense.  Good luck with your move and enjoy your new home!

Your goal – purge unwanted items you don’t want to take and give them away – sort through old clothes, get rid of appliances and household goods no longer in use, donate furniture that is being replaced by a new style or model.

And then you try to donate¦.

This charity won’t pick up.  That charity won’t take beds or toys. The other charity will pick up, but the only available time is at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday when you need to pick up your kids and take them to soccer practice.

Oh maybe you will just call a hauler, who can take it to the dump¦..

Or, you can utilize the service Cummings Moving Company has developed to help our customers ease some of the stress that comes with moving.

We currently work with four non profit agencies, to which we donate items on behalf of our customers.  WE DO NOT CHARGE THE ORGANIZATIONS FOR ANY OF THESE SERVICES.

Shelter Network – www.shelternetwork.org
Shelter Network is committed to providing housing and support services that create opportunities for homeless families and individuals to re-establish self-sufficiency and to return to permanent homes of their own.  They provide basic necessities – food, clothing, etc.; job retraining; counseling; and children’s programs.  They maintain six live in facilities and numerous outreach programs.

Society of St. Vincent DePaul of San Mateo County – www.svdp-sanmateoco.org
Helps the homeless, poor, seniors, and unemployed with basic emotional, financial, and nutritional assistance

Jewish Family and Children Services – www.jfcs.org
Services include mental health counseling, Seniors•At•Home, Adoption Connection, Parents Place Family Resource Centers, Emergency Family Assistance, Services for People with Disabilities, Palliative and End of Life Care Services, Refugee Resettlement and Immigration, and youth development programs.

San Francisco Food Bank – www.sffoodbank.org
In San Francisco, 150,000 people struggle each day to feed themselves and their families.  One out of every four children cannot count on the daily meals they need to lead healthy, productive lives.  With time getting tighter, as well as a growing financial burden on our community, these numbers are dramatically increasing.

Sound good so far? Well, here’s how it works….

• Let us know what you want us to take away.
• The items need to be in usable condition – not soiled, broken, or in disrepair.
• If you are donating food, it must be non-perishable, unopened, unspoiled, and within it’s printed expiration date
• Please list contents of packed boxes to the best of your ability.
• We will take them away on packing day, if applicable, or moving day.
• If it’s just 1-2 items, we will do it at no charge.
• If its 5-10 items/boxes, we charge $50.
• If it’s 10 items/boxes or more, we charge $75.00.
• If you are donating 10 or more items, please give the office advance notice, so that we can arrange adequate space.
• If you need a receipt for tax purposes, simply call our office.

And this is what we can take….

• Clothing – in wearable condition for men, women, and children
• Shoes – in wearable condition for men, women, and children
• Accessories
• Household goods – kitchen utensils, pots, pans, linens
• School supplies, arts & crafts supplies
• Educational toys that are like-new
• Household furniture
• Decorative items such as knickknacks, mirrors, framed art, vases, etc.
• Twin and double mattresses and frames
• Small electronics – toasters, microwaves, lamps, clocks
• Office supplies
• Non perishable food that is unopened and unexpired

There’s little we can’t take…

• Soiled, torn, or excessively worn furniture
• Broken items
• Queen and King Size beds
• Furniture that is moldy, mildewed, or infested
• Stained or torn clothing

And it’s as simple as that.  Your mission is accomplished.  You’ve purged, downsized, and organized.  Your unwanted belongings are headed towards a useful purpose and NOT to the landfill.

We are licensed, insured and maintain an A+ rating with the BBB so you can rest assured that you are choosing the best moving company in San Francisco, CA.

We are members of the CMSA (California Moving & Storage Association) and Amy Messinger, co-owner of Cummings Moving Company, is serving as a CMSA Board Member for the 2010 year.

Cummings Moving Company is recognized as an AMSA Pro Mover with the American Moving & Storage Association.  So, use Cummings Moving with confidence when looking for Professional San Francisco Movers and San Francisco Storage facilities.

SFGate.com is the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle which is our major newspaper in the Bay Area. They run an annual survey of different local businesses and services and the SFGate subscribers vote for their favorites in the different categories.

Cummings Moving Company was among 47 nominees and was voted as the number two mover in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are fired up about this because some of our direct competitors are five times the size we are and have been around as long or longer and yet Cumming Moving beat them all out. This is because of the great work that the guys do, honestly. They execute professional local moves with very minimal damage and Enrique and I do our part to provide great customer service on our end. We are also very excited about receiving this award because out of 47 San Francisco moving company nominees there are probably around 100 movers in the Bay Area overall and we are number two!

You could nominate yourself as a business but then it is up to the SFGate readers to participate in the survey and cast their votes. It’s reported that over 70,000 people responded in the survey altogether. Approximately three quarters of a million folks live in San Francisco so this means about 10% of the population voted which makes this Best of the BayList survey huge. I don’t know exactly how many votes Cummings Moving Company received but we were voted number two. All of our main competitors did not even place. We are only 1/5 the size of our primary competitor and we are the same size of most of our other direct South San Francisco moving company competitors and none of them placed in the top 10. It really is our moving staff. I mean, we do our job here but at the end of the day it’s the guys. We hold to our pricing and our guys perform professionally and they do an unbelievable job.

Our movers do very consistent work. We hire only long-term employees and we make sure that we keep the employees who do professional work and this is what it really boils down to. In this industry, moving companies in San Francisco would be lucky if their employees last six months because traditionally there’s a huge turn around. But most of our guys have been with Cummings Moving Company long term and several for over five years.

People like us, and that’s where this award comes from. I mean, we’ve been in business for over 40 years and we can be the best in the world at selling but if we don’t come through with successful moves and happy customers then in the end we have nothing.

Cummings Moving Company, the #2 Best San Francisco Movers in 2010, as voted by YOU.

Excellent customer service and top quality relocation and storage services are our goals.

We are proud to be Honor Roll members of the Better Business Bureau. We are active members of the California Moving & Storage Association.

We are “hands-on” when it comes to running our company. We believe our ability to provide an excellent professional service comes from our commitment to both our customers and employees, by creating an environment for our employees in which providing that top level of service becomes second nature.  We do that with regular training, supervision, competitive compensation.

Choosing a moving company

First ask yourself … what are my expectations? What kind of service will I get for my money? Aren’t all moving companies pretty much the same?

Just because moving rates are pretty comparable does this mean that the service provided by all of the companies you interview will be the same?

The answer to this question is … NO, it will not! The difference is in the service.

What kind of reputation does a moving company have?

Nothing tells you more about the reputation of a moving company than current, updated references. Cummings Moving Co. will furnish you with an updated reference list so you can talk with recent customers who have used our service. We update our reference list every week.