Baytown family locked in bitter fight with moving company

BAYTOWN, TX (KTRK) -- It's January 6, and the Cunningham's still have all their Christmas stuff up.

"Christmas is happy times. If it were bare like it was before, I think I would cry every night," said Chelsey Cunningham.

Chelsey says the walls were bare because they're still waiting on all of their things from the moving company.

The Cunningham's moved from Virginia to Baytown. The move started in October. Chelsey said she agreed to pay a total of $1,500 to a Florida-based moving company. She said the payments were broken up with $1,000 due before the move and $500 on delivery.

Chelsey says the company kept adding on fees. She had to save up but eventually got enough money. So far she says she's given the company $1,800.

Now she says the company is telling her to pay another $935, plus fees or all of her items could be auctioned off.

She said she's disputing the bill. After three months, she's still waiting on their things.

In the meantime, the family has tried to make do with what they have. Chelsey's seven-year-old daughter is sleeping on an air mattress and here three-year-old is sleeping on a plastic cot with no mattress. It's been that way now for nearly three months.

Her daughters' closet is barely equipped for the cold.

"Everything warm that we have is in storage," she said.

We contacted the moving company. They told us Chelsey added items to her move and that changed the cost. Chelsey disagrees and the dispute continues.

According to the Better Business Bureau the company in question has 16 complaints and has only been in business for one year so it's not yet rated with the agency.

The BBB local president said the best thing you can do when moving is do your research.

"Getting the right one is not hard. It takes your due diligence and lots of research, reviews, the BBB report, even, what I would call some renegade sites that get on there and say here is our experience," said Dan Parsons, President of the Houston area BBB.

A GoFundMe account has been created to help the family replace some stuff.