04/30/2024
Randolph Terrace Apartments is celebrating! May is a great time to move into a new apartment and we can help you do that. Starting May 1st we will be waiving our $25 application fee! Come check out Randolph Terrace today!
HISTORY OF NATIONAL MOVING MONTH
New Yorkers “are stricken down on the first of May, by a type of madness, which will not allow them to rest till they have relocated their residence,” as one observer put it in 1799. Farmers from New Jersey would travel to Brooklyn to lend out their wagons at exorbitant rates since there weren’t enough carts to handle the volume of business. By 1820, the streets were clogged with carts transporting home possessions, and Moving Day had become ‘pandemonium.’ This was due to a considerable increase in the number of propertyless renters, and the streets were jammed with carts conveying household belongings. The practice was still in use in 1848 when the Tenants League condemned it as a way for landlords to increase rents on a year-to-year basis.
Cartmen were known to charge up to a week’s earnings to have their possessions moved, while truckmen were known to take customers’ belongings to police headquarters if they refused to pay on delivery, charging them for the extra transportation. In 1856, it was reported that the strict adherence to the custom of Moving Day was eroding — with some people moving a few days before or after the regular Day, resulting in a ‘moving week.’ The month of May was declared National Moving Month by Allied in 1997.
May is designated as National Moving Month because it marks the beginning of the busiest period of the year for the real estate business, movers, and many households. With the end of the school year and the beginning of longer, sunny days, the summertime is the most popular for relocating.