My family is currently in the middle of moving. Literally in the middle of moving, I'm actually sitting on our empty living room floor while other people are cleaning. So, here are ten tips for moving that I have discovered during this process:
1. If your bathtub/shower won't come clean via normal shower cleaner, spray Easy-Off onto shower, close all the doors and leave it for an hour and then scrub it with a brush. This will get it clean super-quick. The people who moved out of our house left messes in a lot of places, so this was awesome to learn.
2. Get as many friends as you can to come before things actually get moved into the house to help you clean. The more people you have, the faster the cleaning will go.
3. Use a plastic shower caddy to store your cleaning supplies in. This makes it easier to carry everything you would need for each room around with you. This is useful for the moving period and also for when you're really living in the house.
4. If your wood cabinets are sticky and have residue on them, and nothing you've tried will get rid of it, take a normal Clorox disinfecting wipe and scrub it until the stickiness and residue goes away.
5. Back to the packing period, when you're packing your clothes, leave them hanging up in the closet, take a garbage bag, which you will need anyway, and wrap it around a group of clothing. You can use this as padding in your moving van or personal vehicle and you will be able to hang everything straight up in its place when you move it in.
6. Pack and load each room as a unit. This will make unloading the moving truck/your vehicle go much quicker.
7. When you pack a box full of stuff from one room, assign it a color and put a piece of duct tape in that color on the box and write the room name on the tape. This will make it easy if people who didn't pack the items are unloading the boxes.
8. When you are closing up your boxes, put a bit of packing paper or bubble wrap under where the flaps will close so that when you cut the box open, you will not risk cutting what is inside.
9. Always remember that the first thing you put on the truck will be the last thing to be unloaded. This is important to consider because if all of your cleaning supplies are the first thing you load, you won't be able to get to them until the truck is already unloaded.
10. Make sure to feed the people who come to help you move. They just worked to make sure your move-in is smooth and painless, so feeding them is a great way to say thank you.
I hope the next time you move, you will remember these things and that they help you.
