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[linnea]

Okay, party people. Here is what I've learned. I would love to hear tips from y'all.

1.  Enlist friends to help. However, if you do this - you must have everything boxed before they show up to help (unless they've already agreed to help you pack). It's a total Hunt's Move to have your friends show up, only to find that you're not ready. That is a waste of everybody's time. Or worse - when you've packed poorly, and they end up toting things piece by piece or in grocery bags because you claim, "I'm just moving across the street." That is what my ex did. Hunt's Move. Anyway...I packed until 1AM, then I got up again at 6AM and finished packing. I have all the boxes piled in the living room and my friends are due to show up in about 45 minutes, so I can fuck around on the intarwub until they get here. *sigh of relief*. The soles of my feet feel bruised, so wear shoes when you're packing.

**EDIT: My friends showed up and we got my shit downstairs and to the warehouse in just shy of 35 minutes. That's good preparation, teamwork, and a 10-minute drive. When my friend Gary saw all the huge mountain of boxes, he said, "TWO PALLETS MY AAAAASS!!" but we proved him wrong. The warehouse dude got it all loaded onto 2 pallets. It weighed 1,293 pounds (that is zero furniture but a rather lot of books). It's gonna cost me at least $790 to get it to Tacoma. God knows what the freight forwarding dude is going to charge to take it to Denver *shudder*.

2.  One week before you plan to start packing boxes: Wash everything, such as blankets, towels, sofa covers, etc. There is nothing grosser than trying to pack a blanket that's covered in a month's worth of cat fur...and you can't wash it because you procrastinated too damn long and you've gotta just stuff it in a box. Vacuum as well, using the attachments to run along the baseboards, under the sofa and fridge, etc.

Also, I had my first moderate asthma attack since I was a little kid, thanks to my shitty housekeeping, dust, and kicking everything up during frantic packing...so that's how Tip #2 made it in there.

3.  If you have a one-bedroom apartment, buy at least 5 large rolls of packing tape. A tape gun is worth its weight in gold. You can always save the packing tape for mailing shit you sell on eBay, or for the next time you move.

4. Unless you have a bunch of boxes in your attic that are in pristine condition...buy some boxes. I know that it goes against every DIY, thrifty bone in your body, but just pony up $15 and do it. Even if you have a stash of used boxes that you're gonna use, do yourself a favor and get at least 6 new boxes (again...one-bedroom apartment). You'll use them, I guarantee.

5. Also get a bunch of newspapers, bubble wrap, and possibly other packing materials like a roll of blank newsprint paper. I live in a town without a newspaper, and I was hella suffering while I was trying to pack fragile shit. I ended up wrapping it all in clothing...we'll see how effective my strategy turns out to be when I get to Denver and unwrap a bunch of broken shit and clothing with glass fragments in there. Yay.

Any other hints that I'm forgetting?? Now I have a mostly empty house with a few extra items that I'm going to have to get rid of.

And I also have like 30 pounds of cat hair to vacuum up, which my wheezing with stridor is telling me, and then scrub everything down. On Friday I'm going to disassemble my computer, keep the hard drive, and junk the rest of it. (I got the whole setup for $20 at an auction, so it's ancient and incredibly shitty. Can't even run Photoshop, let alone CAD on this thing). Turn in my high speed modem, get the deposit back, arrange to have my cell phone coverage sliced on July 1. I already took care of my other utilities. I have a ton of other shit scheduled for Friday as well, like taking my boss out to lunch, getting a well-deserved massage, and going out for drinks with friends afterwards. However, I feel pretty damn accomplished since it's only Wednesday...that means I have 3 days to get my apartment scrubbed in preparation for Operation Recover Deposit.

Crap, I just realized that I'm going to have to Do Something with my vacuum cleaner...like find yet another box and mail it back to my address in Denver. DAMMIT!

[jaydub]

It's been my experience that moving is always more expensive than you think its going to be.  From tape and boxes, to shipping/moving co. charges, to all of a sudden realizing that you're hungry and the fridge is in the van (and empty).

[Turbo Ninja]

I moved at the end of March.  The GF and I combined households and we used professional movers to help make it happen.

Boxes are absolutely worthwhile, but we found that the "moving kits" we could get from our local storage unit complex was a better value than the same from U-Haul or the big-box office supply stores.  An even better deal, in my opinion, is to buy big plastic tubs from Target or Walmart or something - they hold a ton, they don't need tape, and you can reuse them ad infinitum.  I spent $50 on enough to pack up my 1BR apartment, which was mostly kitchen and bath stuff because I cheaped out and moved my clothes in plastic garbage bags.

That's about it, other than weighing the time, energy and expense of moving stuff vs. the value of donating it, eBaying it, or otherwise getting rid of it.  The GF is a pack rat.  I'm Thoreau on Walden compared to her and her collections of old newspapers, books, board games, whatever.  It took FOREVER to move her stuff.

 

[side_show]

People pay for boxes?  What?

[ImpyChick]

An even better deal, in my opinion, is to buy big plastic tubs from Target or Walmart or something - they hold a ton, they don't need tape, and you can reuse them ad infinitum. 

Totally agree.  I have several plastic tubs & plastic crates.  I have tons of stuff stored in them under my bed.

[CortJstr]

My tip is to work at a job where you have access to tape guns and quality packing tape. Also, 100 ft rolls of Bubble Wrap brand air cellular cushioning.

[wombat]

My tips involve not forgetting that eventually you will have to unpack the boxes.  It is so hard to focus on this distant event when you are packing, but you will be happier later if you:
1. LABEL the boxes as to what is in them at least roughly.
2. Pack some boxes with the stuff you will want to unpack first - like, enough kitchenware to eat your take-out pizza on a plate and drink out of a glass; towels, toilet paper, maybe a few cleaning supplies, that sort of thing. 

