Tips for Overseeing a Move In or Move Out

When you're moving, you will likely be overseeing both a move in and a move-out. Hiring The Professional Moving Specialists will go a long way to making the move in and move out easier, but you will still need to be in charge of overseeing both. 

You want to do everything within your power to remain in control and ensure efficiency during your move. Proper planning will help and here are some of the best tips you can use for overseeing a move in or a move-out.

1. Arrive Early and Prepared

If you're not currently living in your old home, you want to arrive for the move out before the movers do. It's good to arrive prepared and ready to start the day when the movers arrive. 

You'll want to be there to start planning everything, help direct the mover to the correct parking spot, and avoid getting charged for movers waiting for you.

2. Know What You’re Taking With You

When moving out, you want to know what you'll be taking in your vehicle. Valuables, paperwork, and other items you don't want the movers packing should be separated to help you remember what you plan to move in your own vehicle.

You can block off a corner of a room or dedicate a specific room to the items you plan to move yourself. Make sure you pack these items ahead of time and you know what's going with you and what's going with the movers.

3. Have a Furniture Floor Plan Ready

During a move in, you want to have a furniture floor plan ready for the movers. This will help them bring in heavy furniture items, put them in the right place, and leave them there. If they have to rearrange furniture, you could get charged extra for their time. 

In fact, some moving companies will only arrange furniture once. If you want to avoid having to arrange the furniture yourself, create a floor plan ahead of time for the movers to follow.

4. Inform Movers of All Fragile Items

While fragile items should be well marked, it's also a good idea to separate these items and inform movers they are fragile. The more you communicate with the movers, the easier it will be for them to ensure your things are properly packed into their truck.

5. Be Prepared with Waters

Movers appreciate the small gesture of offering them water or sports drink. They work hard and need to stay hydrated. Especially in the summer, have a few bottles of water or sports drinks ready for the movers when they arrive. 

Let them know where they are and that they can help themselves when they are thirsty. This will help save a little bit of time, as well, as they won't have to ask or go to the truck in search of their own drink. 

When you're moving into a new home and/or out of an old home, you want to stay on top of the moving process. With these five tips, you'll be better prepared to oversee moving in and moving out when hiring movers for a residential move.

How to Best Utilize Your Time During a Full-Service Move

When you hire movers to do your packing and unpacking, along with loading and transporting your items, it's known as a full-service move. This type of move will save you time, but what do you do with all that time?

There are still several tasks that must be done. From making sure your utilities are turned on at your new home to cleaning up your old home before turning in your keys, you have plenty to do.

If you're planning to hire The Professional Moving Specialists for a full-service move, here are some of the ways you can utilize the time you will gain back.

Create a Moving Inventory

Before the movers arrive to pack up your belongings, you'll want to create a moving inventory. This is a great way to see what you own and to make sure all your items make it to your new home.

An itemized checklist will ensure you know what was packed and what gets unpacked. You want to be very specific with this inventory and consider taking pictures of anything expensive.

Figure Out What You want to Pack

You may not want movers packing every single item you own. Whether you want to pack your most expensive items or you prefer to pack your clothing on your own, make sure you figure this out ahead of time.

If you're moving a long distance, make sure you set aside a change of clothes and other items you may need. Also, consider packing important documents yourself instead of having movers handle these items.

If possible, designate a room or an area clearly marked for the items you will pack. This area can also be designated as the items you will take in your vehicle with you.

Triple Check Everything

Once the movers start to pack up your items and load them into the truck, you can start triple checking everything. Check cabinets, corners, closets, and other areas to ensure you don't leave anything behind. 

Remove Flammable Items from Your Home

Movers will likely not touch anything flammable, hazardous, or corrosive. You want to remove these items and pack them yourself. These items include:

• Batteries

• Cleaning Fluids

• Gasoline

• Kerosene

• Fireworks

• Firearms

• Nail Polish

• Aerosol Cans

• Propane Tanks

• Fertilizer

Make sure these items are separated or disposed of properly before your movers arrive.

