Move hiccup?

Yesterday we got in touch with the sellers who are due to be out of the house this Thursday, to try to arrange a time when we could pop round for 1/2 an hour to go over operation of the heating and sprinkler systems. They seem in a bit of a tizzy trying to move out, and even 1/2 an hour would apparently bite into their move time, so at present we have a "we'll call and see if you're free" arrangement for Monday evening. Not quite what we hoped for.

The seller also asked if he could rent the second garage back from us for a few more days so he could leave it uncleared for move day and continue to work on it over the weekend. Again not quite what we wanted to hear, as I need that space to put all my boxes and other possessions quickly, before moving them up into my den. I've booked four days off work so I can complete the move, and I can't complete the move if the property still has someone else's stuff in it. A few days are also likely to turn into a week and then a couple of weeks, so we put our foot down and had to say no, the garage must be empty for us.

Finally, the original change of ownership occurred on 15th March at 6pm, but we rented the house back to the sellers so they could complete a holiday they had booked, and still have time to move out. Beth and I took this to mean that we could take full possession at 6pm 15th April, but the seller though it meant midnight. He's also planning to have all the carpets steamcleaned at noon on the 15th, but leaving them to dry until noon on the 16th. This bites up to 18 hours out of our move process, and leaves us just useable 3 hours of our 24 hour van rental period (van to be returned at 3pm 16th), and we have deliveries booked for the 16th that may all occur before midday. In other words, the latest we want to take possession of an empty house with walkable dry carpets is midnight on the 15th.

We'd like the carpets to be steam cleaned as the sellers have two dogs and two cats, and we'd like our two cats to have a relatively smell-free environment to settle into. Even more, we'd like to be able to move in at 6pm as we've been envisioning for a month, into an clean empty house.

So at present we're waiting for more news on the steam cleaning process. The sellers seem to have left everything to the last possible minute, and then as soon as something slips (as it inevitably does) the deadline is not met. We had expected at least a couple of hours of daylight to move stuff on the 15th, had arranged for friends to come over and help with the bigger sofas and loveseats, and know that we'll be working into the small hours because we'll be too excited not to.