Rigo Has The Moves

Since migrating to the US 14 years ago, I never thought we would move as much as we have. When I say move, I mean move houses. I’ve moved from Manila to Manhattan to Sunnyvale to Milpitas to Fremont to Union City, then back to Fremont. Whew!!! I’m tired just talking about it.

Each move has gotten more difficult (and tiring, to say the least). As years go by, you tend to acquire and accumulate more things. As a matter of fact, the rate of acquisition is inversely proportional to the rate of disposal. We have stuff that we have not touched or even seen for many years, and yet we tend to bring them with us wherever we went. Now that’s a bad sign. We always say we’d sort things out later, only to find out they become regular fixtures in our garage and would be ignored till the next move.

One of the difficult tasks of any move is choosing the right mover. They can either be a great help to you, or they’ll be a big pain in the you-know-what. You’d want a mover that has a good reputation and would take care of your stuff. But how would you know? Then, there are cost considerations as well. Trying to balance excellent service and reasonable cost is always tricky.

Our move from the Big Apple to Silicon Valley was beyond my control. My employer in CA moved us, and they used one of the largest moving companies in the US. For a while, I didn’t worry about the cost. But then I realized the company was adding this tab on to me as my income earned. I wished I had a say.

For the next move, I had to look for my own. Being fairly new in the area, I didn’t really have a lot of resources to figure out who and what was fair. My only source was the yellow pages. I don’t recall having access to reviews to help me make my decision (well, not that I looked very hard for any). I simply relied on my guts and chose the one I felt gave the best sounding deal.

Moving day came. For the most part, it went well, but not without some minor issues and surprises. First of the bat, the mover asked for more money, saying they underestimated by a couple of hundred bucks. Then, they started scratching some of the walls and breaking some wooden furniture. I was surprised it took them almost all day to move considering we didn’t have that many items. And what really upset me was they purposely did not bring down the last item from their truck (a large TV) until I paid them, in CASH.

Well, I said to myself, it’s the last time I’ll be seeing them. Never again. Not is a million years.

So for our next move, it was important that I do not repeat the same mistake. This time I did my homework. I asked for recommendations and I searched the internet for reviews. Yelp ass always been helpful for almost anything, and this is where I found Rigo.

Practically everyone who posted their review on Yelp mentioned about Rigo and how helpful and honest this person was. Some have used him multiple times, and they’d always request Rigo to be part of the move. My curiosity got the better of me, so I called and booked Rigo and his company, SF Bay Area Movers.

What’s nice about this mover is that they are a small, family-owned company based in Hayward. And Rigo is the Big Kahuna. His daughter and some other member of his family also work for the company. Everything I read in Yelp was true. My experience was soooo totally different from the previous mover.

They arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and they were ready to rock n’ roll. They were fast. No one was slacking. There was no chatting. Everyone had something to do. They worked with so much efficiency and they maintained the quality of work. They didn’t take breaks. You even had to ask them if they needed one. The only break they took was 15 minutes for lunch, and they didn’t even count it as “hours worked” during the move. Just amazing.

What blew me away was how Rigo and one of his crew moved our upright piano up a flight of stairs with ease, using straps hooked up to their arms. Imagine that!! I could not even push that piano an inch, but they certainly made it look like they were just moving a large cardboard box.

And what’s even more surprising is that their rate was VERY reasonable. For the amount of work and quality of work, I just had to give them a good tip as well. So for our next move, I didn’t have to think twice. I called them right away and we didn’t even discuss rates because I know they’re worth every single penny, and more.

I can go on and on. Just visit Yelp and check them out. SF Bay Area Movers of Hayward. And don’t forget to ask for Rigo. Tell them I recommended them. They might even give you a discount.