
Montreal Moving Day: what happens when a whole city moves house at once - troydavis
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jun/29/montreal-moving-day-what-happens-when-a-whole-city-moves-house-at-once
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monkbroc
Moving Day is an example of something I thought was normal but only realized
was a local custom when I moved to another country.

Frozen thinly-sliced fondue meat (beef, pork, turkey) being available at any
grocery store was another one. Fondue in a pot of beef broth is a popular dish
for dinner parties in Québec since it scales no matter how many guests you
have and each guest can eat however much or little they want. In the US the
closest I can find is beef bulgogi from a Korean grocery store.

What are some examples of things you thought were "normal" until you moved
elsewhere?

~~~
stevekemp
>What are some examples of things you thought were "normal" until you moved
elsewhere?

Where I come from, the UK, all the entrances to your house, your flat, and
shops that don't have automatic/sliding doors would open _inwards_. You'd push
a door to enter. Now I live in Finland an doors open outwards.

There are a ton of tiny differences I've noticed since moving from the UK to
Finland, another example would be that light-switches turn on/off in the
opposite direction to that I'd expect.

That said though I've started taking a lot of these things for granted now, so
it is actually quite hard to think of more examples!

One thing I'll never take for granted is that the majority of flats here in
Helsinki have their laundry-machines in the bathroom. In the UK the washing-
machine would ALWAYS be in the kitchen, or in a dedicated laundry area if the
house was large/modern enough.

(Also the UK would have all rooms of a house be carpetted, barring a
reasonably modern trend of solid-wooden floors. In Finland houses are
universally carpet-free, although people frequently use rugs.)

~~~
kekeblom
It’s actually fire safety code in Finland that doors have to open outwards. It
should be easier to evacuate the building in case of a panic.

You might still find old buildings where this is not true and they probably
just predate the regulation.

~~~
bodas
It's also for fire safety reasons that doors open inwards in the UK. It means
that the door can't be blocked from the outside.

~~~
wyattpeak
What an interesting contrast. I wonder if there's some regional difference in
behaviour, or if it's just a case of mandating something which seems
superficially beneficial.

~~~
bodas
To be clear, if it's an emergency door in a large building where a crush could
occur, it will open outwards. But most residential buildings aren't big enough
to require that, except for large tower blocks.

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Sytten
Yeah it's one of the most annoying thing in Quebec. Especially when you need
to rent for just a few months, it's almost impossible. It's not a "Montreal"
thing though, it's a province wide thing. It's even more crazy this year with
the temperature...

~~~
tgtweak
Moving your household in 115°f with 90% humidity is just rediculous. I've
already heard some stories this year about movers just not showing up. There
is also a very common scam where individuals pose as movers and ask for a
deposit since it's near impossible to get movers in the month leading up to
moving day, only to never show up the day of and subsequently disappear.

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pkamb
One of the most interesting blogs I've followed over the last couple years is
Garbage Finds, a guy who picks historic/vintage stuff out of the trash in
Montreal. Learned about Moving Day from him. He finds amazing stuff!

[https://garbagefinds.com](https://garbagefinds.com)

[https://www.instagram.com/garbagefinds](https://www.instagram.com/garbagefinds)

~~~
lostlogin
That first link with the story about a sale is really depressing.

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rossdavidh
Well, I could think of one advantage not mentioned, which is that you can make
sure to be out of town that day, and thus miss all of the havoc that is spread
out throughout the year otherwise. Sort of like those towns where all the bars
turn their drunks into the street at 2am, and you just know to not be driving
then because the percentage of drunk drivers will be at its highest.

~~~
jonahrd
This is why I go to Ottawa to celebrate Canada day and have fun while everyone
in Montreal deals with the nightmare

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michaelmior
Another weird thing to me about Montreal compared to other cities I've lived
in is that it's common for people to take their appliances with them when they
move. Perhaps that's normal elsewhere, but it was unique to me among the
cities I've lived in.

~~~
cameldrv
It's even worse in (some parts of?) Germany. Most apartments come without a
kitchen. The law says that they have to provide a sink and a stove, and they
provide the cheapest stove there is and a little pedestal sink. You're
expected to ask the landlord to remove these and order a kitchen, with all of
the cabinets, countertops, sink, refrigerator, washing machine, and stove.
When you move, you either try to take it all apart and make it fit in your new
apartment, or try to sell it to the next tenant. With first month's rent, 3
months security deposit, and a kitchen, moving in to an apartment is very
expensive.

