How to Avoid Moving Day Theft

One thing you may not have put much thought into when it comes to your upcoming move is how to avoid moving day theft. You’ve spent so much time planning the move, hiring professional movers, packing the house, and throwing a moving party with your friends that it didn’t even cross your mind that theft can take place on this important day.

This is because you are more distracted than usual and some people may take this opportunity to take advantage of your busy mind. Take a look at these tips to keep in mind to make sure you aren’t dealing with moving day theft.

Handling so many people coming and going

One of the biggest problems with moving day is that you are dealing with so many different people coming and going in your home, how could you possibly notice if a burglar came in and left with one of your items? You’ll have friends and family helping you with the move, the professional movers, landlords or old tenants, the cable guy, and more showing up at the door. This means that a thief could easily walk in pretending to be one of these workers and head out the door with a valuable item.

One way to avoid this dilemma is to set up a room in the old house and new house where no one can go but your family. This room can hold all of the valuable items and have a way to be locked up. Be sure it doesn’t have windows and that only you know who is going into that room. It’s a great way to protect valuables like jewelry, money, family heirlooms, and photos from getting stolen.

The most common stolen item on moving day

Surprisingly, the most common item stolen on moving day is prescription medicine and designer items like your perfumes. While it may seem strange that people would go after your toiletry bag, they look at these pills and designer belongings as things that are easy to sell on the street.

Don’t pack your important toiletries like these that are hard to replace in your regular toiletry bag or box. Instead, put them in a small piece of luggage that you can easily identify and keep track of at all times. You’ll feel more secure knowing that these important items are in a small suitcase that thieves wouldn’t look at for medications.

Guarding your personal records

Since you’ve been gathering important and sensitive personal records before the move, you’re carrying these things around during your moving day. You don’t want someone getting your personal paperwork and trying to sell it on the street for a great deal of money.

Instead, keep these papers on you at all times to ensure they are constantly being guarded. This would be everything from bank statements to investments, social security numbers to birth certificates. Keep them in your secured room

Have extra eyes working on your behalf

Lastly, it can be really beneficial to have extra eyes working on your behalf that day. Hiring a professional moving service allows you to feel a peace of mind knowing that all of these crew members are watching your things during the move.

Having friends and family around will also help to have everyone keeping an eye on everything and having enough people to remember seeing each box go on the moving truck and come off. You don’t have to try to keep track of everything yourself.

Moving day theft isn’t too common of a problem, but when it does happen, these are the most common problems. Protect your identity, your valuables, and your hard-to-replace items by keeping these tips in mind before your upcoming move.

How to best be helpful to your professional movers

You’ve hired a moving crew with a great reputation and a great deal of experience in moving household goods. Now it’s time for your upcoming move and you want to be sure everything goes as well for you as it has for other moves. What can you do on your part to help ensure the move is a great one?

While your movers will be doing the heavy lifting and the stuff that isn’t so fun, you can do some things in preparation for the move to make sure they can do their job more efficiently. Start emptying out dresser drawers and getting some labels ready, along with these other tips, so that you can be extra helpful to your movers while they do their best to take care of you too.

Get beverages for the crew

One easy place to start is to have cold beverages ready for the team on moving day. Your movers are going to work hard and they are going to work up a sweat. Offering refreshments to your crew and anyone else you have helping you out will show appreciation for the hard work and keep everyone feeling good for the duration of the project. Having snacks like fruit and granola bars is also a great way to keep everyone fueled for the hard work taking place.

Make labels for the right rooms

If you are the one doing the packing, make sure to have everything packed and ready to go for moving day. Have a space set aside for anything you don’t want them to touch, such as an extra bedroom that they won’t go in.

If you have a packing crew, make sure to start making labels ahead of time for things like “kitchen,” “dishes,” “kid’s toys,” so that you can slap those on the boxes quickly and efficiently. If you are packing yourself, make sure everything is labeled with the items and rooms they go in before the movers arrive.

