I start moving in 28 days - any advice is greatly appreciated!!

[LynneSin]

Closing day is September 14th but I don't need to be out of my apartment until October 31st. I'm taking 10 days off in October to focus completely on moving.

I have so much fricking shit - where the hell do I start first

:cry:

[huskerlaw]

1. One room at a time.

Start in one room...tackle a closet or other relatively small area. Be brutal. Get rid of anything that doesn't have a purpose or sentimental value. Maybe even watch a few episodes of Clean Sweep on TLC before you start.

Good luck!

[yellowdogintexas]

35. definitely one room at a time!!!!

pack that room, move it over , set it up, take the empty boxes home and repeat.

agree with the purging as you pack

also go ahead and start packing books, seldom used items etc NOW.

get boxes from the liquor store! They are very sturdy and if you are packing books, small enough that you won't make them too heavy.

don't wait til the last minute to clean out the refrigerator.

Label the boxes for the room the stuff belongs in. Then you are hopefully not hunting in the bedroom for your coffee maker LOL

Move your bedroom first, then the kitchen. Then you can sleep in the new place if you want to. We did the one room at a time move this last time as we were just moving a couple of miles away and it was so much easier than other moves. I got my kitchen and our bedroom set up first and laid in stuff that could be fixed quickly so we ate out a lot less. Of course we spend days unpacking books.

[Midlodemocrat]

2. Run around the room screaming.

That always worked for me.

:bounce:

[Shakespeare]

10. Me, too!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I had to pack in no air conditioning last year when it was 112 degress in Santa Rosa (moved back to LA). It remains the singular most miserable experience of my life. I hate moving anyway, but this was extra sucky.

[Midlodemocrat]

11. LOL. I have a good friend who is moving to Chicago

in about 10 days. Her husband has already left and she's here with the two kids.

She is a hoarder of the biggest kind. Her house is an unmitigated disaster. Some of us have tried to help her, but to no end.

She has boxes in the garage full of magazines that she moved her 8 years ago!!! that she never ever opened. She can't throw anything away.

Needless to say, I'm giving that whole scene a very wide berth. My nerves couldn't take it. :rofl:

Fortunately, the next time I move will be to the cemetery, so I don't have to think about it. :rofl:

[kay1864]

3. Shop around for boxes

We found a source that employed disabled people, and had discounts on their packages.

Several small boxes is better than a few big boxes.
Books go in the small boxes (that are about a foot square)
Blankets and pillows (i.e., light stuff) go in the big boxes

The kitchen will take as long to pack as the entire rest of the apartment.

Are you getting "two guys and a truck", or are you enlisting friends to help you move?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. Think lazy.

Rent multiple handtrucks and dollies.

If you put nearly everything into a box, you can stack 3+ boxes onto the handtruck and wheel everything possible for whatever distance you possibly can.

For furniture, the dollies become essential. Why carry something 60 feet when you can just lift it onto the dolly and push nearly effortlessly?

Not only will your move go faster, you'll save yourself a lot of wear and tear. Well worth the $30 investment.

[supernova]

5. Have a yard/garage sale before you move

right around the biginning - mid Sept. That will make it easier to sort though the stuff that's left to move.

[Catchawave]

28. ....and what you don't sell, donate to charity !

This makes it so easy to get rid of stuff. Some organizations will even come by and pick it up after your sale.

[mainegreen]

6. Watch out for zombies!

[Deep13]

7. Moving day tips from the Onion.

To avoid breakage, glass items should be melted down, then re-blown after moving into your new home.

Six weeks before moving day, fill one small box with books, seal it tightly, and write "books" on top in permanent marker. Then do nothing more until the day before your move.

If using friends to help move, show your gratitude by buying them a pizza. Don't mention that a professional mover would have cost about 300 times more than a pizza.

It is heartless and cruel to leave a pet at the humane society because of a move. Smother it in the bathtub and bag it up for trash day.

Throw smoke grenades into every room of your new home to flush out any possible Viet Cong.

Get a jump on things by cancelling electricity and water service several weeks before moving.

Move to Portland. It's a really cool city. They've got all these awesome parks downtown.

Waiting until the truck is pulling away to say goodbye to neighbors will make moving day a very moving day, indeed.

Instead of writing "Fragile" on boxes containing breakables, place a copy of Yes' Fragile on top.

Let professional movers take care of large, heavy items such as furniture and my cock.

Boxes are an unnecessary expense. Place all possessions in the truck and fill to top with packing peanuts.

Don't get too excited when you see a U-Haul truck that says "Moves Only $19.99" on the side. These signs are only intended as a joke.

After relocating to your new home, remember that you are legally obligated to go door-to-door informing your new neighbors that you are a convicted sex offender.

Rushing the previous tenants out of the apartment you're moving into is a great way to score free toiletries.

For the love of God, don't ever move.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38306

[LSK]

8. rent a dumpster

and start with all those records!

:hide:




:popcorn:

[Deep13]

18. Seriously, though, now is the time to ditch everything you don't really need or want.

No one ever says, I wish I packed more stuff.

