There’s something monumental about pulling your belongings out of storage, unpacking the kitchen, putting away clothes and bedding, then getting a second burst of energy as you unpack the big screen and other toys, excited to watch a movie on your first night in your new home. Amazing feeling, besides sleeping in your own bed again, nothing compares to getting your living room back.

Unfortunately, I’m only two-thirds settled. I think it has to do with the fact that last week, Jay and I discovered 1/3 of our personal belongings were stolen from us whilest nearly everything we owned was stored by U-Haul U-Box of San Francisco. Its really hard to set up one’s living room when one doesn’t have anything to plug in.

When Jay and I were readying to moved to San Francisco, from Buffalo, we had done our research on moving services. The costs we were quoted from various sources ranged from $1200 to $3500. We settled on U-Box, a service branded under U-Haul, mainly because we were familiar with the U-Haul brand, they mentioned secure storage everywhere on their site, and they on the lower end of the price range… $1500.

Late November, we had the box delivered to Buffalo, NY. Using my anal rententive expert packing skills we trustingly placed everything we owned, save for clothes and a few must-have belongings in the U-Box, and locked it with a U-Haul branded lock we purchased from the company. We had the only keys. Honestly, that felt like the most secure thing ever… at the time.

We drove 3,000 miles across the country, with faith that in a few weeks, our stuff would be stored safe and secure while we settled and hunted for a place to live. It took us 4 months before we finally landed in our new 2-bedroom at the Warrington in good ole Tendernob.

It was only when we tried to get our U-Box delivered to us did the uneasiness begin to stir. First, we found out that U-Box is simply an affiliate of U-Haul, and that the San Francisco office was maintained by two girls who decided when and if you had a delivery date. With us, they completely neglected to schedule the drop-off date when we asked, then complained that we wouldn’t agree to the most convient time for them (overnight, HA! not in the ‘loin you ain’t). When they did deliver last Wednesday, there was no time-frame, just that it was first out.

Around 11am that Wednesday, we received a call that the U-Box girls were outside. Outside, but a block down from where we were, and already proceeding to unload the crate. I ran down to meet the girls, informing them that they were way off the mark. No matter, the girl on the lift proceeded to drag the U-box full speed up Post street against traffic and a light to where we were. The uneasiness was mounting, but I was confident I had packed the contents securely.

U-boxes are giant wooden crates with a single hinged door on the front. They have a protective sleeve that we found out goes on only for delivery or transfer. Had we known that earlier, we would have called the police immediately when we ripped the velcro closure open to discover our lock was cut. U-Box girl shrugged and gave some reply about stress during transfer can cause a lock to snap. Except that lock was cut, snipped,and sheared in two.

Further inspection revealed the worst: the box had been unpacked, sorted through, then repacked minus anything of value. Nearly everything with a plug was taken (42″ TV, wii, mac mini, harddrives, blu-ray, etc) and anything else thought to have resell value, like movies, art, my knife block, and boxes of personal/financial information. Jay lost his camera bag with his old Nikon film bodies (f2 and f4), Nikkor lenses, and all of his portfolio negatives. I lost about $800 (retail value) worth of vinyl pieces, including a custom Dunny from my new local buddy Dril One… luckily my favorite pieces were stashed in a dresser that was wedged in the corner.. the only thing that would have taken too much work to get to. All in all, we were robbed of no less than $10,000 worth of electronic equipment and other valuables.

I figure it took me 4 hours to load it up, so it had to have taken an hour or two for this person(s) to rifle through our belongings. Poor Huw, he took all his valuables with him but left us his bedding and a box or so of books and junk. He lost a box of stuff, but can’t remember what it was so who knows, could have been personal information like what Jay and I lost too.

The U-Box people told us we should file a claim and asked if we bought insurance. Jay’s been dealing with the claim, but so far we haven’t had a very comforting experience getting U-Box to deal with their foul-up. This is still new and I plan on updating on this issue as it rolls out.

However, these are the things we know:

1. Our stuff is gone. Gone from a box we rented from U-Box, based on a respect of the U-Haul brand.
2. This happened sometime between December, 2010, and March, 2011.
3. This had to have happened while in storage in SF, because surely a cut lock would be noticed by someone along the chain of custody.
4. Reading Yelp, and from our own experiences, the U-Box San Francisco location is extremely difficult to deal with, and can ignore your voicemail for as long as they desire. They also get little details like “keep my stuff safe” and “deliver this here” horribly wrong.
5. We lost valuable material electronic goods, as well as some seriously important items, like personal/financial paperwork/data,  irreplaceable art, photography equipment, and my fucking  Wusthof chef knife set.
6. U-Box doesn’t even want to refund us the cost of their service, saying they don’t refund shipping cost. It appears they want their insurance company to pay for their mistake.
7. We’re mad, we’re hurt, and will never use U-Haul or U-Box again because of this, and will tell all of our friends about the San Francisco U-Box location. This is a shame too, because we had such a nice experience on the Buffalo end, but one bad seed spoils the whole apple.