Someone recently asked for advice about moving cross-county, so I dug up a couple messages I posted on a parenting list back in August 2005. I thought my advice was still pretty good, so I figured I would get some more use out of it and post it here.
As someone who’s moved five times in the past two years, including to Alaska
and back and over the Canadian border and back, I ought to be able to come
up with something!
Make lists! Make a list of things to do (cancel
phone/garbage/electricity/etc, buy supplies, rent truck or hire movers, and
so on) and a list of everyone you have to change your address with.
Buy mattress bags from U-Haul to protect your mattresses. They are worth
it. U-Haul also sells rolls of this green plastic stuff that sticks to
itself (reminds me of shrink-wrap but it doesn’t shrink) that is great! You
can wrap things together and it’s much easier to remove than packing tape,
and you can just wrap it all around stuff to protect it.
Label the top and at least one side of your boxes. That way, when you put
another box on top, you can still see what’s in the box before you decide to
hoist something really heavy on top of the pile, and after you move, you
don’t have to keep lifting up boxes to see if what you’re looking for is in
the box underneath.
If you accumulate plastic grocery bags the way I tend to, use them to fill
in space in your boxes. They’re light, they fill in space well to cushion
things, and they don’t get your fingers and your possessions covered with
black ink like newspaper does.
Gather all your important documents together and keep them with you so they
don’t get lost. Whatever is important to you, whether or not you think
you’ll need it right way–the last bill you received from everyone you get
bills from (so you have their address and phone number), passports, birth
certificates, immigration papers, immunization records, rabies vaccination
certificates for your pets, driving records, TB test results, police
clearances, professional certificates or licenses, insurance policies… I
own things that I haven’t seen in over a year (I haven’t unpacked every box
every move), but I can put my finger on all of the above within five minutes
if necessary. They’re in a black plastic file box that we take with us in
the car when we move.
If you’re driving a U-Haul truck on the Alaska Highway in a snowstorm, don’t
pull off the road at an unplowed roadside turnout to “wait it out.” When
you try to get moving again, you might get stuck in the middle of the road,
blocking traffic in both directions.
If you spend the night in a cheap motel to try to save some money along the
way, make sure all of the access points to your vehicles are secure so you
won’t have to be woken by the phone at 3 am to hear that the police are
there, someone broke into your truck, and could you please come down?
Try to blow out truck and/or trailer tires in areas with good cellphone
coverage. However, you’ll get a faster tire change in the middle of nowhere
in northern British Columbia than you will on the side of a Chicago freeway
during rush hour.
Don’t leave your dog in the cab of the truck with a box of donut holes while
you run in to Wal-Mart to buy a lock so no one breaks into your truck again.
Don’t expect a U-Haul furniture blanket draped across the backseat of your
car to protect the aforementioned seat from cat hair after you are sick of
hearing the cat whine and let her out of her carrier. The cat will choose
to sleep on the seat underneath the blanket.
U-Haul trucks are emblazoned with “Adventures in Moving.” I think I’ve had
more than my share!
