UNPACKING

Now For The Fun Stuff!

It's time for unpacking all your household goods and finding a new spot for all your belongings. You are now at your new home and everything has gone smoothly.

How Moving Companies Do This Job

Sometimes a moving contract will authorize these services. I usually recommend that the customer (you) do this themselves.

The crew from the moving company will just unpack all your things and put them on a table, counter, floor, etc. They do not put things away for you. If they did, it would be charged as MAID SERVICE. And believe me, that is very expensive. Also, you would probably rearrange everything anyway.

When this service is authorized, you could request that the moving company only do a part of the job. Decide what you would like them to do before contacting them about this.

The moving company will remove all moving materials. However, the boxes are yours, so if you want to keep any of them, you may.

Tips For You

By doing the unpack yourself, you can take your time. Do as much or as little each day as you wish.

Unpack the wardrobes first and put your clothes back into the closet. Then flatten the boxes and put them in the garage or somewhere out of the way. Leave a few made up to put used paper into.

TIP: If you have kids, they will LOVE to make some of the larger boxes into playhouses, or forts! Tell them to "go for it"! But, supervise if they will be cutting out doors and windows.

As you're unpacking, keep putting the newsprint into the empty wardrobe boxes. As it fills up, stuff it down. Jump on it! :-) The idea is to have as few boxes as possible for the moving company to pick up.

You will also flatten all other boxes and stack according to size on the garage floor or somewhere out of your way.

It used to be that the moving company would make a one time pick up of used packing debris. But anymore, most moving and relocation companies are charging a fee for this service. I would imaging it is probably due to the extremely HIGH cost of fuel.

So be sure to have your unpacking completely done when you call them to do this, if in fact you do choose to take advantage of this service.

If you would prefer to dispose of the materials yourself, here are a few ideas:

* Any boxes you paid for are yours to keep if you wish

* The very large boxes make excellent playhouses for the kids (and pets, too)

* When the mirror cartons or mattress cartons are laid out flat, they are good for catching oil drips in the garage under leaky vehicles

* You can sell or give away used moving boxes

* If you sell or give away the boxes, most people don't want the used packing paper. You can then haul the couple boxes of paper to your nearest moving company or a recycling facility

* A recycling company may come to your house to pickup used packing material.

But do not put garbage or the metal hanging bars from wardrobes into the boxes with packing paper. Also flatten all but the few boxes you are using for the packing paper. They may not come to your house for just the packing paper. There must be enough material to make it worth the trip.

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