[malta blue]

9. Go to your local liquor store and ask them for boxes.

Booze boxes are a great size and really strong.

Also, you have enough time to cull you belonging with a clinical eye and get rid of anything you don't need.

I have A TON of stuff and I filled the dumpster at least 6 times...AND I had a garage sale every sunday for 4 weeks - I made over $300 - so that is a thought as well.

Oh - and all those concerts you go to - you should be packing (tsk tsk):rofl:

Enjoy your show tonight (I think I saw that).

Tomorrow you start.:hi:

[Gormy Cuss]

12. Start by developing two piles: donate and trash.

Everything else is in the to be moved pile and remember that if you move it, you'll pay for that privilege (even if you're doing the move on the cheap yourself there is the cost of the truck /gasoline/buying off more friends.) You have time to do this sort and that's a good thing. I'm not a pack rat but I managed to unload a ton of stuff before moving west.

Donate the still good stuff with cash value to your variety thrift store charity.

Buy a very fat tipped black Magic Marker for labeling boxes. Label boxes on at least two faces with the designated destination room.

Box books, dishes, and other heavy items in small boxes. Use linens to add more cushion to the breakables boxes. Packing material is cheaper than replacing many items so pack carefully.

If you're not using a pro, buy closet boxes anyway. It makes it so easy to pack and unpack your clothes on hangers. Used moving boxes should be plentiful in October since September is a big moving month.

[pitohui]

13. 10 days should give you plenty of time

i would already start offering big items that i didn't want to haul to freecycle

as another poster says, a garage sale on saturday mornings will move some items, in our areas, the dealers (who are most likely to buy a lot of stuff, such as a whole lot of old books) come v. early in the morning, before the flea market opens, so you don't need to run the sale after 10 A.M. -- dealers don't pay as much as "real" people, but remember, everything they take it something you don't have to carry, donate, or trash -- the last is important if you are charged fees for having overweight trash

find out if there is a place or day -- our day IS in october -- where you can drop off old electronics, esp. monitors, without paying a recycling fee and clear out that crap

donating out dated computers and monitors can be a mean trick because you are just passing on a recycling fee to someone who maybe can't afford it, but if the equipment actually still works and the person or org. is SURE they want it, that's ok, worth asking around, but i don't push it

start using up all the food in the pantry now, get creative with the soups, jambalayas, rice pilafs to use up bits of this and that

trade in old paperbacks at the paperback store, these days i only get one book back for every 3 or 4 i bring, so it clears up space, i can donate magazines for free at my library, they also take CLEAN hardbacks on certain days at the libraries

stock up on beer and goodies for helpers who help you move large items of furniture, i don't actually have v. many tho

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. Get a shitload of boxes early. Then get more, because your guess will be totally off.

And then, while you're packing, you'll need to go out and get more. So it's better to look at what you think you will need, and, contrary to all ability to believe how wrong you are, get three-four times as many.

Also start piling up as much newspaper as you can - you will need a stack about ten feet high, maybe more.


Start getting rid of shit now - do a room, or a bookshelf, or a closet a day. Truly consider everything, whether it's worth schlepping it around again, whether you'll really use it in the new place (e.g., do you really need to take curtains that won't fit the new windows? Do you really need thirty-eight mismatched bath towels?), whether you really care if you ever see it again (that musical singing bass wall decoration, for example).

Freecycle stuff, give it to Goodwill, whatever - but don't have a garage sale; that will waste too much of your time, use up too much space, and not all of it will sell. Set up a table or a bin or something in the garage so that, as soon as you decide you don't need/want something, it can go IMMEDIATELY into the "get rid of" pile.

The last time I moved that I was not moving my own stuff (I used a mover), I printed out a shitload of 4"x3" sticky labels (6 to a sheet), individually numbered, and with my name, new address, and phone number on them, in sets of threes - like this:

BOX NO. XXX
RABRRRRRR
1000 MAIN STREET
SISTERRAPER, AL
555-222-1515

(and then two other stickers with the same number)

One sticker went on the top of every box, one on the long side, and one on the short side (hence the need to make them in sets of three). Then, in a spiral book, I wrote down the box number and what was in it.

By doing the labels with the numbers already printed, instead of leaving a blank for me to write numbers in as I packed, I guaranteed that I would never accidentally use the same numbers twice.

I also made a whole bunch of stickers with a red and yellow "explosion" drawing (like in comics) that said "FRAGILE!!!!!!!" in great big red print, which went on EVERY side of boxes that had fragile stuff.

Then I made more stickers that gave the name of the room the box should go in at the new place, such as "kitchen", "main bedroom", "garage", "office", etc.

Between those labels and the spiral bound record, unpacking went very, very quickly for me.


If you're just moving across town with the help of friends, none of the above is all that critical, though I would still suggest you use this time to challenge yourself to get rid of at least 20 percent of what you own.

[huskerlaw]

15. If you want to be super-organized...

Give each box a number, make a list of what goes into each box. Then label the box accordingly.

