Moving Out of a Mont Kiara Condo: The Saturday That Almost Went Wrong
A composite story, assembled from what Mont Kiara and Sri Hartamas customers have told us. The couple is invented. The shared lift, the RM500 deposit and the mover with the spare trolley are from real moves.
Short version: a couple moved from a two-bedroom condo on Jalan Kiara to a townhouse in Desa ParkCity, ten kilometres away. The management office gave them a three-hour Saturday slot, a RM500 deposit and a form. On the morning, a second family was moving into the floor below in the same slot, and the service lift became a shared lift. They had 38 once-used carton boxes, a mover with four men and, crucially, a second trolley. They finished with nine minutes to spare. Here is the whole day, and the three weeks before it.
Mont Kiara’s rules, in writing
Sarah and Jun had been in Mont Kiara for four years, long enough to know that the building ran on forms. The move-out form had eleven fields, and the management office wanted it submitted two weeks ahead with the mover’s company name, lorry plate number and a copy of the tenancy termination.
The rules, as given to them in an email, were close to what we describe in our condo lift-slot guide: service lift only, slot of three hours on a Saturday between nine and five, a RM500 refundable deposit, lift padding installed by the building’s own staff at the start of the slot and inspected at the end, and the lorry at the loading bay on B1, not the main lobby. There was one more rule that mattered on the day: a maximum of one move per slot, “subject to availability”.
They booked the slot for ten to one on a Saturday, confirmed the mover, and ordered boxes.
Thirty-eight boxes, and why most of them were medium
An expat couple’s condo has a different mix from a family house: fewer books, more kitchenware, more decor, more clothes on hangers, and a surprising number of small electronics. Sarah counted and came to 36. She ordered 40 from shop.quinocycle.com: 30 medium, 6 small, 4 large, plus a roll of bubble wrap, a roll of PE foam, six rolls of packing tape and a tape dispenser. The lorry from Balakong delivered to the B1 loading bay the next working day, and the guard called up to say “your boxes are here” as if it were a pizza.
She had hesitated over once-used versus new. Our new versus once-used comparison is in Bahasa Malaysia, so the short version in English: once-used Grade A boxes are the boxes that brought goods into Malaysia once, they are as strong as they were on that trip, and they cost a fraction of new ones. The only thing they are not is matching. For a move, that does not matter. For the eight boxes going into a storage unit for a year, she bought new document boxes with lids, so the stack would be flat and uniform.
Three weeks, two people, no children, and still not enough time
Without children the packing should have been easy. It took every evening for three weeks, because the couple’s flat was full of the kind of things that need individual wrapping: framed prints, two lamps, a record collection, a coffee machine, a full set of wine glasses, and a 65-inch television whose original box had been thrown out in year one.
The prints went flat in a large box with PE foam between each one and cardboard on the outside faces, following our mirrors and framed pictures guide. The glasses were wrapped individually in bubble wrap and packed standing up in a small box stuffed solid, per the plates and glasses method. The television was the one thing they paid the mover to handle, after reading how to move a TV without its box and deciding that a TV blanket and four men were worth it.
The coffee machine went in the car. Some things are not negotiable.
The documents, passports and the folder of tenancy papers went into one of the new document boxes, which also went in the car. The home office and documents guide explains why those boxes never travel in the lorry; the short reason is that the lorry is the one place you cannot watch.
Saturday: the shared lift
The mover arrived at nine thirty with four men, two trolleys and a lorry that fitted the B1 clearance, which Sarah had checked. The lift padding went up at ten. At five past ten a second lorry arrived at the loading bay with a family moving into the twelfth floor.
The management office had double-booked. There was one service lift. The on-duty staff member proposed the only workable thing: alternate loads, one trip down, one trip up, and “please finish by one”. A three-hour slot had become, in practice, ninety minutes of lift time for each family.
This is where the four men and the second trolley mattered. While one trolley was in the lift, the other was being loaded in the corridor, so every lift trip went down full: a stack of four medium boxes on each trolley, two trolleys per trip, eight boxes per lift ride. Thirty-eight boxes was five rides. The furniture was the problem: a sofa, a bed frame, two wardrobes, the dining table, the TV in its blanket, each a lift ride on its own, each one alternating with the family downstairs bringing a wardrobe up.
| Time | What happened |
|---|---|
| 10:00 | Padding up. Boxes start, two trolleys alternating |
| 10:40 | All 38 boxes in the lorry. Family downstairs starts furniture |
| 10:40 to 12:20 | Furniture, alternating lift trips with the other family |
| 12:35 | TV, last piece. Unit empty |
| 12:51 | Padding inspected, form signed, nine minutes left |
The mover did not charge extra for the waiting. He said it happened “most Saturdays somewhere” and that four men was the minimum he sent to any Mont Kiara job for exactly this reason. Sarah had picked him because he was the only one of three who had asked for the building’s name before quoting. That question, it turned out, was the whole difference.
Desa ParkCity
The townhouse had a management office too, with its own form, which they had submitted, and a rule that lorries use the back lane. The movers were in and out in an hour. Beds went up first, then the kitchen boxes, then the coffee machine from the car, in that order, per our unpacking order guide. The prints stayed in their box for a fortnight, which is fine; nothing in a box is at risk.
The RM500 deposit came back from the Mont Kiara management eighteen days later, in full, with a one-line email. The padding had done its job. So had the flattened box Jun had taped over the door frame on the way out, which is a trick from our deposit protection guide that costs one box.
What they would do differently
- Confirm the slot with the management office the day before, and ask directly whether any other move is booked.
- Hire by the question, not the price. The mover who asks which building you are in has done it before.
- Four men and two trolleys for a condo, even a small one. The lift is the bottleneck, not the lorry.
- Order the wrapping materials with the boxes, and more bubble wrap than seems reasonable. They ran out with four glasses to go and used tea towels.
- Keep the TV job for the mover, and the coffee machine for yourself.
- Keep the documents box in the car, always.
Moving in Mont Kiara, Sri Hartamas or Desa ParkCity?
Once-used Grade A carton boxes start at RM1.10 at shop.quinocycle.com, delivered the next working day from our Balakong warehouse to anywhere in KL and Selangor, free at RM300 and above and RM30 per trip below. Bubble wrap, PE foam, packing tape, fragile tape and a dispenser ship in the same order, and the delivery goes to your loading bay if you tell the guardhouse. Collection from Balakong is open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm and Saturday 8.30am to 1pm. WhatsApp +60 16-891 6381 with the unit type and we will suggest a count.
Bahasa Malaysia readers: kotak pindah Mont Kiara.