Keep the Kids and Pets Busy

While movers are at your home packing up, you want to keep the kids and pets out of their way. You can keep them busy in the back yard or have one parent take the kids and pets to a local playground. 

Not only will keeping them out of the way help movers work faster, but it will also keep your pets and kids safe. If necessary, you can even consider hiring a sitter for the pets or kids during the time the movers are packing up.

Disassemble Ahead of Time

Some movers will disassemble furniture, while others may not. It can save you a little bit of money if you disassemble items before the movers arrive. This is a good use of your time when you hire full-service movers.

There are many things you will still need to do, even when you hire full-service movers. Make sure you fully understand what your residential movers are willing to do for you and what you will still need to handle on your own.

5 Apps to Help You Sell Unwanted Goods During a Move

Residential moving can be stressful, but unloading some of your unwanted items can make the move a bit easier. There's an app for that, of course. In fact, there are several apps with the ability to help you sell your unwanted items. Let's look at five of the top choices.

LetGo

An app with the ability to save you time and help you sell items locally, LetGo provides an excellent platform for selling things. In fact, The Balance Everyday published a list of their 7 Best Local Selling Apps and LetGo was the top choice.

You'll have the ability to list your items in one of many categories ranging from clothing to games to furniture. In addition, you'll get to tag your items and make it easy for buyers to find what you're selling.

The LetGo App is free and can be downloaded for both iPhone and Android.

Facebook Marketplace

Another good app for selling locally is the Facebook Marketplace. Buyers can find your items and you can schedule a time to meet up together for the sale. The app is completely free and can be used on all platforms.

Carousell

According to MoneyPantry, Carousell is the top choice for selling your unwanted items locally before moving. This app is a bit newer than some of the others on the list and it's completely free to list your items. You can join special groups to help sell your items within your community, as well.

Once you've listed your item with the Carousell app, you can easily share the listing through social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The app is available for both iPhone and Android.

eBay

According to Techlicious, eBay is the bestselling app. With eBay, you can expect to get top dollar for your items, but you should expect to ship your items to the seller once they have completed the purchase.

The eBay app isn't as good for selling items locally as some of the others, but it can be great for selling higher-priced items. With this app, you're likely to get top dollar, but you will need to be willing to ship your items to the buyer.

OffferUp

Another great app for selling your item, OfferUp allows you to easily list and sell just about anything. It's available for both Android and iPhone and it's all about selling locally.

You won't have to ship anything with the OfferUp app and communicating with buyers is really easy. You can even bump your item back to the top of the listings at any time for a fee.

Along with these top five apps to help you sell your unwanted items before a move, there are several other options including:

• Mercari

• CPlus for Craigslist

• VarageSale

• Tradesy

• ThredUP

• Poshmark

• Decluttr

All of these apps offer the ability to sell your items before you move. Whether you're looking to unload a piece of furniture or sell a video game collection, you can use one of these apps to find the right buyer.

The 5 DIY Cleaning Mistakes Renters Make

Renting an apartment is great. You can sign a year lease without making a huge financial investment. And best of all, you most likely had an apartment manager or property management company on-site to help with any maintenance you need throughout the length of your lease.

What’s even better? Well, that one small financial investment you made — your security deposit — is refundable if you leave the place in good condition after you make your move to your next place.

But that’s a HUGE piece of the puzzle — the big move. We all know that moving is stressful and oftentimes requires the help of seasoned professionals in your area. And without the help from your local moving company, things can get out of hand quick.

So, when you’re ready to move out of your Chicago apartment, here are a few things you can’t forget to clean. Because if you do, you might risk losing out on that security deposit. And this is the last thing you want to do when you’re funding a new move and a new place. Even though your money had been held hostage for an entire year, clean the right way and it’ll be yours again in no time.

