The 7 Mistakes People Make While Moving

Often when people decide to make the move out of their apartment, condo, house, or wherever they live – many people come out with some sort of horror story or another. Much of the reason that people make such simple mistakes can be broken down to being ill-prepared when they make the decision to leave.

Asking Friends to Help You Move (on Short Notice)

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Moving on a weekend has always been a convenient way to make your friends cringe when you ask for their help. Hearing the word “moving” is quite relative to your friends dropping off the face of the planet mysteriously around the same time you planned on moving. If you let your friends know you need their help to move out, you need to let them know at least a month in advance – for a planned move, anyhow. If you are getting evicted, well there’s not much else to be said, other than “good luck”, we hope you have somereallynice friends. Of course, this particular method of moving is often highly rewarded. Beer and pizza, along with some gas money are the appropriate tokens of gratitude when the friends that got caught doing nothing on the day you had to move. Some friends may never let you live it down, and you will be perpetually in moral debt to those that like to give you a hard time about things (we all have one of those friends).

Over-Packing those Cardboard Boxes

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Many people today fail to realize that a cardboard box isnotthe black-box from the inside of an aircraft, and this is a very important thing to never forget. Using cardboard boxes has been the traditional means of being able to pack everything you own into a neat little package and recycling it afterward. Without explaining the simple theory of matter, we should assume that if you have filled every bit of volume of the cardboard box, you cannot possibly fit anything else into it. Surprisingly, some people think they are exempt from the laws of physics and matter, and somehow overflow a box with their things. If you have a box, overflowing with goods, and your only bright idea is to cover it with tape – all we can say is that it’s just not going to look good when you unpack a misshapen ball of cardboard/tape/trinkets. Your entire move will be much smoother if you arrange to have enough boxes where you can organize yourself before you take the plunge into relocating your goods. If your boxes are lighter and in tact you might actually be able to have your back in good health for another day.

Failing to Hire a Professional Moving Company

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The greatest part about moving a longer distance is the realization that you cannot just pack everything into your hatchback and head for the hills. You’ll need some big guns to actually transport everything you own to your new residence. So you hit the Yellow Pages and look up some moving companies. Before you decide on a company, make sure you at least read reviews of their services online. Never base your decision on a moving company
because they are a few dollars less expensive. Often, quality goes hand-in-hand with price. If there is one moving company making promises of safe, secure, and easy moves – but are undercutting their competitors by a great deal – you should be warned that these folks might not be the right company for you. If a bad moving experience involves having your things show up at the wrong destination, or if all of your things are in bad shape and need to be replaced at the end of the journey… think about how much it costs to replace them, and think of the cost of a significantly reputable moving company. Another thing – make sure you always get a moving estimate before you commit.

Not Ordering Your Utility Services in Advance

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Another big concern people have when they get to their new destination is lack of utilities around. You can’t exactly call grandma from a land line if you don’t have one set up. Forget about emailing the boss, unless you order your internet a week in advance, you may be going without for quite a while. Since some of these service providers are usually extremely busy, you will most likely be put on a wait list. You can never anticipate instant gratification, so always be thinking two steps in advance. Generally, most service providers allow you to make appointments of when to set you up with cable, phone, and internet. Take advantage of it, chances are that if you are moving into a new place, you don’t have any of these modern necessities until days or even weeks later.

Underestimating How Much Stuff You Have

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While you are working on packing your household items, ranging from toiletries to furniture, you will inevitably run into things you never even knew you had. You may or may not know what to do with them, but most people’s reactions may be on the fence about keeping the item, or tossing it. North Americans are mass consumers and a lot of people buy things just for the sake of having them, whether the items have a relative use or not. That being said, prioritize what you need and what you don’t – always prepare to pack up more thing than you expected, because that will consume more time when you are doing last minute packing, not to mention much needed energy.

Losing a Damage Deposit to a Hole in the Wall

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A common fear when moving (especially when you’ve recruited a couple friends to do the job) is that you’ll end up bashing a few holes in the wall. Renters – say goodbye to that damage deposit. It would have almost been worth it just to stand around and drink an iced tea while professional movers carefully did the dirty work for you. After punching holes in the walls, you’re not quite out of the woods yet. There are always more things to break, like lamps, musical instruments, dishes, and that new plasma screen TV. Other than hiring professional movers, take the time to make sure you can securely move heavy objects confidently, and without anyone having to trip over a pile of shoes or rolls of carpet.

Forgetting to Clearly Label Boxes

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This is something that is almost a given. Anything you’re moving out of one area of the house to another, needs to be clearly labeled. If there are things you don’t want broken, write FRAGILE all over it. That way your movers (or friends) don’t think that it’s just a box of pillows and blankets that they’re able to just toss to the side. If you want a box of plates to turn into a box resembling shark’s teeth, you might as well just make it look like every other box you’re hauling around with you. But seriously, you will save a lot of time (and your movers won’t want to kill you either) if you organize and label by what rooms things go into – I.e. kitchen, dining room, upstairs bathroom, etc.