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Original poster

This 'have the house packed for you' thing

74 replies

Palomb · 15/04/2016 12:43

How does it work exactly? Do they literally come in and empty all the cupboards etc or do you have to sort stuff out first?

OP posts:

CMOTDibbler · 15/04/2016 13:10

I've been packed twice and it is brilliant. I found it much less stressful to just let them get on with it than living in a sea of boxes for weeks.

Unpacking wasn't stressful either - both times we allocated a room for boxes, and as they brought boxes in, dh stood at the front door, read the description on the box and sent them either to the correct room, or to the staging room.

madamginger · 15/04/2016 13:11

Our packers did our shed and the garden, but it was a small back yard with pots and a patio set not a 200ft garden.

GrouchyKiwi · 15/04/2016 13:13

Cost depends where you are, I suppose, and the size of your house. We're in central belt Scotland and it was something like £150 or £200.

OMGSame · 15/04/2016 13:15

W used packers when we moved last. They were amazing. They told us to leave everything that we didn't want to be packed on the sofa or on a designated bed. They then went through the house like a plague of locusts, packing everything, and I mean everything, including the naice biscuits I'd bought them to make them like me, and all of dd's shoes (whoops). They cleared our shed and took all our garden pots for us.

I would suggest clearing out as much as possible beforehand, makes it easier at the other end. We'd decluttered anyway to make the house look nice for sale so when the time came it was easy.

They came round beforehand to do a quote, so any queries re greenhouses etc would be sorted out then I suppose.

OMGSame · 15/04/2016 13:18

We paid a total of £700 for the packing and removal service, this was around 3 years ago, we only moved about three miles up the road though.

ShiningWhit · 15/04/2016 13:20

Locusts - perfect description - Yes they are totally worth it - but the big bucket of mouldy pine cones wasn't a genius move, they will take anything except 'dangerous items' or open bottles....
They emptied my loft - packed my whole garden including plants in pots.
I used them international and in the UK.
I always pack my underwear and passport type docs.
Get more than one quote - tip the Guys and plenty of tea making (they pack the kettle last)

JT05 · 15/04/2016 13:24

We used them last week, great packed everything over 2 days, to go into storage, except food and jewellery. We put valuables and docs in car boot and went out for the afternoon.

We de cluttered beforehand. Cost was £200 well spent.

Clockstooticky · 15/04/2016 13:31

I'm having this done, the only thing I need to do is empty the loft. They'll pack everything the day before, then come with the van first thing on the day of completion and take it all to the new house. You can pay for them to unpack too but they literally just bung it out of the boxes into the house.

My quotes were between £1000-£1400

mouldycheesefan · 15/04/2016 14:22

Yes it's brilliant have done it twice. Highly recommend. They literally just pack everything, you need to get the stuff out of loft yourself but they pack it. They pack it as it is, I.e they will pack the rubbish bin full of rubbish. They don't sort out the stuff as you would. Thy just Pack like crazy.

mouldycheesefan · 15/04/2016 14:23

They don't empty chests of drawers or boxes, they just take them as they are.

GrouchyKiwi · 15/04/2016 14:25

Our movers emptied the chests of drawers. They put a sheet of paper between each drawer's items in the boxes.

mollie123 · 15/04/2016 14:30

I can thoroughly recommend packing done by the removal firm if like me you get sidetracked at what you find when you empty cupboards or cannot lift heavy boxes of books.
I think it cost me about £300 5 years ago but I had decluttered massively which means it was mostly the things I really wanted packed were packed. They also moved desks and chest of drawers intact
As I have hundreds of books it was worth it for that alone. Yes they do like you to keep out of the way so the pub sounds like a good idea and they are so fast.

mollie123 · 15/04/2016 14:32

just to clarify - the £300 was for the packing - removal costs on top of that!

BertrandRussell · 15/04/2016 14:35

Be careful! My mil had everything moved into storage for a fortnight between houses, and they packed and stored her shoes. She was left with her suitcase and the pink fluffy slippers she was wearing!

shushpenfold · 15/04/2016 14:35

It cost us £300 more, and was worth every penny 1000 times over!! I did declutter before moving (3 times in a row!) and it did help as there's nothing more depressing than having to empty boxes of stuff which you would rather not have moved in with in the first place. I suspect the reason the removal firms say 'don't declutter' is because you pay more to move more!

shushpenfold · 15/04/2016 14:36

I second Bertrand...... if it's not locked in your car, they pack it!

lavendersun · 15/04/2016 14:46

Yes, Bertrand is right. Day one, packers arrived at 8am and I took DD to school ...... when I got back I didn't have a coat or any shoes left to wear, this was a month ago, it was freezing and I was moving North. Packing took three days.

I found a fleece belonging to DH and wore that all week. He was working away, when he breezed into our new house at the other end in the afternoon of the moving in day and said 'not sure you did a very good job at separating things Lavender' I nearly whacked him.

No idea what the packing itself cost as I didn't get any quotes without packing but I would certainly recommend getting three quotes, there was a £2k difference between my highest and lowest quote (and I only got three).

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 15/04/2016 14:56

Packing added 250 to our quote.

They dismantled and moved the 8ft trampoline (and rebuilt it at other end), packed the loft, garage and shed. They have special 'wardrobe' boxes where they just keep the clothes on the hangers and they hang inside the box.

haggisaggis · 15/04/2016 15:02

Ours wouldn't do the loft but did do the garage (including packing the bucket of floor sweepings dh had left!) Ours took 3 full days to pack and 2 days to unpack. (unpack as take boxes into rooms and leave them - they didn't unpack the boxes)
I did find the unpacking process a bit overwhelming as the house just filled up with boxes to be unpacked and it was difficult to make space to get on with things - and then you have mountains of empty boxes to breakdown ready for them collecting them. And loads of sheets of white paper they use to wrap stuff. I'd do it again though.

cheapandcheerful · 15/04/2016 15:03

We had this. I think the best thing about it was that we could just carry on as normal until the day before the move - none of this weeks of packing and dancing around stacks of boxes everywhere.

I went to work the day before the move, left the house as normal and came home to everything in boxes. DH took the day off to supervise. It was amazing!

Timeforabiscuit · 15/04/2016 15:08

We had £800 for packing and move costs for a two bedroom house.

I had decluttered to an inch of my life for the viewings, and the removal men we had were a pleasure to have in the house - they were with us for packaging and moving over two days and we're fantastic, best money I ever spent.

AimUnder · 15/04/2016 15:22

May I ask which company you used? We've got a move coming up, and would really like to use this service.

Original poster

Palomb · 15/04/2016 16:26

Id be interested in personal reccomendations too.
Particularly for the west mids :)

OP posts:

Timeforabiscuit · 15/04/2016 16:36

Mine was pickford's, think they are national - but I'm south-west.

Timeforabiscuit · 15/04/2016 16:39

We also got three different ones round for quotes, it was really clear the ones who were professional and going to make the process easy!

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