April 13, 2012
by Guest Author
How To Scout For An Apartment When Moving Out
Moving out and on to a new place shouldn’t be the headache that many think it is. Yes, it’s true that leaving a comfort zone you’ve known for a long time can be difficult. Having to search for the right place with similar amenities as your old residence is a process. Calculating the square footage needed in a new apartment, picking a floor to be on, and the number of items needed to be moved are just some of the questions you must ask yourself from the beginning.
Rather than go into the whole thing blind and settle on the first thing you see, here are a few reminders on how to land the right apartment and also a few moving tips and tricks to get your possessions transferred efficiently in terms of both labor and cost.
Mull Over Multiple Apartments
Patience and research will unearth a suitable apartment you’ll be glad to call home. That can happen when you go online to search through multiple apartments around your area. Read the reviews and gauge the most honest and poignant critiques. Sometimes there’s the chance of a phony reviewer either giving too much praise or being extremely negative about everything.
In any case, you should look for an apartment that has characteristics similar to your old residence. Sometimes an apartment might look appetizing given that the square footage of the room is larger. Maybe the luxurious amenities like state-of-the-art fitness facilities, outdoor pools, and laundry connections inside each unit catch your eye while distracting you from the steep price range. In this case, you might have to adjust your rent budget or try negotiating a fair price that both you and the landlord can agree upon. Apartment searches should be all about hustle, desire and smarts. Don’t overpay just because you don’t want to settle somewhere else and vice versa.
Be An Effective Mover
This is an area where procrastinating can be a killer to the whole process. Being lazy with moving out by waiting last minute to box up everything and haul it over to your new place can stretch out the moving day for you and your friends helping out. Even worse, delayed packing and sorting of your possessions can add more time (see: money) for the movers you hire.
Getting around the problem is easy: create a packing checklist weeks before moving day. Go around the place and sort out possessions for individual rooms. For example, wrap up and label bathroom furnishings in certain boxes. And as for the packaging itself, be efficient, but careful not to break anything. Wrap up delicate items such as crystal glasses and stemware with bubble wrap or thick sheets of newspaper. Put thick, protective sheets or blankets around flat screen TV’s. And with every single box you package together, it’s important to spend a few extra dollars on reliable, durable packing tape. Make sure to double up on the bottom of each box so the weight doesn’t break through. Sure, it may seem too obvious to some, but I’ve seen firsthand what can happen to poorly taped boxes. We ended up breaking over $200 worth of plates and bowls just because we rushed the whole thing with no tape.
Note: if you’re moving heavy cabinets with multiple drawers, always use clear tape over each drawer so they aren’t falling out when you and a couple buddies move it.
Moving Safety
Which brings me to my final point: moving safety. If you haven’t hired professional moving services to do all your heavy lifting and go the DIY route, it’s important to be mindful of how you move bulky items to your apartment. If an item is extremely heavy, like a refrigerator, washer, or dryer, always account for top-heavy areas and have more than one body on that end. When going up flights of stairs with a couch, take your time with each step. Don’t get ahead of yourself and lose your balance, leading to dropped items and potentially injury.
When you lift items, always bend at the knees, using the weight of your lower body to hoist the item. By trying to rush the lift, you could seriously injure your back and strain other muscles, effectively ending your day.
Also, if you’ve packed up a truck with several items and have some dangling perilously outside the bed, follow proper protocol by tying red flags or flyers on the very end to signal drivers behind you of extended items. And if you have bungee cords, make sure they are secured as much as possible over the entire load.
Conclusion
Moving into a new apartment doesn’t have to be a struggle if planned out right. Finding an ideal landing spot just takes a few extra minutes of research. Ask others who have lived there or go online to look through credible reviews. From there, it’s all about execution. Create a detailed checklist of items packed, do a quick scan of your previous residence for any leftover items and signal to the movers (or your friends) it’s time to head across town or the country to your new apartment.
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About The Guest Author
Kyle works as a freelance writer and consultant writing about moving tips and tricks and other relocation issues for a local moving company, Great Day Moving.
