I wouldn’t say that I am happy with the experience, but I will say that they did their best to ameliorate the situation once it had turned bad.

The way they put it, I technically canceled within the moving window and so would not normally be eligible for a return of the deposit. However, because of the circumstances (the way the guy at WWVL put it: “this is not the way we do business”), they offered to refund me my deposit minus a $89.99 cancellation fee. So from $550 and change, my credit card will be refunded upwards of $450, which is $450 more than I thought I would have.

So while it is true that my experience with WWVL was initially negative, they did at least promise to refund me most of my money.

I was freaking out a bit, didn’t know what I was going to do… and then I started to look at self-move options, such as renting a truck. Problem is, of course, that I’m already on a shoe-string budget until I start working, and I don’t have the cash to rent a truck + liability + fuel + increased tolls… so I called Penske to speak with an agent to see if there was anything I could do.

I had a short conversation with Amelia (I’m pretty sure that was her name), who said that she couldn’t help me directly, but that renting a local storage unit was another option.

Thank you so so much (if you ever read this) because now I feel so good about this move again!

This whole thing with the movers was really wearing me down. Now that I have that all settled in my head, I can move my stuff from my apartment into storage, and then when I get a few more ducats, I can arrange a storage-to-storage move.

To top off the evening, a rep from another moving company gave me a call (I had left a message on their voicemail) and, in the conversation with him, I discovered that if I give a moving company a flexible moving window, I can save massive amounts of money on the rate.

[Edited to add] – World Wide Van Lines: Follow-up

Today, I informed the management association that I have a mouse and then went to buy a trap. I briefly considered looking for a live-catch trap but to be completely honest, it’s a freakin’ mouse.

However, I saw the little guy face to face tonight while cleaning some things up that have been lying against the wall for quite some time now. I think that this mouse was camping out in my bedroom! I don’t know how long he’s been around, though the fact that I used to have a cat living in this apartment tells me that it probably moved in sometime after the cat moved out.

I did feel a moment of compassion for the little beast… but at the end of the day… it’s a freakin’ mouse. So I moved the trap into the bedroom and set the cardboard up so that there are no byways against the wall. I’m hoping that we can have an expired mouse shortly and that he’s a loner.