Man claims moving service is all wet after puddle problem

By Meghan Kalkstein, KATU News and KATU.com Staff Published: Feb 6, 2013 at 11:24 AM PDT Last Updated: Apr 26, 2013 at 1:50 PM PDT
Man claims moving service is all wet after puddle problem »Play Video
Ty Ransom took this photo of soaked boxes inside the PODS unit left in the street by his home.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Moving to a new house is time-consuming and hard work.

But a man moving into a home in Northeast Portland says his moving misery was compounded when his possessions were damaged by water and he blames a popular moving service.

Last November, Ty Ransom said he used the PODS service to transport his possessions to his new home.

But the service left the PODS unit – basically a large storage container filled with his possessions - out on the street by the house where it covered a storm drain.

And then it began to rain.

With nowhere to go, the rain pooled around the PODS unit and Ransom said the water made its way inside where it soaked boxes and damaged his mother-in-law’s furniture.

Ransom even took photos as the water crept up and into the PODS container outside his new house. "I'm watching it flood, just nothing I could do,” he said.

Ransom said he didn't even know the PODS container was blocking the storm drain until later.

Ransom said PODS told him that flooding and water damage isn’t covered. “They told me "that is the address you gave us, we put it on the street in front of that house,"” Ransom recalled. "I would have thought they could make a judgment call to not cover a storm drain in the Pacific Northwest.”

Ransom said the company could have also decided to put the PODS unit in another spot that didn’t block the storm drain. "There's more space on that side of the drain,” he said, pointing out spaces on the street outside his home.

He said that if the service had just moved the PODS container to either side of the drain, the problem could have been avoided.

Feeling he had no recourse, Ransom went online and turned to social media where he posted on Twitter using the hashtag #podsruinsfurniture.

He said he has reached out to other customers who have had bad experiences and also to PODS, whom he says are standing firm on not taking care of the damages to his possessions.

All he wants is “to make the furniture look like it did before this issue happened,” Ransom said.

So far, neither the national office for PODS, based in Florida, or a local representative in Portland have responded to interview requests from KATU News.

Ransom said he will continue letting people know about his experience through social media.