~~~
st26
Are the cabinets, countertops, sinks, etc very different in German apartments?
(Simpler, less customized, more minimal) You're practically describing a full
kitchen remodel in the US, which might run $10,000-20,000, or so I hear, with
at least a week of labor...

~~~
Slartie
It depends on the kitchen size and your expectations. Your price range
describes kitchens that we would never buy for a rental apartment, but only
for a self-owned one or a house you bought. The more typical kitchens in
rental apartments cost between 1000-6000€, and take one or two days to build
up (for a professional, although a lot of people do large parts of the work
themselves or have talented friends do it, so it takes a little longer but is
cheaper).

Many times people also bring their old appliances from their old kitchens with
them, so they only need to buy the cabinets and stuff.

It still is one of the big pain points in moving: what happens with the old
kitchen, and where do I get a new one from?

~~~
st26
Thanks for the reply. Still hard to imagine! The cabinets and counters in
particular, the mind boggles. I completely agree, it sounds like a huge pain
point.

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nicholascamera
The best part of moving day is the free stuff! Everyone is having garage sales
and sharing items for trade or for free on Troquer c’est gratos and other
Facebook groups.

~~~
Forge36
A similar spectacle happens near me. We've taken to calling it "hippy
Christmas" I've dropped stuff off on the curb and it's been picked up in <1
hour by someone looking for new furniture.

~~~
lostlogin
In New Zealand that’s how you get rid of stuff. You put it on ‘the council
strip’, which is a bit of grass between the house and the road, theoretically
owned and maintained by the council.

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cjbprime
Boston has the same thing on August 1st. Fun times.

~~~
swampthinker
Allston Christmas is more like the week before September first. With a
guaranteed UHaul on Storrow that got its roof torn off.

~~~
jacquesm
That looks to me as though dropping the road 10" would solve the problem
nicely.

~~~
dsr_
That would let people drive trucks on Storrow, and they aren't supposed to do
that. It gets enough traffic as it is/

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thinkingemote
The UK has a weekend like this too (sometime last month) when all the
university students in all the university cities move to other digs, or back
home for Summer/Good. It results in horrendous traffic full of parents in
large cars full of stuff packaged around the student stuck in one of the back
seats.

The way around it if you live local is to remember that the parents will not
know the local roads, and to avoid the direct routes that a route planner
would suggest. If you are driving long distance, then you might be best
travelling early in the morning.

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BooneJS
“Hippie Christmas” [0] in Madison, WI. Many sleep in tents overnight as they
have to move out on one day and they can’t move in until the next.

[0]: [https://badgerherald.com/news/2014/08/15/photo-slideshow-
hip...](https://badgerherald.com/news/2014/08/15/photo-slideshow-hippie-
christmas-madison/)

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kelvin0
Oh yeah, we also take our vacations at the same time. Construction 'break'.

[https://www.ccq.org/en/M07_CongeVacances?profil=GrandPublic](https://www.ccq.org/en/M07_CongeVacances?profil=GrandPublic)

Kinda ridiculous.

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antognini
Interesting, I had heard about this in New York, but I didn't know it happened
elsewhere, too! There's a fascinating Wikipedia article about New York's
Moving Day:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Day_(New_York_City)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Day_\(New_York_City\))

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intellectronica
This was also the tradition in Switzerland, but it has been relaxed
significantly in recent years, most likely as the result of the addition of
many out-of-country residents. Most Swiss nationals still assume that they can
only move on moving day, but the ~25% of foreigners simply never accepted that
and move freely whenever convenient.

~~~
malthaus
It‘s more a result of the shortage of available rental flats so people can
easily find a successor by themselves. Outgoing renters have negotiation power
and the incoming ones have to adhere to whatever date they want, resulting in
cascading effects.

New flats in big cities have arbitrary (ie monthly) moving dates in the
contracts nowadays to bring them in line with reality. But it is never a
problem to agree on any random date between you and the next guy, as long as
you provide somone willing to take it over per that date.

I‘m Swiss and never moved on one of the official moving dates...

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sonnyblarney
FYI it's actually 'Canada Day', equivalent to 'Bastille Day' in France, or
July 4th in the US.

The 'moving day' bit is a slightly subtle dig at the very notion of the
country. It's complicated, though as of late less hostile.

Source: me, Anglophone living in entirely French district of Montreal.

~~~
jkaplowitz
Hello fellow anglophone in Montreal! I too assumed thought that was the
reason, but turns out it's not: the party that created this conflict one year
in the 1970s by adding two months to all leases which ended on April 30 is the
Quebec Liberal Party, who are federalists.

Apparently back then Canada Day, which was then called Dominion Day, was
simply less of a big deal than it is now.

~~~
sonnyblarney
That's a really great point, but I there's no reason that this legislation
would 'create' such an outcome, rather it's an influencer.

