When rolling up your sleeves to do some hands-on packing, be sure to review our packing tips before you begin.
- Packing Tip #1: Time is of the essence – begin by packing a fewl boxes each day, several weeks prior to your move. Be sure that the items you pack won’t be needed before your move, of course. By pacing yourself, you’ll be more organized and the job won’t be so overwhelming.
- Packing Tip #2: Pack room-by-room, one area at a time. It’s best not to mix items from different rooms in one box. To prevent small items from being lost or mistakenly thrown out with the packing paper, wrap miniature knickknacks and other small items in brightly-colored tissue paper before placing them in the box.
- Packing Tip #3:, Write a general description of the contents and indicate the room from which it came (or which it will go into in your new home) on the top and front of each carton. Use different colored dot stickers for each box; then, at your new house, hang a balloon of a corresponding color outside the room where you want the color-coded boxes to be delivered.
- Packing Tip #4: Regular newspapers are messy and can soil your possessions. Use only unprinted newsprint paper to wrap items.
- Packing Tip #5: Use only clean boxes specially designed for moving. Boxes obtained from grocery or liquor stores are not always clean, and may not withstand the weight of the items that you’ll be putting in them. Also, their odd sizes tend to make loading more difficult.
- Packing Tip #6: Unpack fragile items and breakables over some packing material or over the box you’re taking them out of in case you happen to drop the item as you unpack it.
- Packing Tip #7: Hazardous materials cannot be included in your shipment. Some common household items that cannot be packed include flammables such as paint, varnish and thinners, gasoline, kerosene and oil, bottled gas, aerosol cans, nail polish and remover, ammunition and explosives, corrosives, and cleaning fluids and detergents
- Packing Tip #8: Personally transport irreplaceable photos, financial papers and assets (bank checks, insurance policies, stock certificates, etc.), legal documents (wills, passports. etc.), valuables, jewelry, coin and stamp collections, etc.), and medical and family history records