PHILADELPHIA -
Theada Miller-Dorsey takes a look around the box-strewn living room of her new home on Juniata St. and asks, "Where's my furniture? What happened to the rest of my furniture?"
FOX 29 is working to get results for this North Philadelphia woman stuck with a "moving mess."
Miller-Dorsey says it seemed like such a simple move – 1.27 miles from her old house on North 20th Street to the new place, less than a five-minute drive away.
So, she hired Mackintosh Movers to haul her furniture. The company estimate showed the upstairs to be a 6-hour job, set for last Friday. The cost? $654.
On Saturday, the basement move would be handled in 2½ hours for an additional $312.
"I was expecting to have a whole house full of furniture in here now," she told FOX 29's Bruce Gordon, "so I could live here comfortably."
Theada says the three-man Mackintosh crew arrived around 9 a.m. Friday, but that the workers were slow.
"We're two hours (in), and nothing is coming out the door yet," she said. "About 11 is when I did see a sofa and love seat come out the door."
At the end of the day, Theada paid the movers about $1,000, based on their hourly rate.
But about a dozen pieces of furniture and major appliances remained at her old house. In fact, they're still there.
And several other pieces were moved by Mackintosh to a storage site at Allegheny and Fox a few miles away.
Theada says the movers claimed those pieces wouldn't fit through the door of her new home.
She says she called the manager to complain. After all, her belongings were now in three separate locations!
"He said, 'Well, there's nothing we could do.'"
In fact, Theada says the manager offered to complete the move — at an additional cost.
But, by then, her moving budget was exhausted.
"'No more money,' she says she told the manager. 'I think you all got enough money, but you didn't give me what I needed. You didn't give me good service.'"
While Theada's estimates came from "Mackintosh Movers," her storage receipt is marked "Lenora's Moving and Storage. Lenora's has an "F" rating from the Metro Philadelphia Better Business Bureau because of customer complaints.
Gordon's calls to Mackintosh were not returned by late Tuesday afternoon. We're hoping to here from the company that they can complete the move at the price already paid.
If not, Gordon is asking another big-hearted local mover to donate the completion of the job.
Again, the old house and the new are just minutes apart, but the pieces still at her old house, which include a refrigerator, freezer, breakfront and TV, are big.
Tweet Bruce at @BGordonFox29 if your moving company can help!
