To ask for your "moving house" top tops?

[WestrayWife]

Moving house in the New Year - big move in terms of quantity of "stuff" (4 bed house, been here for 14 years, 2 primary age kids) but only a local move a few streets away.

AIBU to ask for your top tips for moving house?!

We'll be moving as part of a chain and I genuinely don't know how I'm going to have time (or, more likely, the movers are going to have time) to pack up an entire house in one morning and allow for enough time to clean up and get out before the new family arrives at (I assume) lunchtime?!

What do you recommend I do in advance to help make the situation easier for all involved? We'll try to declutter as much as we can between now and then, but are there any things I won't have thought of which would help?

Maybe also worth mentioning I'm in Scotland so Scots Law applies.

Don't put anything in storage. It will be there way longer than you expect, and will cost you more than just buying it again.

Also, clear as much out as you can before you move. I am terrible for keeping stuff I might need one day, and all I've done is move shit from house to house that has never been used.

Watching with interest as we’re also moving in the New Year. We’re packing ourselves and doing lots of tip runs as we go. We’re also hiring someone to come in and clean as we leave and head for the new house.

Get the removal company to pack. Worth every penny and more.

We paid for a full packing service. They came the day before we completed and packed most of the house up, just left the beds we needed and a few kitchen essentials. The morning of completion they were back at 8am and house was basically in the van by 11, we cleaned as each room got cleared and I think we were out by 12 (had completely at 10.30)

I agree with getting the packing service - absolute god send

@Stormyseasallround that's interesting that you've hired a cleaner for your old place. My DH is of the view that anyone moving into a new house will want to clean it themselves when they get in anyway, so no need to do more than a courtesy hoover and wipe round before you go. I'm not so sure.

Get rid of half your stuff. Watch one of those Sort Your Life Out programs and get rid of everything you won't definitely use again.

If not this then definitely a packing service. It's super expensive but will save you so much stress.

Can anyone give a really rough idea of how much a "full pack" service might be? And whether they would dismantle furniture / build it again in new place? I have a couple of movers coming round to do a survey next week, but I dont know how many £££s to expect. Thousands?!

I would agree with your husband I had to reclean everything every time I moved to a new place, paying for a professional clean or spending time deep cleaning would have been a waste

Start decluttering now. Less stuff to move and you start in your new house without stuff you don’t need.
Label all boxes carefully with what’s in them and which room they’ll be going in.
If you have family nearby ask if they can have the children for a couple of nights so you can get things done.
My dad was in the forces and we moved every 3 to 4 years and we were shipped off to grandparents for a week during every move (we loved it because they let us eat Alpen for every meal if we wanted to 😁) so my parents could focus.

Declutter now with new house in mind

Pay a professional packer.

Put all your stuff i(except immediate need day to day stuff) in storage for 1 week or 2 or whatever...
Get all immediate internal diy / building work done before you move in then a deep clean inc professional cleaning of remaining carpets.

We did that and I'd do it if we ever moved again.
Storage for first month is like £1 or £10 they do offers like that to suck people in and leave stuff there for years.

Not sure of current prices but I think we paid around £1800 for full packing service (only moving a few miles). It was around £1300 just to move so the packing service was about £500 which was worth EVERY penny

Get rid of as much as you can beforehand. Be ruthless and then go through again. Are you sure the movers are doing it in one day? Maybe it’s different in Scotland, but they came to us on Friday, packed up most of the house, then came back for the last things on Monday morning.

Put anything you want to keep with you in the car, or wherever you feel is safe, but remember that the firm is responsible if they break something when packing. You are, if you take it yourself.

They go room by room and label the box with the room it came from, but it might not be the room you want in the new house.

Again, I don’t know whether it’s different in Scotland, but in England the money transfers don’t necessarily go through at the same time. We were hanging around all day.

If you could, would it be possible to clean a room as they clear it? Have a box with tea, coffee, biscuits, water etc. Movers operate on regular drinks.

The actual packing wasn't that expensive, I think £500 for 4 bed. But they generally don't try to minimise space, so for example they took a drawer out in the bedroom and bubble wrapped it complete with contents and put it in a box. So we needed to hire a lot more space to move the stuff and ours was stored overnight.

I think it was £2k for a fairly short distance in a gigantic truck, including the packing and unpacking.

We paid about 2k i think...

It was worth every penny

I'd pay anything up to 4k or 5k tbh

Don't do it yourself, get the movers to pack. Spend your time getting rid of old, unwanted or broken stuff. If in doubt, chuck it out. Get them in the day before so that you have time to clean properly. Stay at a hotel. If you have pets, take them to the pet sitter until you are in the new place so they don't get spooked by the removal guys.

Don't pack your tea / coffee things. Keep them with you, along with the important documents.

Ha! Great point about keeping the movers happy @Bluevelvetsofa - I will definitely take note of that.

