StorageDirect

A lot of our clients use our storage services when they are moving houses. With the recent earthquakes in Christchurch, we have seen a big jump in the people who are having to change house; either temporarily or permamently. They say that moving is one of the most stressful things you can do in your life, so we've created an article to help you get through the process with your sanity intact!

 Tips for Moving House Stress-Free

If you are moving there’s several thing you can do to make the move stress-free. Moving is stressful at the best of times but you here are some things you can do to manage your move so it goes as smooth as possible.

Have a Plan
Before you move you need to sit down and decide how you’re going to move. If you have a lot of friends with trucks you will be able to save money as you won’t have to rent a moving vehicle so this might be an option for you. The main problem with this is that you’re good can be damaged if you move them yourself. Moving company personnel are trained to move you from one location to another with minimal hassle.

Deciding What to Keep
Once you have a plan of how you want to move you’ll need to go through and categorize your belonging into categories which could include:

• Keep the item
• Throw away, sell, or giveaway
• Might keep category

Keep
This will include items you just can’t part with and of course furniture and other large items that you already havе in your home. Most of the items on the keep list should be easy to put there.

Throw Away, Sell, or Giveaway
Go through all your items and decide if there’s anything you would like to sell or giveaway to charities. Some items might be broken or otherwise unsalvageable so you cаn just recycle these or throw them away. Try to recycle as much as possible which helps the environment and find out the proper procedures for disposing of chemicals and other items that you won’t take with you to your new location.

Might Keep
These are items that you aren’t sure what you want to do with. You’ll have to make a final decision on these items before you move. Try to keep this category as small as possible.

Packing
Start with one room and pack all the small items in that room until the room is completed. Make sure you mark on all the boxes what is inside the box. Mark the box on the sides and top so you can easily identify it and put “fragile” on the box if it contains breakables. Once you finish one room just move onto the next room and keep going until the house is empty of small items. Make a list and mark off what you have packed in a master checklist.

Garage Sale
For smaller items that you want to get rid of you might consider a neighbourhood garage sale. This will allow you to unload unwanted items for a bit of cash. You may also try your local flea market or online auctions to sell off some of your items. Try a local auction so you don’t have to worry about shipping anything.

Call Service Providers
Make sure you call your utilities, cable, and other service providers and have a shut-off day for your services.  Try to get your service sin your new location activate before you move into he property which will save you some hassles. Other things to complete include changing all your documents around to reflect the new address such as your driver’s license and other important personal data. If you visit website online where your address is stored be sure to change these as well.

Moving Day
As everything is packed and loaded into the moving vans or trucks go back inside the house and go through each room to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Use your master checklist and check off everything as it goes into the trucks. 

Before the final move you might want to go through and clean the house up for thе new residents such as wash walls, vacuum, and clean up dust. This is just common courtesy and is a nice touch. If you live in an apartment, you’ll have to do this to get your damage deposit back.