‘It’s like a massive Tetris game’: the hell that is moving house

Moving house is hell, they say. They are wrong. Moving house was fine. We had our excellent neighbours, we had my father-in-(common)-law with his big ute, his three trolleys and his wheelbarrow; we had one of those thrilling tape-applying devices that the people at Australia Post use. Our only real error was believing that because we were only moving 100 metres away, we didn’t need to hire professionals, or be systematic about packing. Instead, we decided to just throw things in boxes, or not, and “walk them round”. Do these three words sound like the tolling bells of doom? They should.

He who labels boxes rules the world. He who does not is doomed to feel, every time he opens one, that he is going absolutely bats… crazy. Credit: Miguel Manich/illustrationroom.com.au

Looking back, this was the decision – like not checking the seals on the space shuttle – that began our descent into disaster. Professional packers – and even vaguely organised ordinary people – put stuff in boxes and, you know, label them. I started by doing this, but as our deadline to be out of the old house came closer, I began to panic. I descended from complex lists of contents, to “Kitchen stuff” to “Miscellaneous”, to nothing at all.

Nonetheless. We got everything out, we got everything in. And only then did the true hell begin to unfold. The arrangement of large, unboxed objects – sofas, beds, chairs – was fine. The excavation of the early, obsessively labelled boxes – “Kitchen, white crockery, blue placemats, table cutlery, soy sauce bottle” – was easy. Then we began entering “Laundry – miscell” territory. This was tricky, since our old laundry was also our pantry, wine cellar and garden shed, none of which our new house technically possesses.

Even so, it was only once we were past this point, and beyond all sight of land, that total chaos descended. Now I realise: he who labels boxes rules the world. He who does not is doomed to feel, every time he opens one, that he is going absolutely bats… crazy.

This morning I opened a box that contained the following. One framed print from university. Myriad internet cords. One woollen beanie. One knitting needle. One small blue-grey ceramic bowl. One unopened packet of Ratsak (I kid you not). One similarly unopened packet of microjet adaptors from the watering system at our old house. It is now 10 hours later, and what do you think I have done with that box? Nothing. Oh, I have removed the packet of adaptors. It is now in the fruit bowl.

These boxes have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course.

This sort of thing makes you lose your will to live. But wait – let’s wind the focus even closer. Sit down on the floor and reach into this box. Pull out the ceramic bowl – a memento of a trip to Kenya when you were 21. How lovely, you think. On closer inspection, this bowl will be found to contain one paper clip, one pencil, one piece of broken jewellery, one foam earplug and a bulldog clip.

I have nowhere to put these things. But I know the paper clip will come in handy; as will that pencil. And I will get that piece of jewellery fixed, and yes, I should throw that earplug away, but where is the rubbish bag? And bulldog clips are excellent, if only I could find the corkboard, and a pin to stick it on with …

As a friend who arrived bearing tulips put it: “It’s like a massive Tetris game.” He was exactly right. Because getting the bulldog clip to its proper home on the corkboard requires me to achieve the following. First I must access a pin. This involves finding and unpacking the sewing box. Then, in order to not have the sewing box become a whole fresh island in the increasingly geologically active “Piles of Crap” Archipelago, I need to locate its home, the big craft container. Then I have to put the craft container in its proper place, the Ikea unit.

I do know where the Ikea unit is – it’s enormous – but I can’t reach it, because it’s trapped behind seven boxes, a bike, a pile of upholstery fabric and assorted pieces of garden equipment. Three of its square holes are accessible – but they are filled with 1) napkins, 2) a wooden wine box and 3) a collection of old water-jug filters I’ve been accumulating for six months and need to send away for recycling. Even if I found the craft container and the sewing box, and triumphantly extracted a pin for my bulldog clip, then removed the water filters and put the sewing box into the craft container then placed the craft container into the unit in which it belongs, I would still be left, speechless with despair, holding the water filters.

To follow this thought experiment through to its agonising conclusion, I should then go to the post office and post the water filters to the recycling company (which would only be possible if I had the address label I need, which I do not, nor do I have the mental strength to even contemplate the kind of organisation that the requesting, printing and affixing of such a label would require). Then – with only three hours having passed since picking up the bulldog clip – I could begin my search for the corkboard.

Even writing this out makes my heart pound. Reading it, you might, legitimately, point out that you could just throw the goddamn bulldog clip away. This is true. But the whole point of unpacking is that every item in your house is a metaphorical bulldog clip. Like Douglas Adams and the turtles, the unpacking universe is just bulldog clips all the way down.

Nonetheless. These boxes have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course. At least there are flowers. And miraculously, once I took my Tetris-friend’s tulips and found a vase (the wrong vase, but good lord, any port in a storm) and put them on the coffee table and cleared away an angle grinder and a box of fairy lights, a miracle occurred. For at least one square metre around them, our new house looked like a shoot from World of Interiors.

Also: when I did find the sewing box, I was able to put the knitting needle in it, too.

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