We moved out of our townhome on August 13th. Now, 16 days later, we’re checking out of the 6th and final accommodation since we moved out. If I never see another suitcase or hotel key card again, I won’t complain.

3 nights in an Extended Stay once we moved out before we left for our vacation. 4 nights at an Embassy Suites in downtown Atlanta, GA (visited friends and Atlanta attractions such as World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium). 4 nights at Camp Yofi, a fantastic experience for our entire family about 2.5 hours outside of Atlanta. 1 night at a Hampton Inn outside the Atlanta Airport because we flew on points and couldn’t book reward travel for a Sunday. 1 night at a Clarion Inn near our old home the night before the closings. 3 nights at a Hampton Inn near our new house as I’ve spent the last two days dealing with all the pre-move details.

The movers are coming today with all our stuff that has been in storage since August 13.

Aside from the hassle of living out of a suitcase, the transition has gone smoothly. There were a lot of moving parts. Utilities to transfer, deliveries to receive. For the most part, no problem. Except for Verizon.

The previous owners did not have Verizon in the home. They used Vonage. I called Verizon in late July to arrange for the transfer of service to the new house. I learned then that since phone service had not been live in the house before, I had to have a tech visit. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be able to have DSL turned on right away. The DSL “Service Ready Date” was scheduled for September 8, 10 days after we would supposedly have our new phone service turned on.

Since Eric and I both work from home, I was not happy at having to wait that long. The Verizon CSR tried to “compensate” me by saying that I would have dial-up service from day 1, “at no additional charge!” Gee, thanks. Me: “None of my computers have a dial-up modem.” Her: “You don’t need a modem. Just plug a phone line into your computer.” Really, now?!?!

Verizon was scheduled to install the phone lines on August 27, the day after we closed. We have 2 POTS lines, one with DSL. They were set up at different times at our old house, and despite numerous requests, Verizon has refused to combine them on to one account. So I pay two separate phone bills, and a separate bill for DSL.

On August 27, the tech shows up at her appointed time of around 1 pm with an order for only one line. The one without DSL. That takes about an hour on my cell phone to Verizon to hassle out. The tech promises to get both lines activated. I have her run both lines to most jacks in the house, and install one additional jack where Eric’s office will be. 5 hours later, she informs me that there’s no dial tone because something wasn’t turned on correctly on Verizon’s end. The lines should be active within 24 hours, she says. I wasn’t upset since we weren’t actually plugging in phones until today (August 29). If I don’t have dial tone, I’m to call her directly and she’ll know who to yell at. Let’s hope. What did we do before cell phones?

This morning, I received an automated email from Verizon:

Thank you for your recent order to move your Verizon Online DSL service to another location. Unfortunately, we are currently experiencing a delay in checking the availability of DSL service for your telephone number ending in xxxx.

…

As a reminder, please note that although your telephone number may have pre-qualified for DSL in the initial stages of the order process, further processing may reveal that DSL service cannot be provided on your line.

Great. Now they don’t know when or if they can tell if I can have DSL.

The tech on the 27th told me that I’m about 7500 feet away (around 1.5 miles) from the switching station. I was around 18,000 feet away (around 3-4 miles) at the old house, which is the reason I had such poor speeds.

I’m doing what I should have done a month ago. I’m switching to Comcast for the Internet connection. It’s going to be more expensive (around $60/month vs. $30 since I don’t want the cable or phone service they offer) but should be more reliable and I know the previous owners also used Comcast so installation should be easy. I would have been happier if the area we were moving to were serviced by Cablevision/Optimum Online, but that’s out of my control.