Moving day

tealady

Hi
Make sure you take photos of meters as soon as you move in so that the bills will be accurate.
Also put bathroom stuff in the house as soon as you can, make up beds and have a change of clothes for the next day. The rest can wait.
Otherwise you will be tired and stressed at the end of the day, needing a shower or bath and having no idea where the towels and soap are then having to rummage through boxes to find bedding and pillows.
Not a good start to your new home.
Oh and have plenty of tea/coffee and biscuits for the movers.
Also if you have friends "helping" make sure you have a list of jobs that need doing (eg putting up curtains) so that people feel useful, little ones could help taking empty boxes to a temporary storage space and perhaps could help put things away (under supervision of course!).
Hope it all goes well

rosie383

Thanks OP for asking exactly what I needed to know.

Tealady, very useful advice especially about having a list of jobs for helpers.

Has anyone got any advice for those of us not using a removals firm? We are moving about a mile away, not taking any large furniture except for three mattresses, a big old TV and stand, washing machine and fridge freezer. I've been kondoing like mad (check out thread on old style forum) and we are hoping to be able to hire a large van and dk it all with the help of a couple of friends. My plan is to have everything possible packed. I'm scrubbing cupboards as I go so that on the day they just need a quick wipe, then clean as each room is cleared.

For those of you who have moved yourselves, is there a sensible order for doing things? Mattresses into the van first or last ( and how the heck do I cover them so that they don't get filthy especially if it's a wet day?). Same for washing machine and fridge freezer. First or last? Apart from wm and ff I intend to have everything stacked in the living room ready to load into the van rather than people traipsing up and down the carpeted stairs and in and out of bedrooms with dirty shoes. As I have been kondoing and we are getting rid of almost all of the furniture, I'm pretty confident it will all fit in one room and into one van load.

If it doesn't all fit into one van, will the buyer usually wait until we can go and unload and come back for the rest?

Old_Git

rosie383 wrote: »

Thanks OP for asking exactly what I needed to know.

Tealady, very useful advice especially about having a list of jobs for helpers.

Has anyone got any advice for those of us not using a removals firm? We are moving about a mile away, not taking any large furniture except for three mattresses, a big old TV and stand, washing machine and fridge freezer. I've been kondoing like mad (check out thread on old style forum) and we are hoping to be able to hire a large van and dk it all with the help of a couple of friends. My plan is to have everything possible packed. I'm scrubbing cupboards as I go so that on the day they just need a quick wipe, then clean as each room is cleared.

For those of you who have moved yourselves, is there a sensible order for doing things? Mattresses into the van first or last ( and how the heck do I cover them so that they don't get filthy especially if it's a wet day?). Same for washing machine and fridge freezer. First or last? Apart from wm and ff I intend to have everything stacked in the living room ready to load into the van rather than people traipsing up and down the carpeted stairs and in and out of bedrooms with dirty shoes. As I have been kondoing and we are getting rid of almost all of the furniture, I'm pretty confident it will all fit in one room and into one van load.

If it doesn't all fit into one van, will the buyer usually wait until we can go and unload and come back for the rest?

for mattresses buy a two cheap matress covers .put one each side of the mattress .load fridge freezer last,so its the first thing you can plug in .

penguingirl

We moved 3 weeks ago and used same day UK removals. They were fab and cover Manchester. They came round the day before and packed everything and then on move day they were there by 9am and the house was empty by 12. We had to be out of it by 1pm so we let the van go and then whizzed round the empty house giving it a clean and a vacuum, took meter readings etc and then popped the key into the EA before 1pm.

Whilst we were driving to the new house we received confirmation our sale had competed (ie all the money had gone through) and we then had lunch near our new house waiting for the confirmation that the completion of our purchase had gone through. There was probably about an hour between the 2 when we were homeless. The removals company ended up with about 2 hours of sitting outside the new house.

rosie383

Old_Git wrote: »

for mattresses buy a two cheap matress covers .put one each side of the mattress .load fridge freezer last,so its the first thing you can plug in .

Would an old kingsize duvet cover do for a kingsize bed? I'd imagine it would be around the right size. Same for single mattresses. Means they would be easier to carry too, as you could grab the material. I know that at least one of the mattresses doesn't have handles for carrying.

tealady

I would plug the freezer in 1st then make up the beds and put in the room a change of clothes (plus night things).
Washing machine can wait, urgent jobs are you need something to cook with, something to sit on, something to sleep on and a useable bathroom.
Keep a debit card/credit card handy as you may want a takeaway that night.
If you cannot do one van load split the team so that one half gets on with jobs at your new home whilst the other half clears out the old one.
Make sure that everyting is checked by two people as you leave the old home so that you can be sure all lights are off doors shut/locked and that no- one has forgotten anything.
It might seem OTT but I have a friend who accidentally left their dog behind when they stopped for a break on a trip, fortunately they had only gone a short distance when they realised. To be fair to them they were in a 7 seater van (and every seat was taken)

Slinky

rosie383 wrote: »

If it doesn't all fit into one van, will the buyer usually wait until we can go and unload and come back for the rest?

Not happily they won't, especially if they're paying a removal company to move them. This is the nightmare with self moves, you can't get your stuff shifted until you get the keys for your new place, and you could have your purchasers waiting outside perfectly entitled to move in as their money has been received by your solicitors, and your delays mean they start racking up overtime payments to the removal company which are not their fault.

We had people opposite us do a self move which took about 4-5 van loads and the new people were sitting outside with their removal van as the first van load was taken away. It descended into chaos with the new people's stuff going into the garage whilst the old people's stuff was being shifted out of the house into the rental van with the help of the new people's removals staff.

rosie383

Thanks guys. Hopefully within the next few days I will have almost everything bagged and boxed up in one room so I can better estimate what size of a van we need to do one run.
Good point about the dog Tealady. I keep thinking we will forget the rabbit, washing line etc. from the garden.

Kynthia

rosie383 wrote: »

Thanks guys. Hopefully within the next few days I will have almost everything bagged and boxed up in one room so I can better estimate what size of a van we need to do one run.
Good point about the dog Tealady. I keep thinking we will forget the rabbit, washing line etc. from the garden.

If you are moving on the day of completion then You need to aim to be out of your place before lunchtime, leaving it completely empty and clean. Remember that you probably won't have access to your new place until some point in the afternoon so don't count on being able to do multiple runs unless you have got somewhere else you can temporarily deliver your things to. It's best to overestimate the size of van you'll need, have a second smaller van as back up (b&q hire out some quite cheap) and fill up loads of friends' cars with the bits and pieces left.

rosie383

Oh, now there's a thought! A second smaller van! Now why didn't I think of that?
I think I will see if a neighbour can have the bunny in her hutch for the day so that she isn't stuck in possibly a hot car for hours. Oh, and the bird!