I was reluctant to pay the removal company $80, so my brother and I decided to transport my washing machine ourselves. We had turned off two taps, but there was another tap that we had no idea about. When we disconnected the washing machine, water started coming out of the tap we had missed. We tried to stop the flow but failed hopelessly. The only way of dealing with it was to turn off the water in the entire apartment building. As it was Saturday morning, this really annoyed my neighbours. The irony is that I had wanted to save $80 and, in the end, I ended up paying much more in repairs.

I was moving from Sydney to Melbourne, so I used a long-distance removal company to transport my things. I supervised the pickup in Sydney and it all went smoothly. But on the day that the truck was to arrive in Melbourne, the company sent me a text. I had expected that the text would confirm the time of delivery but instead it said that the driver had had an accident on the highway and the delivery was going to be delayed. Two days later, they phoned to inform me that my belongings would be delivered to a Melbourne warehouse for me to “identify”. The word “identify” made me feel slightly worried, and indeed all that had survived of my belongings were my golf clubs, a rug and my snowboard.

A few years ago, because of annoying neighbours who were making our lives a misery, we had to sell our amazing terraced house. We then bought what we thought was a nice property in a lovely neighbourhood. But after we moved in, I found out that many of the roof tiles were cracked, which meant that the roof kept leaking. As a result, the entire house was damp. When we learned that the estimated cost of repairs would come to £30,000, we wanted to back out, but it was impossible. We should have had the property surveyed, but we had been so desperate that we simply didn’t bother.

When I moved to Florida from Maryland, I hired a long-distance removal company. When the delivery date came, they called to tell me everything was on schedule. When they didn’t show up at the appointed time, I phoned them to see if there was a problem. It turned out that the driver had suddenly quit and left the truck with my belongings in Jacksonville. They had to fly another driver in from Chicago. When the truck finally arrived, I discovered some boxes were missing and one box delivered to me contained things that weren’t even mine. I contacted the company again to make a complaint. They finally tracked down my other boxes and delivered them a few days later. Apparently my load had got mixed up with someone else’s.

To transport my stuff to a new flat, I hired a moving company that charged by the hour. They promised they could get everything done in up to three hours. When they pulled up outside my apartment building, it turned out it was just two guys and a cargo van. They carefully packed the contents of my apartment in their van. It was like watching them do a puzzle. Impressive at times, but it took forever. In the late afternoon, the van was completely full and the only item that did not fit into the van was a big air-conditioner. I was going to transport it the next day, but then I discovered that it was leaking, so there was no point taking it to my new flat.