Plan ahead when moving

TRURO - Ahh, moving day. The dishes are wrapped, the boxes are packed and everything is set to go. Now all you have to do is rent a truck.

What, you haven't booked the truck?

If you have actually waited until the last minute to make arrangements for renting a moving truck, it could be hit or miss and chances are, your moving-day frustrations could hit a new high.

"I find the people that are renting the U-Hauls, they need to do a little homework first," said Dan Smith, of the U-Haul depot in Hilden.

"Because how many times does somebody go: 'Oh I can call the day I need a U-Haul,' right at the end of the month? Well, you might as well forget about it."

Use a little "common sense," by planning such aspects of your move well in advance, Smith said, and finding a truck should not be an issue.

"If you are renting, do your homework," he said. "If you plan your move you have no problem."

Don Collinson, site manager for the Premiere self-storage facility in Truro Heights, said truck rentals have been a hot commodity of late and he agrees that advance planning can save some headaches, because once a truck is reserved it will be held for you.

"The past several months it's been very, very spotty," Collinson said, of truck availability.

"For two weeks I went without any trucks. There's a lot of out-of-province travelling, put it that way, a lot of one-way travelling. There's not as many people coming east as there is going west."

In larger centres, such as the Halifax area, the problem may not be as bad because there are more trucks available. In smaller areas where rental depots may only have several trucks at their disposal in each location, however, demand can sometimes outstrip supply.

"Like, Truro here," Collinson said. "It's a hub centre but unfortunately we've lost a couple of dealers and with that we just don't have the outlets to be able to have the trucks available. But they could do a better job having more available, especially the large trucks.

Ron White, an employee at Budget Rentals in Bible Hill, said while the trucks at that location are also kept "pretty busy," that site does not have to wait long for them to be returned because they don't rent on a one-way basis, as U-Haul does, so their rigs do not go out of province.

The U-Haul dealers, however, said there have been a lot of trucks heading west and also east to Newfoundland and Labrador of late.

"Over the past several months I'm lucky if I had one (truck available)," Collinson said.

The other way to avoid a hit and miss situation, according to Smith, is to try to plan your move for other than the first or last of the month.

"If we could convince people to move in the middle of the month (or second week) there wouldn't be a shortage of trucks," he said.