We have soooo much stuff. I'm definitely a bits and bobs person rather than a scandi minimalist. Things will likely never come out of storage if they go in.

To be fair I had just assumed the movers would just arrive that morning, but you're all probably right that they will want to get as much sorted the day before if they can. I will add that to my questions for them.

Yes, about £1800 here too for a full packing service. Because there was a weekend between packing most of the stuff and moving out, we could clean most of it then. Just the carpets and floors as they left and the vacuum cleaner etc went in the car.

Put clothes essentials somewhere safe. I once left out clean underwear for the following day. It got packed before I realised.

Agree with the others, absolutely 100% get packers.

Another vote for getting the movers to pack - that saved my life last time I moved! But do put anything you don't want them to pack in your car (kettle, cleaning stuff, overnight bags) - if it's not chained down they'll pack anything and everything....

The best decision was to have our movers pack for us. I think I'd still be packing, honestly.

I had 4 men for three days, two days packing then actual moving day where they finished off the packing including my very large shed and garden pots. They packed but also the price included the materials and boxes, I still have them 😉

We did our attic ourselves, did it weeks ahead and stored it in the dining room ready to load. Lots of decluttering.

Get yourself a packing tape dispenser, I made up boxes ready to go.

Sharpie marker with each room written on boxes.

Precious/personal things were put in our cars to take ourselves. I packed my jewellery and took it to my mother's house for safe keeping. Our ddog went to sil so we didn't have to worry about him.

When we got to the new house I stood in the doorway, the men brought me boxes and I directed them to which room, our garage was split into garage/shed stuff on one side and attic stuff on the other, our movers weren't allowed in attics so we needed to segregate it for when we were ready to put it in its correct place. We culled again before hauling it into the attic.

When we renovated the house we had to move out, we got the same boys back to pack and move our stuff into our garage and our temporary home. They packed again for us.

I’m also in Scotland and moved end of November.
We paid for the packing service and the whole thing was about £2k with the packing service only being about £300 - £400 of it and worth every penny. They pack the day before and leave you ‘comfortable’ - so furniture still in tact and anything you still need access to left until the following morning. They dismantled our furniture and put it back together in our new place.

We left our place spotless (deep cleaned the week before and then went round each room as it was
cleared to clean again) and I was disappointed that the people we’d bought from hadn’t done the same for us. It wasn’t terrible but crumbs in the kitchen drawers and an oven which clearly hadn’t been cleaned in some time was a bit off putting - you’re so tired by the time you get in to the new place that the thought of having to clean it top to bottom is a bit much so I think it’s nice to leave it as clean as you can. We had enough time to clean ourselves
as with the chain we were in we knew it would be mid-afternoon before we had to be out. If we’d had to be out my midday it would have been tight and a cleaning company would have been a better option.

Four men for three days!!! Well this is starting to sound rather lovely.

Don't forget garden stuff OP. If you have a garden shed, garage, etc. you'll need to go through those too. You also need to ensure that EVERYTHING is got rid of, so if you have for example a pile of bricks in the garden that you don't want to take with you, or an old trampoline in the corner, or a hen house, but are taking the hens with you, then check with your buyer as to whether they want them, and if not, you'll need to get rid yourself, as you do agree to leave the place EMPTY, and the buyer is within their rights to bill you if they have to pay to have your stuff cleared once you've gone! If you're leaving a built in oven, then it's the decent thing to do to get it professionally cleaned before you leave. The rest of the house is generally fine to just hoover, and clean behind any furniture that hasn't been pulled out for a while, plus of course leave toilets, and bathrooms clean. Sadly, be prepared that your new home, unless it is brand new, may not have been cleaned at all, let alone to your standards, but it is the decent thing to do. Don't forget to take last minute meter readings - water/electric/gas. Make a list beforehand of all the other places you need to notify of change of address, not forgetting things like insurance/pension policies, driving licences, banks, council, etc. I recommend arranging for post to be forwarded for at least 3 months too, and as learned from my own experience recently, don't forget to check and amend delivery addresses on ALL online shops that you use regularly. I forgot on Ebay, and had an urgent delivery sent to the other end of the country, which was a nuisance to say the least, thankfully the new owners refused delivery. We moved the equivalent of 2 houses, long distance, and it cost us in the region of £5,000. Make sure that you have adequate insurance for the transportation of all your stuff, and do expect to have some items damaged. I've moved numerous times, and the only times I've had things broken or damaged, is when I've used a removal company!! Good luck, and I hope all goes well.

We're in South Wales. Our packing price was £400 back in late 2019. The move price was extra.

When we renovated and got them back they charged the same in 2022.

Ours was a 4 bed detached new build to a 4 bed semi, but this house is huge compared to our old detached house. We moved less than 2 mile distance.