The joys of moving

So we all know how moving can be such a pain in the posterior. Well, it's no different in any other country.

For example, here in France, it was recommended to us to send a registered letter to each of our utilities to let them know we were moving out of our flat. And the reason we were supposed to send them registered was so they couldn't come back later and say that we never notified them. So we did that for each of our 4 providers the first week of September: EDF (electricity), GDF (gas), France Telecom (land line), and Orange (Internet and phone).

On Tue, 9/22, I noticed on our router that the phone service light was not blinking, which means our internet phone (how we made all our phone calls) was not working. Now, at first, I didn't think anything of it because from time to time it would go down for a few hours and then come back. No biggie. But, by the next day, it didn't come back, and I thought, "Huh."

So then, Kevin got up on Thu morning to check something online and says to me, "We have no Internet." Instead of keeping our service on until 10/10, they cut it off on 9/21. Without telling us. This is the week before we were leaving for a week-long trip to the north of France (more on that to come...) and while we're trying to get the move sorted out.

So on Thursday, I called the bank and told them to put a block on any further automatic withdrawals for both Orange and FT. No service = no money.

And it gets better...

So after this whole episode, I had some of my very nice, French-speaking co-workers call EDF and GDF to ask how we're supposed to proceed with the move out. EDF says that we just take the reading on the meter on the final day and call them. They'll process the amount and 2 weeks later take it out of the account. Done.

But GDF says that we have to make an appointment for the guy to actually come and read the meter AND we actually have to be there:
KOD: OK, no problem, we're moving out on Sat the 10th.
GDF: We can't come on a Saturday. We can come the following Monday?
KOD: We won't be living there on the Monday, won't have the keys, and aren't coming back to the flat.
GDF: Well, we can come on the Thursday between 10 and 12.
KOD: Fine.
GDF: OK. Then we'll process the final bill and take the money out of the account in 2 weeks.
KOD: Great.

So fast forward to today, the day they show up. Kevin arranged to be at the flat and met the guy. Apparently, the guy wasn't just there to read the meter. He was there to shut it off completely. So Kev said, "Um, we're not leaving until Saturday and my wife steadfastly refuses to take cold showers." (Ok, so I'm summarizing.) So the guy says then we should call and get them to come back on Monday.

Kev then phones me to tell me what's going on and is supremely annoyed (aka: p'ed off as hell) that all of this is so silly and complicated.

Now, when we moved in, I'm 99.44% sure that we didn't have anyone come out to turn the gas on. It was just on, and when we moved in we took a reading from the meter. So, that's what we're going to do this time too. We'll take the reading from the meter when we move out on Saturday, call them with it, and voila. That's all she wrote.

Because they get a block at the bank at the end of the month anyway.

Mwah-hah-hah-hah!