'Canada Day' has never been a huge deal, which is just fine, but it's
definitely 'something'.

~~~
jkaplowitz
It wouldn't necessarily, but in Quebec's history it did create that schedule
conflict - before that there was already a mandatory Moving Day here on May 1
(i.e. ending leases then was required by law), first legislated all the way
back in New France colonial times so that landlords didn't force people to
move during our harsh winters.

The Liberals removed the requirement for specific lease dates in 1974, but
they coupled that with a one-time extension to June 30, 1975 of leases that
were scheduled to end on April 30 or May 1 of that year, as most were due to
the former requirement.

Apparently the reasons for the shift were to let schoolchildren finish their
school years first, to avoid a time of year with sometimes rough weather, and
to let workers move on what was already a holiday (less major then than now)
instead of needing to take a day off from work. And I guess they dropped the
mandatory aspect since nobody in living memory would have wanted to create
such a mandate.

If you simply mean that their legislation influenced rather than created the
local attitude toward Canada Day, I agree there, although federalists like
them wouldn't have acted with hostility toward the Canadian Confederation as a
motivation. Quebec was already less gung-ho for that than, say, Ontario.

But the disproportionate tendency for Quebec to move on or around July 1
specifically was what the Liberals created with their chosen one-time shift.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Touché

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sevensor
This sheds some light on what I observed on my one visit to Montreal, which
was that there were signs everywhere reading "a louer". I thought it was a bit
unusual that so many apartments should be in need of tenants at once.

~~~
sonnyblarney
No, this is an economic problem in Montreal in general.

Montreal doesn't have the greatest of economies. Reasonable standard of
living, good culture, but Montreal is like Buenos Aires a little ... there is
a weird kind of dysfunction and chill that doesn't exist elsewhere in North
America.

Source: I live here.

~~~
sgc
Is it great or a pita? Honestly, as a French speaker who has looked into
moving to Montreal before, that is an attractive description.

~~~
sonnyblarney
It's laid back easy living in summer, but brutal winter if you're not into it.

Quebecois are not mean, but they are insular if you're not Quebecois or
actually French. 'They eat at their own table in the cafetaria' kind of thing.

The economy is iffy and weak, and there's very few good jobs, even the good
one's pay absurdly low.

If you're any good, you can move to the US and double your salary, which is
why it's a kind of economic trap - young, good talent leaves and it's nary
impossible to convince people to come even if the net standard of living is
good.

You almost need a reason: like super choice job, spouse, contract job, family
etc. etc..

~~~
notmars
sure.

[http://www.montrealinternational.com/en/blog/montreal-is-
the...](http://www.montrealinternational.com/en/blog/montreal-is-the-most-
affordable-city-in-canada/)

~~~
sonnyblarney
A blog by the city of Montreal promoting itself?

Usually the places that are the 'most affordable' are so because the economy
is not good.

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electrotype
And there are currently heat warnings... Won't be fun!

[https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/alerts/high-
alert/quebe...](https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/alerts/high-
alert/quebec/montreal)

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IshKebab
So it's impossible to move on any other day? That sounds incredibly stupid.
Does everybody start new jobs on the same day too?

After one year don't your contracts switch to monthly?

~~~
vaughnegut
You can find apartments any time of the year, it's just that the majority are
up for rent for July 1st. Moving at another time of year is a mixed bag.
There's less selection, but so much less competition.

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ergothus
I find the interaction with capitalism interesting. Basically(according to the
article), because it makes getting future tenets easier, landlords will
arrange leases to end in July, even if they need to make short leases to do
so. This in turn means people are open to enter new contracts in July, which
maintains the incentives.

If you are an individual buyer, you will have little influence on this
incentive. Thats... interesting to me.

~~~
sbuas
I will have to disagree with the article on this, really it is 2-way. When
searching for a new apartment you will have way more choice in the weeks
around July 1st than at any other time of the year.

~~~
auxym
In the weeks leading to July 1st you are pretty last-minute and won't have
great choice. Lease renewals/non-renewals are due for the end of March (IIRC),
so starting to look around April is a good idea.

In case someone is thinking about moving to Quebec next year ;)

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djrogers
So not really the whole city, but around 8% of it? Sounds crazy, but nowhere
near as crazy as the ‘whole city’...

~~~
m-p-3
Finding a moving truck, company, etc for such a big percentage of the
population that moves all on the same day is often a challenge.

~~~
hugodahl
It is, particularly since there is a) a premium price on the rental (3-5x last
I checked) for that one day b) rental windows are shrunk (3-4 hours max is
typical) and c) rentals are reserved back-to-back-to-back, such as
6-10,10-2,2-6,6-10,but often returned late, which trickles down. So last moves
often end in the wee morning hours. Doubly fun when you're waiting on the
previous tenant to get out before you can get your stuff in.

The same is true when using movers and moving companies, assuming you can find
any with availability.

~~~
jandrese
I have to imagine the moving truck rental companies must summon nearly every
vehicle in the fleet to one city for one day of the year.

This seems so insane. Do the advantages even come close to outweighing the
headaches this scheme causes? What happens when July 1 is rainy?

