Hints on Moving.
May 1, 1889Be sure to pay your first month’s rent in advance. It will put you on good terms with the landlord, and after that you need be in hurry to settle.
It is well to engage your truckman about ten weeks in advance, and if necessary guarantee the payment of your bill by giving a lien on you furniture.
If your landlord says that the house has all the modern improvements, you must not look for a phonograph in each room. The landlord didn’t mean that.
Examine your gas meter in moving in a new house. The previous occupant may have left his score unsettled, and the gas man will add it on your first month’s bill.
When leaving a house do not trouble yourself by taking out the nails in the walls. It may make them worse than before, and your old landlord may come down on you for damages.
Do not scold at the man moving your furniture if he should run a bed post through a $1,000 mirror. Drop a bureau on him as he goes down stairs and you will have your revenge.
Do not pack all you plates and knives at the bottom of the box. Remember that one of the first things you have to do in a new house is to eat.
If there is a lodge-meeting on the day you move be sure in going out at night to off the front-door latch so it will not make a noise when you come home.
source: Western Templar of Honor
location: Madison, Wisconsin
