Moving a few doors down the street - anyone done it?

[lamandler]

As title says really, we are moving from our rented house to our renovated house in a few weeks (at long bloody last), but I am trying to think of a practical way to do it. We have fairly big furniture, loads of boxes.

Anyone have any tips? At the minute I am thinking of employing lots of local teenagers in their half term!

[lamandler]

Meant to say it's just 10 doors away! And from a three storey to another three storey (stairs, groan)

[Chubfuddler]

Man + van? It may be easier to load up at least all the boxed stuff and drive down the road rather than trek one box at a time. My brother moved about 1/2 mile down the road and they hired the biggest van he could drive with an ordinary licence and then loaded up and drive round. I think it was a 7.5 tonne Bedford with a tail lift.

[MamaMary]

We did it with a trailer. Luckily the rain stayed off. Do you have access to a trailer?

DH got a load of boxes from his work.

[lamandler]

Trailer might be the best option - but one we can pull ourselves! We are on a small terraced street in London with bugger all parking. AT least we might give the neighbours a giggle!

[Serafinaaa]

This happens all the time in the area near the university where I live as the students tend to move every year. It seems that a borrowed supermarket trolley is the way the students do it!

[BastardDog]

We moved to six doors down on the same road. We packed up as normal. Hired a small van and did lots of shuttle runs with colleagues providing the manpower. We had a brilliant arrangement at the place where dh and I worked whereby as many people as possible would take the day off and muck in to help the person moving. Team building in action.

[maggiethecat]

we've recently done it ( move to round the road) - don't underestimate the scale of things just because of proximity!
Dh thought he would just get friends to help and hire a van. In the end we're glad we did hire a removal company - we packed boxes ( was good for us bcos we could do a clear out plus we knew where things were packed so made unpacking easier) and they moved them and few furniture.

It still took three men 8.30 - 5.30 from arrival time at old house and leaving new house (putting furniture in situ and boxes where we directed).

Think it was £400 well spent (including piano)

[pippy1958]

Hi there, we're moving five doors down in a few weeks! As with you, we are on a terraced street with problem parking so am thinking we will just walk everything down but a trailer is a great idea. I am hoping that lots of neighbours turn out but I think they'll all probably just stand around making helpful comments!! I think our biggest problem will be our super heavy sofa... Can you let us know how you get on?

[ILikeBirds]

For that distance a hand trolley/truck would be the best bet. Six doors down a terraced street with limited parking and you could have wheeled the boxes down the street in the time it takes to load a van

[7to25]

We moved round the corner and did the full thing with a van and movers.
Honestly it was easier, they do it every day and we were able to be super organized and have everything in place by the evening.

[reastie]

We moved 4 doors down the road a couple of years ago. I was heavily pg at the time so kept out of the way but DH did all of the moving himself with help from BIL and FIL. It was snowing at the time with lots of ice/snow on the road so quite dangerous to carry boxes up the road so they did it mostly with a pull along cart on wheels which they stacked with a couple of boxes at a time and pulled it up and down the road. Bigger stuff they carried up the road. They also filled our car with stuff and drove it the few meters distance up the road to the new house to save carrying boxes as much as possible. This also worked with smaller furniture. It took DH a day on his own moving boxes and then DH, BIL and FIL one day to move the bigger bits. They also packed quite alot in that day too (I use the term packed loosely as generally it was things thrown in boxes).

We were moving from a small cottage though so didn't have a huge amount of furniture.

[CMOTDibbler]

Years ago we moved from a 3 bed rented house to one that was essentially at the end of the garden.

We did it with 4 friends and a couple of hand trucks, and it was a long day! In your case, I'd bring everything possible down to your ground level before moving, and then put all boxes on the other ground floor to unpack from there.

I don't think paying anyone would be a good thing as you'd have liability issues.

[nemno]

My mum moved 23 times in her life (military) and she says the worst one was when they moved only 20 houses along the street. Wheelbarrows were used a lot.

[guineapiglet]

Hi we have just done the same, moved from rented to our own house round the corner... we had a 7 day period of grace, before we had to give up the tenancy - did lots of small car loads and got the main kitchen stuff, books etc put away, so that when the big furniture was moved in all the little stuff wasnt cluttering it up. Husband and kids moved bits and bobs to fill the shed, - it was great having a few days to do this, so it didnt seem such a massive job over the two days. Wheelbarrow was used a couple of times to bring bulky stuff. It cost slightly less to get a removal van to move round the corner as it did to move here from 300 miles away :(

[MinimalistMommi]

Just hire a van for between £50 and £80 (depending on time of week)
We moved from out of town which was five minutes drive into town and this is what we did. Because it was a Saturday it cost us £80. We just kept filling the van and did it in a day.

[MinimalistMommi]

We hired our van from www.europcar.co.uk/DotcarClient/step1promo.action?promoId=1f4a09247f41352f1b49190806640313&checkoutCountry=GB&checkinCountry=GB&xtor=SEC-1101-GOO-%5BBrand_Terms%5D-%5B25630858951%5D-S-%5Beuropcar%5D&xts=514840

Which was on our local industrial site.
We got a double wheel base van or something like that, can't remember exact term it easily took tables and chairs etc and fitted the sofa in.

[MinimalistMommi]

You can also hire them by the hour too if that helps.

[kittycat68]

get a removal firm in its soooo much easier!! and i only moved next door but one! once.

[grendel]

We moved from a rented house 4 doors away when we bought our current house. DH initially thought we could do it ourselves but I pointed out that it doesn't matter whether you are moving 100 feet or 100 miles, the effort is in carrying furniture up and downstairs and onto and off the van. The distance you travel in between is immaterial. There was no way I was going to be carrying beds, wardrobes, sofas and white goods along the street, even if it wasn't very far!
So we hired a proper removal firm. They transported some stuff in a small van backwards and forwards but mostly on a large trolley. It still took them pretty much all day. (We have a stupid amount of stuff) No way we could have done it ourselves.

[lamandler]

All good advice thanks - looks like the removal company may have edged it! Will report back on the other side

[Phineyj]

We used a normal removal company. The distance you move makes no difference to the hassle factor of getting the sofa out etc, although it does mean you can pop back when you discover you've accidentally taken the spare keys and the doorbell battery! Actually it was more hassle than our previous 250 mile move in some ways, because many of the utilities etc had problems changing the address within the same postcode...