Steven Paiva

The move that started it all

In 2023, Steven was helping his family move out of a house in North Brampton. He'd done this before. Budget a couple hours and a stack of boxes. What actually happened: three separate trips to Home Depot across two days, 60 boxes at $4 each, a full roll of tape gone before the kitchen was done, and a box full of his grandmother's china that collapsed when another box was stacked on top of it.

The china didn't make it. The cardboard math didn't add up either — $240 in boxes, tape, and a dolly rental that turned out not to include the dolly. At the end of it: a recycling pile that filled half the garage and the nagging feeling that this was a solved problem everywhere except here.

There was. Reusable plastic moving totes already existed — they're what professional movers use internally, and what tote rental companies in the US had been doing for years. In 2024, Steven started ToteMove to bring that model to the Brampton corridor.

What ToteMove is

The model is simple: flat-rate rental that includes the totes, a dolly, and delivery to your door a week before your move. You pack. You move. We pick everything up after. No assembly, no tape, no disposal run, no second store trip.

The totes are heavy-duty plastic — the kind that doesn't flex when you load books, doesn't sag with a sweater folded wrong, and stacks four high in a moving truck without shifting. They're uniform in size, which means your truck packs tighter and nothing wobbles. Each tote holds up to 50 lb and snaps shut without tape.

ToteMove operates out of North Brampton and delivers to 10 towns across the GTA west corridor: Brampton, Caledon, Georgetown, Acton, Halton Hills, Bolton, Erin, Hillsburgh, Orangeville, and North Mississauga. Delivery and pickup are included in every package. No fuel surcharge, no hidden fees.

The bigger idea

Moving shouldn't require a project plan. The cardboard box model is expensive, wasteful, and fragile — and it's only the default because nothing better showed up at the right time and price. ToteMove is that alternative for this part of Ontario.

A 2-bedroom move costs roughly $280 in cardboard when you count boxes, tape, paper, dolly rental, and the disposal pile at the end. The same move rented through ToteMove costs $189, all in. That's $91 back in your pocket and nothing to break down or recycle.