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| Vic's Building Protection |
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BOMA member and president of Vic's Moving & Storage, Richard Bitterman, gets a thumbs-up from security at the TransAmerica building for using The Mat-A-Door® to protect Kansas City's largest office building lobby-side elevator entrances from damage. As part of our extensive building protection program, Vic's also uses The Mat-A-Door® to protect interior and exterior glass entrance doors and wooden office doors. Vic's is the only Certified Office Mover in the Kansas City area.
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To protect walls, Vic's covers main hallways with Koroflex, a lightweight, rippled or fluted cardboard and props it up with Masonite sheets. We us vinyl carpet protection such as Pathrite® and Carpet Cover. The sticky backing holds it in place to prevent floors from being soiled or damaged.
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August 16, 2004
Hold contractors accountable with deposit
by Ed Katz
Property managers are resorting to creative ways of protecting their buildings and their bank accounts from trash and damage left behind by contractors.
At least one property management company has begun requiring a damage and clean-up deposit from contractors prior to the start of work.
Tightening budgets have prompted what just might be a new trend, which is based on the theory that if it costs them money up front, movers and other outside contractors will be more inclined to leave buildings in a clean and damage-free condition. If your management company is interested in instituting such a policy, the following language will help you get started:
A deposit in the amount of $250.00 must be delivered to our management office seven days prior to the day on which the contractor plans to begin work at (your property name). This amount may be in the form of a check issued to (your property name). Upon completion of the work, the contractor may contact our Property Management Office at (your phone number) to request a walk-through of the building area in which work was preformed.
If clean-up has been properly performed and no damage has been done to the property, your deposit check will be immediately returned to the contractor. If clean-up is insufficient or damage is found to have been caused by the contractor, your deposit will be retained by the management office for clean-up or repair compensation.
Damage exceeding the $250.00 deposit will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
The contractor will be held accountable to reimburse the Management Office for the full repair and cleaning costs incurred as a result of work by the contractor. No work will commence prior to receipt of this deposit being on file in our office.
For more, visit www.matadoors.net or call 800-464-8688.
Ed Katz, founder and former owner of Peachtree Movers in Atlanta, has been called the guru of office moving. He's a member of BOMA/Atlanta and can be reached at 1-800-464-8688 or EdKatz@officemoves.com.
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January 23, 2003
Movers’ Woes: Arming for the Fallout
Caught between depressed prices and soaring costs, many moving companies are cutting corners or offering new services to stay afloat.
“Companies hiring movers and office building managers need to know that the trend points to the potential for lower quality and higher incidents of damage,” said Ed Katz, former owner of Peachtree Movers in Atlanta and head of the International Office Moving Institute.
According to the American Moving & Storage Association (AMSA), pricing pressures and increased costs make sustaining quality and capacity increasingly difficult, particularly during the spring and summer peak.
“The challenge facing movers to consistently accomplish quality moves at deeper and deeper discounts is approaching crisis proportions,” said AMSA President Joe Harrison. Harrison’s remarks were made in the January issue of Mobility Magazine, online publication of the Employee Relocation Council.
To survive, struggling household goods movers are diversifying into local office moving, a particularly dangerous trend for companies planning a move where quality is important or for property managers concerned about damage to buildings.
“Though many movers successfully accomplish both household moves and business moves, the two are nothing alike. For example, a household mover would not necessarily know how to transport computers safely or protect building walls, doors, floors, and elevators from being damaged. Movers jumping into the office moving arena may learn its pitfalls at the expense of both the customer and his or her landlord," said Katz.
Building managers face their own pressures from eroding occupancy.
"Inexperienced movers trashing their buildings only gives tenants another excuse to look elsewhere for space," explained Katz, who is a member of the Atlanta chapter of Building Owners & Managers Association (BOMA).
The crunch has really hit household goods movers since corporations have elected to cut costs by not moving their employees. According to Harrison, moving workers can climb to as high as $60,000 per employee on a domestic relocation, with the physical move accounting for less than 12 percent.
According to Harrison, the crisis is so severe, bankruptcy notices from AMSA members have hit historic highs during the past 15 months. AMSA is made up of mostly large household goods carriers and agents.
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