Apartment moves in Chicago run on a different clock than anywhere else in America. Leases stack on May 1 and October 1 by city ordinance — the Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance, the RLTO — and every renter on the North Side flips on the same Monday. The Waley dispatch board is mapped against that cycle months out: Wicker Park six-corner walk-ups against the freight-elevator window at the Loop highrise on the other end, Streeterville doorman buildings against the Andersonville greystone three-flat, West Loop new construction against the South Loop conversion. Trish locks the certificate of insurance with property management three days ahead so the building isn’t the bottleneck.
Highrise, walk-up, courtyard, conversion — same crew
A Loop highrise unit on the 22nd floor needs a 7 a.m. freight slot, a posted COI on the dock, a padded elevator car and a cone on Wacker before the doorman waves us up. A Lakeview courtyard 1-bedroom needs an alley-side park, masonite on the central garden path so the dolly does not scar the brick pavers, and a tight pivot through the gangway door. Every Chicago apartment shape gets a different choreography, and the chief on your job has walked it before.
Lease-day pricing and the Saturday-after window
Apartment moves are usually a binding flat from $545 on a studio or one-bedroom, or the $185-an-hour Waley crew rate if your job is smaller than a flat threshold and you flex on a weekday outside of May 1 / Oct 1. Eddy is bilingual EN/ES, so the Pilsen and Little Village lease-day calls run in Spanish if that’s easier, and Trish’s seventy-two-hour COI submission is part of the booking, not an add-on the night before.
What's Covered
- COI to building management with the correct named additional insured and the limits the lease requires, submitted seventy-two hours before move-day
- Freight-elevator slot locked with the property manager and the car pre-padded before the first dolly hits the lobby, not negotiated in the morning
- Streets & San moving-truck cone permit pulled through the 311 portal three days ahead so the curb in front of your building is held for the box truck
- Tight 1900s stairwell shoulder-dolly carries on Wicker Park three-flats, Andersonville greystones and Edgewater walk-ups with no surcharge for the stair flight
- Lease-day May 1 / October 1 slots pre-blocked on Trish’s dispatch board eight to ten weeks ahead so the binding flat is locked before the rush
- Eddy bilingual EN/ES on the estimator line for Pilsen, Little Village and South-Side renters who would rather quote in Spanish
What's the Cost?
Two uniformed W-2 Waley movers and the 26-ft straight truck run a posted Logan Square hourly of $185 an hour; if your room count slots cleanly into a half-day — studio, junior one-bedroom, or a tight in-building swap — Eddy will quote it as a locked flat instead, starting at $545 all-in.
Everything the day calls for is folded into that hourly figure: the two W-2 movers themselves, the 26-ft Waley truck, quilted blankets, masonite floor runners, two-wheel and four-wheel dollies, ratchet straps, walk-boards, and the lake-effect winter mats we put down off the porch in any month with salt on the sidewalk. Fuel adders, third-floor stair charges, long-carry charges from the alley to the door — none of those line items show up on a Waley invoice, period.
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