Frequently Asked Questions

Yes — we are the moving company. Harper Transfer & Storage owns our own trucks and employs our own crews — we don't take your information and pass it along to another company to handle. When you call us, you're talking to the same business that will load your furniture, drive the truck, and unload it at your new address. If your move needs a storage gap, that's handled in our own climate-controlled warehouse at 2204 Ellisville Blvd, not a third party we've never met. From the first phone call to the last box off the truck, it's Harper the whole way through.

Our move coordinator Simone Beckwith handles every estimate personally, either through an in-home walkthrough or a video call, and goes through everything you're moving before giving you a number. That's more accurate than a flat phone quote because it accounts for stairs, heavy furniture, packing needs, and anything going into storage. Local moves are typically billed hourly based on crew size and truck, while long-distance moves factor in weight and distance. Simone will explain exactly what's included before you book, and there's no obligation to move forward after the estimate — it's free either way.

Yes. Harper Transfer & Storage is a fully licensed and insured Mississippi household-goods carrier, and every crew member is trained and covered before they ever touch a customer's belongings. We keep our active household-goods carrier registration and current certificate of insurance on file, and we're glad to show either one to any customer who asks before booking — you don't have to just take our word for it. If you're comparing movers in the Pine Belt, asking to see this paperwork upfront is a reasonable question, and we'd rather you ask than assume.

Both. Long-distance moves are led by Reuben Castellano, who's driven our Hattiesburg, Meridian, and Gulf Coast routes since 2019, along with runs out to Jackson, Mobile, New Orleans, Birmingham, and Memphis. Reuben and our crew load your truck here in Laurel and, in most cases, drive and unload it themselves at the other end — we don't hand your move off to another company partway through. If your timeline needs a gap between the pickup and delivery dates, we can hold your items in our own warehouse on either end instead of putting them into an outside storage unit we don't control.

The biggest difference is that we own the building. When your move needs a storage gap, your items go into our climate-controlled warehouse at 2204 Ellisville Blvd — tagged, logged, and shelved by the same crew that loaded your truck. A lot of movers who advertise “storage included” are actually renting a unit at a self-storage lot across town and handing your things to a company with no name you'd recognize; if something goes missing, good luck finding who's responsible. With us, your items never leave our care, climate control keeps Mississippi humidity from ruining upholstery or electronics over a long summer, and the same crew that packed your truck can tell you exactly where everything sits.

For local moves around Laurel and Jones County, two to three weeks' notice usually gets you your preferred date, though we can often work with less. Long-distance moves and moves during peak season — especially summer weekends — book up faster, so four to six weeks ahead gives you more flexibility on timing. That said, we don't turn away short-notice calls; we just can't always guarantee the exact date or crew size you'd get with more lead time. If you already know a move is coming, even a rough date lets Simone start your estimate and hold a spot on our schedule.

Yes, and it's something we handle more often than people expect. Leases fall through, closings get moved up, and in the Pine Belt a spring tornado watch can push a moving day around with only a few hours' notice. Call us as soon as you know your date is changing — we'll check crew and truck availability and let you know honestly whether we can make it work, rather than promising something we can't deliver. If your original date gets pushed and your items are already loaded or in transit, we can hold them in our own warehouse until your new date is ready.

Full-service packing means our crew boxes, wraps, and pads your entire household before moving day — furniture, kitchen, closets, all of it — so all you have to do is point us toward the truck. Partial packing is for households that want to handle most of their own boxes but need help with specific things: the kitchen, a garage full of tools, artwork, or fragile and specialty items like china or a piano. Our packing lead, Nadia Fitch, trains every crew member on how fragile items actually get wrapped and logged, not just boxed and hoped for. Either way, you tell Simone during your estimate what you want handled, and we build the crew and time around it.