Moving house was once voted the third most stressful time in a persons life behind getting married and getting divorced. I have never agreed with this statement though as i’m convinced that moving house is only as stressful as you make it. To provide a helping hand to anybody moving house anywhere in the world I just thought i’d put together a little list of quick tips that might make that big day so much less stressful:

The Tips:

1. Keep Calm & Carry On. One of the biggest perks to a job in removals is the customers, you are outside and you meet a new person every single day. Sometimes however people can start to get worried and stressed about the job in hand and start to panic. This puts everyone on edge and makes the day a lot longer for everybody involved. My biggest piece of advice to anybody moving house is smile, relax, put the kettle on as often as possible, sit down, relax some more and leave the removals team to worry about moving your furniture.

2. Nothing beats a good offence like a good defence. On the days leading up to your removal start organising the things that you are going to need out for the next few days and keep them together and separated from everything else. Then, take a small box and write ‘IMPORTANT’ on the side of it, fill it up with all of the little bits and pieces that you will be desperately trying to find when everything has been unloaded. TV remotes, telephone chargers, telephones, keys, paperwork, tv cables and whatever else you might think of. When this box comes off of the van you’ll be able to spot it easily and have everything up and running in to time at all.

3. Labels, Labels, Labels. When you find yourself packing up your boxes or alternatively if a removals company are packing your boxes for you. Make sure you know exactly where you’d like everything to end up. From a removal mans point of view there is nothing worse than having to stand in the doorway whilst the customer ‘ums and arr’s’ about where they’d like things and then from a customers point of view there is nothing worse than finding things in completely the wrong place. If you have a clear idea of where you’d like everything to end up, make sure it’s clearly labelled on the furniture or box and the whole process will run a lot smoother.

4. Parking. If you’re worried about the access of a job then there a few different things you can do. Either ring up and ask the company to come and check it out as they would almost definitely like to know if it’s going to change their plans, email a picture over or even just ask the company to find you on google maps. If need be you can use bins to mark out a space on the road but just keep in mind that the average removals truck is roughly 11m long.

5. The Keys. Unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about getting the keys for your next house. The best thing to do in this case is to just keep on phoning the solicitor after about 11am. They will start to get fed up with you but at least you know they’ll be trying to push it through so you stop calling them.

6. More labels, labels, labels. When you arrive at your new house take some sticky labels and label up each room. This will save you a lot of time when the team can just walk in and find the rooms themselves. Also, have a think about where you’d like things before they come through the doors. Once a piece of furniture has been put down, it takes a lot of energy to pick it back up again.

7. Unloading. Once your van has been loaded and arrived at your new place it really is time to relax. Take a seat from the kitchen, put it next to the door (not in the door) and direct the men as you’d like them. Make sure you keep in ear shot so that the team can ask you any questions they might have.

8. Hydration. Hydration is the key to a healthy lifestyle and you really can never give a removal man too much tea or too many biscuits. If you keep them hydrated they’ll come back to us smiling.

Thanks for reading, i hope that you have found this article useful. If you have any questions or topics you’d like me to cover then please don’t hesitate to contact me personally on robert@bearsbys.com.

Robert