What NOT to do immediately after moving.

[BikeTart2]

Lots on t'interweb about what to do before moving and I'm well versed on that from experience. When I say immediately after moving in I mean something in the region of the first month or so. Assume there's no obvious major urgent jobs to be done like heating .

Make sure that the house is watertight and secure. We changed the locks after we moved in because we didn't know who had spare keys.
Try to live with the decor and room configuration for a year to work out how the natural light enters the building through the day and across the seasons.

Wait until next summer before removing or planting anything in the garden, but do keep it tidy!
All sorts of lovely things could appear in the spring and early summer.

Don't tell the neighbours what a crappy state the house is in, hideous decor/carpets, moan about bodged DIY etc in case they were good friends with the previous owners and actually helped with some of that work.

Don't tell neighbours too much about yourselves. Ask them about the area instead.

Don't pull random plants up in the garden simply because you don't recognise them and think they are weeds.
Don't piss off/alarm your neighbours straight away by having noisy housewarming drinks when you've only been there 48 hours. They will always have you marked down as a nuisance party animal.
Guess How I know these things?

No plant pulling - check.
No critique of the decor - check
No parties chance would be a fine thing check
No divulging of information - check.

Don’t do what my new neighbours did unless you want to fall out with them. Jump straight into extensive renovations, demand we pay for a new fence, leap out on us every time we leave the house with a new request (even when I was rushing my son to a doctors appnt as he was seriously ill. Fuck me they were/are the most atrocious narcissists and I’ve never been so happy than to cease communication with them.

Check the drains around the house. We didn't. We had a major flood a few weeks after moving in the house due to a drain blocked up by a handful of autumn leaves.

Hopefully your neighbours will come round introduce themselves. I don’t agree with the wait a year thing but then I renovate houses for a living so have good vision of what I want. I find you get blind to faults so I do decorate and do renovations as soon as possible. Of course I’m considerate and usually give my neighbours a bunch of flowers as an advance apology for any disturbance.
But change locks, get to know the neighbourhood shops and just walk around.

Arrange for carpet to be fitted the morning after you get the keys. And which involves removing metres upon metres of shitty laminate flooring.

Clearly didn’t learn the first time because I did it the second time too 🙈

Start a notebook with things you instantly think you'd like to do in each room in the future. ie Knock through kitchen and dining room. Add rooflight to box room . Make bed three same size as bed two by moving wall 2 ft back . Etc etc . Then as you think of other things add to the notebook. Give yourselves a year to save and then get the note book out . Some ideas you may still want to do. Others, having lived there a year, you may decide not to. This is what I did after it was suggested by our Concept Planner. We then approached the projects a floor at a time.

Sort out security for the garage where you keep your expensive bikes. Don't think it's an "on the list" job, get burgled and the do the work

Don’t get depressed! Most houses look awful on moving in day and improve a lot once you’ve unpacked.
Don’t get rid of miscellaneous items you find in your moving boxes - they will turn out to be vital parts for the fridge/tv etc.

Dont rush to think you have to unpack everything within 48 hours!!! Take your time but set a limit of say 4 weeks time so you aren't still unpacking after a year!

Oh and unless the walls are bright orange or purple, don't rush into decorating the week you move in. Same with furniture location - take time to think about what fits where,

Good point others have made about not divulging too much info to new neighbours - I'm so guilty of this one and then wonder why no-one wants to be friends with me!!

Try not to feel overwhelmed. I did, when we moved into our house. The amount of upkeep (house and garden), extra things we needed, however small, and what we wanted to change stopped me enjoying the house for a while.

Don't decorate or do any renovation until you've lived there for a few months - it's amazing how much you'll change your mind in that time! Give yourselves the chance to get to know the house first.

Don't stress if you have a bout of buyer's remorse. I think most people have a wobble but it soon passes.

This is SO reassuring - because you see I've done all the don'ts in previous moves and I'm keen not to do it again.

Every time my mind drifts to thoughts of 'I'll do this and buy that and that needs replacing.........floors, walls, doors, you name it; I'm going to come back to this thread and sit on my hands.

If you've never used it and have an android phone, do make use of the keep app. You can have a to do list on it, (eg replace tap that keeps falling apart in your hand when you use it!) and you can keep measurements on it for curtains, rugs etc.

I also kept brief notes on care of the plants I discovered in our first year here!

I like that @PickAChew, just downloaded it and created three labels - House move prep, house move once in, and wish list.