Question about removers' packing service

TBagpuss

As others have said, they will pack everything, so you need to very clearly label anything which is staying or which you are taking yourself (I put a few things, like the vacuum cleaner and an overnight bag and my medications,  into my car when they arrived so they couldn't pack them by mistake, and put post-its on the kettle etc saying 'DO NOT PACK' 

When my parents moved they wound up taking the food waste caddy (complete with some food waste) as they had forgotten to mark it as not to be packed..

When I last moved, they packed most things the day before - left my bed, one arm chair and the V, plus a few kitchen things, I am sure they could have done it all on moving day, it was much faster than I had anticipated, but I have a LOT of books so allowed plenty of time for them to all be boxed up. 

If you are coy about them seeing underwear etc you may want to bag up that kind of thing, or put things inside bags or under folders towels indie any drawers - when I moved, they did not unpack drawers but they took the drawers out of the chests of drawers to move them, so would be able to see what was in the drawers. With wardrobes everything was moved into hanging boxes so stayed hanging up during the move but again, anything you wouldn't be comfortable with the seeing/touching put it in a bag first! 

Mrcsmrs

Ours were amazing, except we hadn’t realised to stop them packing the cutlery the night before we moved! Dinner via the chip shop that night. Definitely recommend stickers on your boxes and we gave the movers a floor plan of the new house so they knew where things were supposed to go. We had a large and very cluttered 5 bedroom house packed up in less than a day. They were awesome. I’d never do it myself ever again! Good luck with your move. 

zagubov

verytired11 said:

zagubov said:

Give them labels or coloured stickers for which rooms your current rooms content are going into.

Make sure chargers, medicines, toiletries, tools, key utensils/crockery/paper plates and can/bottle openers are there for when you get takeaways.

They'll be staggeringly more efficient than you would be yourself at dealing with the other stuff.

Thanks that's a great tip about the stickers - will definitely do that!

Important that the stickers go in every side and surface of the box so you're not turning them round to see it.

csgohan4

If i could do it again, i would totally use a packing service. To be fair we were living out of boxes for years, so not a great amount to pack. 

verytired11

Thanks everyone, this thread has been so helpful!

Mutton_Geoff

trailingspouse said:

The only downside is they don't offer an UNpacking service...

That's part of the fun. It's like Christmas again, particularly if it's been a few weeks since you moved.

GaleSF63

Mutton_Geoff said:

trailingspouse said:

The only downside is they don't offer an UNpacking service...

That's part of the fun. It's like Christmas again, particularly if it's been a few weeks since you moved.

Not to mention when you unpack the boxes that were never unpacked in the previous move and find that they contain something other than what you thought was in them.

trailingspouse

Mrcsmrs said:

Ours were amazing, except we hadn’t realised to stop them packing the cutlery the night before we moved! Dinner via the chip shop that night.

You have to have chips (with curry sauce) on moving day, it's the law!!

Murphybear

Good packers are worth their weight in gold.  They know what they are doing and can do it quickly and efficiently. Last time we moved the packers brought giant padded covers for the tv and some of the furniture.  

A point to note.  If you pack your own glass, china, mirrors or anything else fragile/breakable read the contract carefully as if there are any breakages the removal firm may not be liable if they did not do the packing.

We have had 9 moves in 20 years and the only thing that broke was a small glass dish that cost me £2 in a charity shop.  

hb2

Along with essentials like towels, a change of clothes, kettle, sheets etc also take with you pillows and duvet. We moved house, the removal men did all the packing but we had to leave most of the boxes in the spare room until we had storage built. We were at Tesco's buying pillows and a duvet at 9pm, it took months for us to find them!