Empty desks and drawers

The movers aren’t going to move your dresser, desks, and armoires with stuff full in the drawers. Instead, you should empty them out ahead of time to ensure the furniture can be moved and nothing is damaged. Emptying any cabinets, desks, and other furniture and packing them into boxes with everything else will allow your movers to focus on the piece of furniture and the best protection for it without extra weight inside.

Disconnect electronics and appliances

One thing you may not have thought to do is to disconnect anything plugged into the wall. This means that you’ll want to unplug lamps, TVs, DVD players, hairdryers, air fresheners, and more. Have everything unplugged and wiped free of dust so that it’s easy and fast for the movers. Otherwise, you may be paying for extra time while your movers attempt to figure out how to detangle them.

Take everything off the walls

Your walls are full of art, photographs, shelves, mirrors, and more. This is the time to start taking everything down. Your movers can appropriately pack these fragile items in the right boxes, but having them down off the wall ahead of time will make it much more efficient. Anything on the wall can be taken down and set on the floor below where it was hanging including paintings, mirrors, clocks, and pictures. Then put all of the hanging hardware and nails in a bag for your new home.

Pack valuable items in your car

Another tip to help your movers is to put anything small, fragile, or very important in your own car. While it’s not required, your professional movers will appreciate not being responsible for your family heirlooms, jewelry, or small electronics. Then you can keep some of these extremely valuable items with you the whole day.

The most important thing to do to help your professional movers is to let them do what they do best. Taking steps to make the day smoother ahead of time will be appreciated, but trusting them to handle your goods with care is the best thing you can do.

How do moving companies safely move furniture in the rain?

Have you ever wondered what happens when you plan for a moving day, with everything that is involved in it (here’s a moving day checklist!), just to find out it’s going to be raining that day? It’s not like you can move the date when you’ve already made the arrangements with the schools, the office, your utility companies, and your moving crew.

The fact is that sometimes rainy days happen and the show must go on. That is why it’s important to be prepared ahead of time that in the event of rain, moving companies know how to safely move your furniture regardless. Take a look at what you can count on from the moving company when it comes to inclement weather.

Pack extra well

The good news is that you can move on a rainy moving day but you will have to be prepared for some additional steps in the process. You’ll need to not only ensure that all items are sealed in their containers, but you’ll have to be carefully prep both the home you are leaving and the home you are moving into in order to avoid accidents. The first step is to make sure everything is packed extra well.

For wood furniture, you can use heavy furniture blankets to protect it from getting wet. If you have large artwork, you’ll want to wrap it in plenty of plastic wrapping to avoid moisture getting to it. If you have bulky items that aren’t going into a container, make sure you cover them in a large trash bag to avoid rain getting to them.

Your local moving company should have everything from plastic covers to mattress pads for you to rent for the process. Everything going into cardboard boxes should be sealed well with packing tape and checked for any possible openings where rain could get access. You may want to avoid having anything outside of containers in order to avoid any possibility of the items getting rained on.

Prepping the moving space

The home you are moving out of was probably going to need some protection to avoid any issues on moving day, such as coverings on the edges where the walls meet in order to avoid damage or a room where the pets can stay in order to stay out of the way of the movers. When it comes to a rainy moving day, you’ll have to also consider how to avoid slip and falls, as well as tracking in mud and water.

The first step would be to line your entryway and porch with towels to help with tracking in water or mud since everyone would step on that before entering the house. Next, make sure everyone is in all-weather shoes or boots to avoid slips while carrying boxes. Lastly, have the movers show you that the moving truck has no leaks so that if small leaks are causing water dripping through, you can duct tape them to ensure your belongings will not be affected.

Your new home will need some attention to. Make sure to lay down rugs or towels in front of the front door to avoid tracking in anything that might cause a slip. Your utilities should be set up in advance which means that you’ll be able to warm up or cool off the space during the moving process.

They’ll work in an assembly line

Lastly, your moving team will likely work in an assembly line on a rainy day to help things get done a bit faster during this rainy day, as well as to help protect your floors. One person will stand on the inside and another will stay on the outside, avoiding any shoes tracking in through the house. This can also work well for moving into the new house so that moisture and mud can stay outside the home.