Chaos moves in along with the students

Max Fox was getting impatient.

“I’m going to have to pitch a tent out here,” he said, sitting on the stoop to 6-8 Parkvale Ave. in Allston and passing the time with a joke.

Fox’s belongings were piled on the sidewalk beside him. The Suffolk University freshman, who is originally from Brooklyn, had been waiting since 8 a.m. for the previous tenants to leave his new apartment so he could move in. It was now close to 11 a.m.

“We’ll probably get moved in by 12 tomorrow morning,” he said.

Fox was one of hundreds of people caught up in the annual chaos of the Sept. 1 move-in. The streets of Allston and Brighton were packed with a steady stream of moving trucks of various sizes and brands, sidewalks were clogged with the possessions of people both coming and going, and Dumpsters overflowed with garbage, boxes and old sofa cushions. Signs taped to furniture that said “free table” or “do not take” indicated what was one man’s trash and another’s treasure.

“It is a mess,” said Jim, a Carol Avenue resident who declined to give his last name. “Students should learn they shouldn’t put their stuff out on the sidewalk on the first of the month. I wouldn’t say I dread it, but it does make it difficult.”

On Allston Street, traffic was at a standstill as U-Haul trailers parked precariously on the sidewalk, drivers caught in the congestion honked their horns and a garbage truck tried to empty a Dumpster but instead spilled trash all over the ground behind a building.

“The problem with people driving those big moving trucks is they don’t know how to drive them,” Gary Wood said. Wood had come from Maine to help his daughter move from one apartment to a new one on Bellvista Road. They started at 2 p.m. Friday, got back to their motel at 11 p.m. and were almost finished a little after 11 a.m. Saturday. While Wood was displeased with the chaos, he admitted he contributed as well.

“All I know is, I ticked off a bunch of people because I pulled up and said ‘This is where we’re unloading’,” he said, motioning to the sidewalk and laughing.

On Cummings Road, several green city violations were taped to front doors, citing debris in excess of 1 cubic yard. Amid the hubbub of dozens of new renters, some stayed positive.

“People are very cooperative,” said Bob Beaulieu, who was helping his daughter, Danielle, move. “You have to be, or else this would be chaos. At least, more than it is.”

Tenants who waited until Saturday to move out of their apartments were a common occurrence, leaving many new residents passing time outside.

Minh Turong, who traveled from Chicago to help his fiancée, a Boston University graduate student, move into an apartment on Egremont Road, described the situation as “chaotic.” 

“There was a small drama across the street with moving trucks,” he said. “When you sit here for three hours, you see some pretty interesting things.”

Turong had moved apartments before, but never in Boston.

“This is way more messy,” he said. “Other places don’t have people move in and out on the same day.”

Simonas Knystautas moved to Brighton for a little breathing room. The Boston Architectural College student shared a room with a roommate at his old Back Bay digs, but was looking forward to a much more spacious apartment in this neighborhood — as soon as he could actually move in.

“Welcome to my living room,” Knystautas said with a laugh, standing amid couches, tables and a surfboard on the front lawn of an Egremont Road apartment building, waiting to move it all inside his new place.

“It’s half the price and I get my own room,” he said. “Plus, there’s a kitchen I can actually use.”

While some are attracted by rents that are somewhat lower than in other parts of the city, others move to A-B for the atmosphere.

“The parties are out here,” UMass-Boston junior Lennis Hernandez said. “I moved out here from Texas and I didn’t know anything about places to live, but I moved here and said, ‘I’m not leaving Allston for a while.’ It’s a good area. Everything’s close.”