Pricey Boston Neighborhoods

photo courtesy of www.boston.com

There's an article on boston.com today about the most expensive rental neighborhoods in the Boston area. The list of 15 goes from Kendall Square to Newton Highlands, highest rents to lowest (relatively speaking of course). It was put together by RentJuice, a California-based real estate marketing firm.

Some of the neighborhoods could easily have been guessed, but I was surprised some others weren't on the list. For instance, I would have expected Huron Village and Beacon Hill before Kendall Square, but maybe those neighborhoods are considered part of others (like "Cambridge" which shows up there even though its a city instead of a neighborhood). Anyway, its interesting to look at these whenever they come out and see which neighborhoods have moved up in rent.

Kiva Update

We just completed a few more loans through our Kiva account. We lent to a blacksmith in Iraq, a shepherd in Armenia and a timber salesman in Kenya. You can check out our loans here.

All the other loans we've helped with are fully funded are now in the paying back phase with their loans. As these loans get paid back we'll make more to new borrowers and we'll keep you posted!

Parking Permits - State Owned Roads

Some roads, particularly in Boston, are not owned by the City, but by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. For example, the Jamaicaway/Arborway are state owned roads. Even though they are in the City of Boston, the City cannot issue moving van permits for addresses on state owned roads.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out if a street is state or city owned is to call. The City of Boston parking office is the first place you should try. If they tell you the street belongs to the state then the next step to is call the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) at 617.626.1297. Its possible the DCR will tell you the road in quesiton doesn't fall under their jurisdiction either, but I've never run into that. If the road is their's, the DCR will e-mail you an application. The application must be filled out and returned with a check (as of right now its $100) at least six calendar days prior to the permit date. The paperwork needs to be delivered to their office at 215 Causeway St. Boston and they will give you your permit.

We don't run into this situation very often, but its always good to be prepared for the possibility!

Moving Tip #8: Appliances

photo courtesy of charlotteappliancerepair.com

More often than not our customers are not moving their appliances for various reasons. However, if you are moving any here are some tips to prepare:

Refrigerators
- Remove all the food and either throw it out or put it in a cooler with ice packs to move it to the new location (we cannot take food on our trucks).
- Defrost the freezer if necessary.
- Remove all the shelves and bins.

Washer and Dryer
- Drain the washing machine.
- If the dryer is gas, please have it disconnected and capped off by a professional before we show up. We are not licensed to do work like this.

Stove
- Same as with the dryer if its gas. Have it disconnected and capped off by a professional.

Microwave
- Take the spinning plate inside the microwave out (if there is one) and pack it with the other dishes.

Dishwasher
- It needs to be disconnected by a professional plumber before we can take it away.

Any appliances that are electric we shouldn't have any issue dealing with as we only have to pull the plug to move it. As mentioned above, though, we can't handle the disconnection of gas appliances. We can move them once a professional has done what he or she needs to do to safely and properly cut it off from its gas supply, but we will be unable to move the item if its not been disconnected prior to our arrival. Also, we are not plumbers, so any water supplies that need to be disconnected must be done by a professional plumber.

An Organization We Love: Kiva

As a small business ourselves, we are a big believer in the concept of people creating their own opportunities. We try and support other small, local businesses by using their services and buying their goods, as well as belonging to organizations like Cambridge Local First and the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce.

Another way we choose to support small businesses is through Kiva. If you've never heard of the organization, you should check it out. Its a facilitator for microloans all over the world. Kiva connects microfinance organizations, or field partners, on five continents to lenders through their website. The field partners distribute 100% of the money to those who have sought loans. Kiva explains the whole process much better here, including information on due diligence, risk, etc.

We just lent $25 each to four people/groups. There is a group of furniture makers in the Dominican Republic, a man with a motorcycle trasnport business in Kenya, a security service provider in the US and a man with a construction transportation service in El Salvador.'

We'd like to try and make our loans to individuals and groups that have some connection to what we do, but we haven't come across any moving businesses on Kiva so far. The security service provider really has no connection to moving, but we liked that he's right here in our own backyard, so to speak.

As we provide more loans, we'll post updates. Our profile page on Kiva will also show updates on the success of the loans and any new ones we help fund. Kiva has their own twitter account as well.

image courtesy of businesspundit.com

Disposal

photo courtesy of photo-dict.faqs.org

What do you do if you're moving out and you've got things to throw out but your scheduled trash day isn't for days? Or if someone left a piece of furniture in your new place and you want it gone?

We can help with that. We offer disposals with moves. Most things can fit in our dumpster with a little disassembly. We charge the time it takes to do it plus a disposal fee that goes towards getting our dumpster emptied.

Mattresses are tricky because they can't be broken down very easily and don't fit in our dumpster as is. There are some places that will take them from us, but they charge a high price to take them. The best bet with mattresses to leave them for trash day if at all possible. Most towns will pick one up without any special sticker or permit.

If you just need something disposed of and there's no move involved we're happy to do that, too. However, we're not the cheapest option for that. We usually recommend calling U Call We Haul in such cases. There's also a company called 1-800-Got-Junk that is similar, though they aren't strictly a local business like U Call We Haul is. Save That Stuff which will take recycables, including electronics, but they're geared toward the corporate world versus the residential one.

Using a Resident Visitor Parking Pass

photo courtesy of centersandsquares.com

Unfortunately, we can't use visitor passes in Cambridge and Somerville.

Residents with parking stickers for the cities of Cambridge and Somerville are given a visitor pass for their zone which allows visitors to park without fear of a ticket. However, these passes do not apply to commercial vehicles so we cannot use them in our moving trucks in place of a moving van permit.

We Joined Facebook (Finally)

Yup, we did it. As of yesterday Intelligent Labor and Moving officially has a page on Facebook. We're totally new to using this site, so right now the page is bare bones, but we'll be working on it, adding pictures and posting news as we get more comfortable making our way around.

Come like us on Facebook or post something on our wall! And I'll try to figure out how to do the same....