Packing service from removals company

[Kmez81]

This may be an utterly stupid question but if you pay for the packing service from a removals company, do they label the boxes with details of the contents?

My brain is completely fried with exchange/completion drama and now that's its becoming a reality (pretty soon) I'm freaking out about my new house being littered with boxes that we have no idea what's in each of them... especially are we're due to go on holiday less than a week after we move. Thanks for helping out a stressed out mama!

Ours wrote the room (so kitchen, bedroom etc) on each box, then put the boxes in the equivalent room in the new house when unloading. So I knew where all the kitchen stuff was but not necessarily which box had what (which was great when it took us 2 days to find the cutlery...)

Yes same here, they labelled ours with location of where contents came from and some more specifically than than that such as Bedroom 2 - toys. The kitchen boxes were hardest mostly as they contained the things you needed to find within a couple of days and there were so many, though did also take me a while to find the box with my son’s pj’s in 😆 . Def worth the mild disorganised unpacking stress though.

Yes. Mine reassembled the bed and other items of furniture as well.

Do it. It’s so worth it.

You need to pack one box from each room with the absolute essentials beforehand. Kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms. Label those boxes with the contents. Also, pack all the remote controls in a bag. Put all of these boxes in your car before the packers arrive in the day.

Just the room. So you need to be slightly organised. Don't leave a plate in the bedroom because they pack what's in front of them without judgement or thought.

Yes mine labeled general contents for each box. They do not discriminate and will pack your rubbish if you leave it out.

Our packers told us to move anything that would be going to a different room the day before they arrived - so for example I knew that a lamp would be moving from the sitting room to the spare bedroom so I did that in the old house so it arrived in the right room of the new house. We also agreed that anything we put in the bath wouldn't be packed by them. Random but it worked!

As others have said, put anything you will need immediately in a separate box/suitcase and hide it in the car or somewhere with a very big label on to say don’t pack (in the bath is an inspiring idea!)

Things like clothes they would normally put in hanging boxes and transfer straight to wardrobe in your new house. If you are taking chest of drawers, they won’t repack the clothes just keep them in the drawers.

They are like a team of locusts, so will pack everything they see (packed DM’s doorbell chime box which we didn’t realise until we got to her new house!)

Remember someone on here saying their parent was wearing slippers whilst the removal men were there, and went to put on her shoes when leaving to find that they had been packed!

Ours put a description as well as the room e.g. kitchen glasses or living room books. Also I moved some things to a different room or even different part of the room so that they were packed together which was worth while. Overall it was well worth it, the shortcomings easily outweighed by the reduced effort. Good tip from PP about packing essentials for the first few days or hours yourself.

I’ve just moved the old fashioned way and the thought of it all happening as I stand there clutching my remote and the kettle one a going to keep me up. I still haven’t found any of the socks I packed! I’m going to get a secret savings account for the next time we have to move.

Ours did as everyone has said…it cost about £500 (big house and a ridiculous amount of stuff) and it was worth every penny. It made for totally stressless move

I've just had to cancel the packing service because due to "covid rules" it was going to take DAYS rather than hours because they're not all allowed in the house at the same time - never mind they sit next to each other in the lorry...

Oh... and they weren't ALLOWED to touch my clothes due to my socks drawer likely being riddled with Covid.

There were a couple of other batshit rules too, so I'm just getting on with it myself. (and crying)

Yes but it was vague.

I've just discovered the missing school uniform bits in boxes marked Ski equipment. We hadn't unpacked those boxes, just popped them in the attic, because we didn't need the ski equipment at the moment... (moved at Easter.)