[theinevitable]

So yeah, trim down your unnecessaries before move time.

looks like that got taken care of.


I apologize.

[side_show]

inev.  I didn't even need to click on that to know it was about pubes.

I'm still confused in regard to people buying boxes.  Really?  Is it not standard for business to have large cardboard recycling bins next to their dumpsters outside my local?  Every major store has these where I'm from.  I've never paid for a box in my life.  Going to the liquor mart and asking for their empty boxes is also a good option for quality packing material. 

I suppose an important tip is to pack the really heavy stuff in several smaller boxes to aid in the moving/unpacking. Like books, and cast iron pans, etc. 

When it comes to moving pets, it's really important when you get to your new place to release them in reverse order of dominance.  Let the least dominant of your kitties have the lay of the land first.  Doing this in our previous move levelled the playing field surprisingly well.

Also, if you have a friend who works somewhere that uses dollies, borrow one.  This makes everything way better.  Some of the fancier ones can go up stairs pretty well too if that's an issue.

[linnea]

The little rats are coming on the plane with me. Some people ship their pets to Anchorage via cargo...but I would never do that unless they had to go to ANC for emergency veterinary care.

You know when you're a crazy cat lady when...
     You get an additional seat on the airplane for your cats. That's the only way I could bring them into the cabin with me.

Also, smells, I had to buy boxes. Sure, I have some here. But it's really humid here because we're by the ocean. Even though I kept them safe and dry in my apartment, they still got mushy and weird. I had to buy some new ones. I scored a couple from the grocery store for free, but they weren't in good shape.

See, I had to take them to the warehouse, where they got packed onto pallets and shrinkwrapped. From there, they get loaded by a forklift into a 40-foot container (connex... like the kind that you see on the back of an 18-wheel semi). They get shipped to Tacoma, where my freight forwarding dude rescues it from the dock and puts it on a truck. From there, it gets delivered to my place in Denver. I paid about $1.25 per pound of freight, which is cheap compared to how much it would cost to buy all new stuff. STILL, that meant that I had to shell out nearly $1,600. Now I have $350 to my name until I sell my truck and get my apartment deposit back.

I did have quite a lot of books. But no furniture.

[jaydub]

You'd need to be a skillful scrounger indeed to come up with enough boxes of the right dimensions for my books (even with the herd thinned for travel).  Ash isn't kidding about the professionals either;  they bomb around the office parks with flatbed pickups piled way too high with flattened boxes.  Occasionally a sheet will fly off and enliven the drive for other folks as they dodge the cardboard.

[Lister]

I like using the cardboard file boxes from office supply stores for moving.  They're sturdy enough to be filled with books and stack really well (as long as the books are on the bottom).  They break down nicely for storage when you're done, too.

I so need to clear out my apartment of junk I don't need.  I just gave up and said "move it all" last time... and I CAN NOT do that again.  Dear lord.  I collect useless objects like Hammer collects hangers-on.  I have stuff that I haven't unpacked yet, two years later.  This is why I'm dreading October, because that is when my apartment management company will say how much they love having me and raise my rent another 10 percent.

Why do I have a sentimental attachment to my LucasArts game manuals?

[linnea]

I have a luscious dream of moving into a large, wonderful home with plenty of storage and never having to move again. God. That would be lovely. I could travel, maybe get a pied à terre in NYC or Paris or something if I felt a tad flighty, but always be able to return...

Anyway, that would involve faaaar more money that I have, but it's a nice dream.

[side_show]

I have a luscious dream of moving into a large, wonderful home with plenty of storage and never having to move again. God. That would be lovely. I could travel, maybe get a pied à terre in NYC or Paris or something if I felt a tad flighty, but always be able to return...

Anyway, that would involve faaaar more money that I have, but it's a nice dream.

I am done with moving.  For at least 10 years, if not more.  Pending catastrophe.  Five moves was enough for me.  I did get mildly depressed when I realized that this is the place where my cats will die.  Moving is especially horrible for pets.  For each of the five moves I had the same cat (for the last two moves we also had two more cats).  He's the stressed out one who was abused by a previous owner, and has hella' anxiety.  He'd come up to me after each of the moves, over and over again, with this stressed-out look like "Melanie, when are we going back home?  I'm scared and I don't understand why you took me away from that place I felt safe!"  I'd try to comfort him, but he'd be so scared and predominantly in hiding under the couch for weeks.  Only coming out to eat and even then hiding at the slightest noise.  Since we've finally got a house, he's calmed down a bit.  This house is his retirement home.  He is 8 1/2 years old.  I feel a lot of relief that I don't have to put him through the trauma anymore.

[linnea]

Tip of the day:
Do not ever use a Post-it pad for a drink coaster.

I set a glass of chilled water on my desk. Weren't even any ice cubes in the glass. I should have noticed that I had Post-it notes littering my desk with to-do lists, but of course I didn't. When I came back from my shower I cleared the stuff off my desk. My jaw dropped as I peeled up a soaking wet Post-it from the desk...and realized that it had BLED A HOT PINK square into the wooden desk. I wanted to scream. "So long, deposit!" Noooooooo!

I tried a few other cleaning products before I realized that bleach would probably lift the stain. Since I don't use bleach on my clothes, I panicked again until I realized that I had some Lysol cleaner with bleach under the kitchen sink. I poured some of it onto the desk and waited. THANK GOD the stain disappeared. I've washed and dried it several times to get as much bleach as possible out of the wood. Now I just have to pray that the bleach doesn't do any further damage beyond removing the pink Post-it dye.

I think I need to just man up and purchase some coasters. Jeez.