Movers

Once you have found an apartment, signed a lease and gotten your keys, you’re going to have to find a way to get your furniture moved in.  Most buildings designate one day of the week in which they allow moves.  This is usually a Saturday, and they will require that you schedule your move ahead of time.

From a North American perspective, manual labor is very cheap in Mexico.  You can hire a “moving company” to move a couple of bedroom sets, a sofa, and all of your smaller items less than MXN 3000-4000 for a move between two points anywhere within Mexico City.  At that price you get a group of about 3-4 strong fellows with a rickety old moving van.  With this program there is no insurance, so any damage incurred is for your account.  These types usually show up with little more than there hands, some ropes, and maybe some old blankets to assist them in the move.  They usually take an entire day to move a full apartment.

There will inevitably be a moment during the move when they all stop working and one of them approaches you to tell you that the original agreed price did not consider some aspect of the current situation.  Perhaps there is a small set of stairs that you failed to mention, or the walkway leading to the apartment is longer than you had described.  With this type of moving service it always happens.  It is just a ploy to get a decent tip, and usually MXN 500-1000 divided evenly amongst the workers is enough to ensure the job gets finished.

Of course, there are more professional moving services that offer insurance, provide boxing services and generally come more prepared.  They might have a crew of 15 people show up and knock out your move within a few hours.  Their moving van will be state of the art, and they will cost anywhere from MXN 10,000 for the basic to MXN 20,000 for the “princess move.”

New Furniture  and Appliance Deliveries

If you have no furniture and plan on outfitting your new apartment with purchases made in Mexico City, start with your mattress.  You will need a place to crash after the long days of furniture shopping that lie ahead.  You can buy a more expensive name brand mattress in one of the stores inside any of the big shopping malls like Centro Commercial Santa Fe, Plaza Insurgentes, Antara, or Palacio de Hierro, or you can head down to explore the mattress shops in the city center for something cheap.  Dormimundo is a decent chain that offers all sorts of discount options.

The same can be said for furniture, you can buy some decent furniture with great style on the cheap down in the city center, or you can spend a fortune on furniture in the shopping malls.  Any sort of large furniture or mattress will either come with free delivery or with delivery for an additional few hundred pesos.  Furniture deliveries usually happen within a week of purchase.  When it comes to deliveries, it is usually a struggle for working people to time them well.  On the weekdays Mexico City traffic makes it impossible for delivery services to hit decent time windows.  It is recommendable to ask for Saturday deliveries if they are possible.  Otherwise you will likely miss your delivery men on the first couple of attempts.

Appliances and their delivery and installation are more difficult in Mexico than in some other parts of the world.  It really doesn’t matter where you buy them.  It will most likely be a huge hassle to get everything situated and working properly.  Beyond the difficulties of timing the delivery to occur while you are home, there will then be some sort of installation service.  The delivery and installation services are usually not one in the same.  Sears for example, has a delivery crew that is not in contact at all with the installation crew. Be sure to discuss the installation with the sales team in the store before finalizing the purchase.  Try to schedule the installation for a couple of weeks after the proposed timing for delivery.  Otherwise the installation crew might show up before the delivery has even be made.

In Mexico, you should expect any service call or installation to happen in multiple visits.  The first visit is usually just a visit to check out the situation and check off a box somewhere for having made an attempt.  Usually the technician will spend some time reviewing some wiring or plumbing connections before claiming that he is missing a special tool that he needs and will have to reschedule.  At this point, you will be unsure if he is trying to get a bribe out of you or telling the truth.  Most often it will be the former, but if it is already late in the day, he might just be most interested in getting home.  Some say that a few peso tip “para el refresco” can suddenly change a technician’s mind or make missing tools appear from nowhere.  One thing is for sure, regardless of how much of the installation gets done in the first visit, there will be some reason to not finish the job and create the need for at least one more visit.  This can be frustrating for working people, and it is just part of it.  Newcomers should go ahead and make peace ahead of time with the fact that they will not have washers nor dryers for several weeks or months after paying for them in the store.