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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

How do you pack up and move things when you sell your house?

82 replies

PinkPlantCase · 13/01/2023 11:16

This seems quite silly but I don’t know how to do it. We have 1DC age 18months, will be closer to age 2 I expect by the time we move.

Me and DH both work full time. I have 1 day annual leave left but could probably take a day or two of unpaid leave if it had to. (Leave year doesn’t reset until after the moving date).

We have pets in the garden.

Our house sale and the buying of the next house is moving along nicely but I’ve never had to move out of one house and into another house on the same day before.

How far ahead do you start packing? Should we hire a storage unit for a month or two to take some pressure off moving on one day?

I don’t think we can afford to pay people to move and pack us, I have family with vans so we’ve always used them in the past if we need to love big furniture.

I’ve heard that house sales often don’t go through until the afternoon, this seems even worse!

Just looking for other people’s experiences. Do you do all the packing in evenings and weekends?

And yes I think AIBU for not knowing how to do this.

OP posts:

AreOttersJustWetCats · 14/01/2023 15:25

Evenings, weekends, the odd day of leave. We bought boxes and started the initial packing/clearing out about a month before the move. We went room by room, and were brutal about giving things to charity or taking them to the tip if we didn't have a genuine use for them.

Hired a company for the actual move - they loaded the lorry etc. the day before

DadANDPK · 14/01/2023 15:28

Actually that's one thing I didn't take into consideration, people needing to take time off work to help. Where I used to live, moving took place on a weekend, so wasn't an issue amongst our friends.

aureus3012 · 14/01/2023 15:33

Getting a storage unit for a month is really helpful.....relieves a lot of stress and they are often half price for a month. Just make it is one you can access at night, then you can just take car loads of stuff every so often in the fortnight before you move. I moved twice in 2 years and both times we didn't exchange until the moving date. It is ridiculously stressful! Having a good chunk of stuff out the way really helps relieve that stress. I hired a man with a van (and his mate) to move the furniture and then hired a van myself to move boxes etc. If you have the money then a packing service sounds amazing but I didn't have that kind of money spare so the storage unit option worked well.

Silvers11 · 14/01/2023 15:38

We had a removal firm who also did the packing. They emptied our house the day before the sale was due to be completed and arrived early the next day at our new address. We stayed with family for the night after the house was all packed up. ( We were moving around 60 miles away)

Having said that though, we did sort out all the junk so that the only stuff going to our new home was stuff we were going to use in our new place. Loads of stuff to the dump, quite a lot to Charity and a few things we sold on eBay or the like. That is just common sense really

Well worth paying for the removal and packing service though. Wouldn't do it any other way

Original poster

PinkPlantCase · 14/01/2023 16:30

DadANDPK · 14/01/2023 15:23

At your age, we just hired a large truck. DP & I both had the correct licence to drive the BIG vans/trucks/lorries. We were forever helping friends move due to being able to do this. So when we moved we had help to load the vehicles. Amongst our group of friends, certain friends would always opt to stay home & have all the 'helpers' kids over to play. Personally I'd suggest letting toddlers/young children put some of their things in a box and into a van/car and take it out at the other house & have a grandparent/friend/whoever they love/trust play with them for a bit, maybe go out into the garden with a ball, have drink & biscuit (other snack are available). I think it helps them accept the move (as well as putting familiar duvet cover on their bed etc). I think although it's easier having grandparents take them off for a few days, it's better to have them around the move.

Then I moved overseas.. & life was very different.

so it can very much depend on your situation Even as far as vans going back & forth. If you have plenty of hand to help with loading & unloading, the vans can move very quickly. Obviously this works better if you're 2 streets away not two hours away!!

in YOUR situation I would start with another round of decluttering. Last time you were just concentrating on doing it for photos. This time focus entirely what you need/want in your new house. Do you really want x in your lovely new house? If not, donate.. Do you really need 3 of xyz? If not donate!

you don't want to be taking stuff to 'think about' later, or at least as little as possible.

ask yourself how often you've used xyz since you decluttered for photos. A lot of stuff we keep is aspirational, be realistic about whether you'll actually use the item and also consider the cost of replacing v the cost/hassle of moving & storing the items. Donate now, replace if you need it can be a great way of minimising clutter.

Dana K White I think is great. Her you tube videos really make sense and help you think about 'stuff' differently. Even sentimental stuff.

once you've decluttered well, packing really shouldn't be a problem. But start soon. There's VERY little in our homes that we need day to day!

label boxes well. Coloured stickers are great for people helping you, but also write more detail on the box. No one regrets writing more!!

pets- totally depends on what pets you have. I think you said 'outdoor' (can't scroll back to check) but if my recall is right I'd hope that one of your friends/family can help you out with moving cages/runs etc. & either have the pets in your car in carriers or board them for a few nights if family/friends can't help.

judt remember it's only 24/48 hours of mayhem & high emotions! Once you're in, you're in!

BEDS - as others have said, get them made up at the new house as soon as possible. Just knowing it's there, waiting for you, is SO nice!

TLDR: start now, declutter again!! You can do it with friends & family with vans!

Thanks for the advice, particularly about helping DC understand it.

It'll probably be a nursery day so we’ll have to think about how we go about it. I was considering printing off some photos of the new house and sticking them in a board book to show him and talk about it before we move.

I don’t think we can drive a big truck with our licences. So probably will need a removals company, I’m just waiting for some quotes back.

Decluttering wise someone else mentioned looking at everything and saying ‘do I like this enough to have to pay someone to move it’ which is quite a good mantra. I’m not too sure where to start though.

Pets are poultry so perhaps less portable than Guinea pigs etc! They would probably be fine in a dog crate in a friends garage for a day then in the garage of the new house. The main issue there is making sure a run is assembled and relatively fox proof. Moving house sounds stressful enough without a fox attack 🙈

OP posts:

JustForABitofFun · 14/01/2023 16:42

We had to use a removal company for our recent move. It's a relatively big house and it took them three days to move us (with a number of lorries).

They came in the day before completion and took the non essentials and stored them.

On the day of completion they came and took the things we'd still been using over night such as beds, sofas, fridges and freezers etc. Once we got our keys in the afternoon they dropped all those off at our new house.

The day after completion they dropped off everything from the day before completion.

It was incredibly stressful.

However I think the most difficult thing is trying to clean the house once your things have left on completion day, but before the new owners arrive!

Murdoch1949 · 14/01/2023 18:06

I decluttered, then packed non essentials into labelled boxes & put in self storage unit. Then got estate agent in for photos. Once sale confirmed I then boxed up all but the bare essentials, and took bit by bit to self storage where they were collected by van on moving day. Left the minimum for moving day.

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