That's also good if you're hiring a moving company. The box is labeled with a number instead of its contents, so there's less likelihood of theft...and you'll know how many boxes you have.

[XemaSab]

16. Get some boxes

Put the books you never read in the boxes.

Put the knick-knacks in the boxes.

Clean all the shit you never clean, like the tops of the kitchen shelves.

Moving is a bummer. :(

[1gobluedem]

17. Splurge and use movers

Best decision I ever made. Some will even pack for you and supply the boxes.

Take all the clothes and shoes you haven't worn in three years and put them in one of those clothes collecting bins. If your newspaper has freebie ads, advertise excess furniture, dishes, CDs, etc. for sale there. And, if you can, definitely have a garage or yard sale.

Doing these things cut down considerably on my stress.

[pitohui]

26. movers cut down on stress?

what movers are these?

(hint, a lifetime of moving around has taught me, NO ONE cares about your stuff like you do, NO ONE)

[1gobluedem]

31. Well, okay, they cut down on MY stress

Especially with getting things out of the basement, moving the washer and dryer, and setting up the beds. I have lots and lots and LOTS of books; I packed them myself but the boxes were very heavy. Movers moved them AND put them in the right rooms in front of the bookcases so all I had to do was unpack them and put them on the shelves. They put the kitchen stuff in the kitchen, the bathroom stuff in the bathroom, and the basement stuff in the basement. Experience has taught me that friends and family are willing enough but will dump the stuff anywhere and it's up to you to get it into the right rooms. This took a lot less time and effort and I didn't feel bad about reminding the movers what went where because I was paying them.

[Arugula Latte]

19. Figure out how much time you think it will take, and then triple that

and then add on 100 hours ... :P

[Okiojira]

20. Post anything of marginal value you don't want on Craig's List...

...donate the rest of your non-essentials to the thrift shop. Pawn off whatever else you can on friends/family. Then, never buy anything ever, ever again as long as you live.

[Ramsey]

21. This is a great opportunity

To get rid of crap!! It may take a little more time to pack, but if you actually go through stuff like drawars and closets where junk has just piled up over the years, you'll feel so unburdened in your new home.

Then, when you unpack, find a place for everything and put it away immediately. Again, it takes more time than just piling unpacked boxes in the corner, but it will feel so good later!

[libodem]

22. Start packing nonessentials first

like the pictures you have on the walls and the nic-nacs. Have some extra boxes saved for the last day or the end of packing because there is always a bunch of little crap left over that is laying around. I'm sorry you have to do a move even if it's for a good reason. Moving sux.

[caty]

23. If you have not

touched something you own in a year---get rid of it. Sell, give it away, or toss it out. Why move something you don't need?:shrug:

[applegrove]

24. Get big boxes and pack a little heavy stuff (books) with a whole bunch

of clothes, sheets, light things. That way you have fewer boxes and they are not terribly heavy.

Now is the time for a yard sale. If you don't need the money put out all your excess junk by a sign that says "free stuff". I did that and people came by and took it all while I was probably on the computer. It was a great way to get rid of respectable junk.

[NC_Nurse]

25. Start with the closets.

Then move to other storage areaas. The stuff you are using should be packed last.
Think of most things as expendable. Re-gifting, chraity or sales will winnow out the extra BS.

[Lars39]

27. Make sure and get more packing tape and magic markers than

you think you'll need. I've also found that wearing an apron(for the pocket) helped me keep track of the marker.

Start now. Eat well. Beer's good. Good luck. :hug:

[DarkTirade]

29. If you're not hiring movers, make sure you get a bunch of friends to help.

I just helped a friend move, and boy that was a lot of work. Despite the fact that I work in a warehouse and I spend several hours a day lifting heavy objects.
Of course, I do that indoors at night... not outdoors in the Florida sun. I think that made most of the difference. :)

[MissMillie]

30. you start w/ the stuff you never use

get rid of what you really don't need. Have a yard sale if you like.

if you work in an office, paper boxes make great moving boxes.

oh... you may want to call the utilities people and set up your appointments now... cable, electric, phone, etc. That way things will be up and running on day 1... or 2.

It's great that you have a couple of weeks where you can be "between" households.

[SoCalDem]

32. On moving day, board your kitties..

An open door can ruin a move if a baby-cat gets out ..

and that kind of activity always freaks cats out..

Just bring them to the new place when you're done, and get a camera as they morph into "baseboard-creatures"..

Every move we made, they would slink around the edges of the room for the longest time..They were afraid to go into the middle of any room until they had the lay of the land..:)

[DU GrovelBot]

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[LeftyMom]

37. She spent all her money on a house and moving and you hit her up for a donation?

You're one greedy robot Grovelbot. :sigh:

[ashling]

34. I have found

-having moved about 14 0r 15 times since college- that the last 10 - 15 % of stuff takes about 75 - 80% of the time/work.

Therefore, you should do the last stuff first! :)

you're welcome.

[LibraLiz1973]

36. I'm moving too!!

My last date in the house I am in now is October 31 too. How funny is that?

Here is my advice: www.craigslist.com

I am selling soooooo much stuff on there