But first, trust us and hire the movers — your bank account will thank you later.

The Dreaded Bathroom

The bathroom isn’t a very glamorous place to begin with. And when it’s time to move out of your apartment, you already know cleaning the bathroom is a hugely important task. But after a year of living in your small apartment, things can get a little bit messy. Once you have a moving date set, start to move things out of your bathroom in order to get a really deep clean. Start with the soap scum on the tiles, tub and shower. Grab some bleach from your corner store and dive in. Next, move onto the bathroom drawers. Don’t just remove the materials from the drawers, but make sure you give those a nice scrub as well. Clean the corners and remove your liners to make sure the place looks brand new. After that, you can move onto the countertop and sink. Scrub these with any normal bathroom cleaner and you should see all the dirt and dust fly right off. You can do the same with the mirror and the fan as well.

Last but not least … the floor. It’s time to get on your hands and knees and scrub that years’ worth of dirt from the floor. It’s not the most enjoyable thing to do, but it’s an absolute necessity if you ever want to see that security deposit again.

How movers can help with this: you spent all that time cleaning your place, so don’t mess it up by moving furniture throughout your entire place on your own. Hire movers and they will be extremely careful while moving out. None of your hard cleaning work will be ruined if you let the pros assist you in your move.

What About the Kitchen?

The kitchen is another area in your apartment that you’ve used almost every single day since you moved in last year. You know that you’ll need to scrub the floor, clean out your belongings from the cabinets, clean and disinfect the countertops. But there is one thing you cannot forget — the dishwasher.

Dishwashers are usually neglected by renters. They forget to clean the appliance that helped them clean their dishes for months. What happens is that the dishwasher filter keeps absorbing dirt from the dirty dishes. Over time, the filter loses its strength and the appliance stops working efficiently. You can use a water and vinegar mixture to scrub the interior. Then, clean the filter and run the dishwasher a few times with your dish soap. After that, make sure you run the cycle once more with just water to ensure all soap and cleaning mixtures have been dissolved. After this clean, you’ll be certain that your security deposit isn’t lost because of this appliance.

How movers can help with this: the moving company will scour your place for anything leftover and they’ll make sure you don’t forget to check very last inch of your apartment before handing over the keys. They might not clean the dishwasher, but they’ll make sure your kitchen is spotless and you haven’t left anything behind.

Dent & Dings

The apartment looked brand new when you moved in. But since then, you’ve been a little rough on it. You’ve had a few parties, had a few pets visit, and maybe you even did a few fitness or workout videos in the living room. If this is the case, you might have put a few dents or dings in the walls or floors. Of course, any major issues that you gave to your landlord during your pre-move-in review are not your fault, but the others need to be fixed in order to get your security deposit back. If you’ve put small holes in the wall for pictures, make sure you replace those and paint over them to make things look just like they did when you first moved in. You’ll also want to be sure to repair things like broken blinds, burnt out lightbulbs and chipped paint.

Don’t let a few quick touch ups be the reason you lose out on that security deposit. You can grab a gallon of paint for $30 and take care of it all within an hour.

How movers can help with this: that absolute last thing you want is to fix up all your dents and dings and then try to push your couch through a small doorway by yourself. This is a recipe for disaster. Let the movers carefully manage the process and you’ll be left with no door dings that cost you even MORE money when you move out.

The Floors Need It

A vacuum is a great place to start when it comes to cleaning your floors. Do a thorough job vacuuming all of the carpets or floors in your apartment and then you’ll clearly be able to see the stains and other issues you’ll need to fix up.

If you do notice some stains on the carpet, treat them appropriately and work to remove the stains without using chemical products. First, try sparkling water or soap and water and see if that does the trick. If not, consider calling an expert floor cleaner to help out with this. You don’t want to damage one piece of the carpet which ends up causing a full replacement. This could be a huge expense.

Beyond the carpet, make sure you sweep all tile, wood or vinyl floors and then mop them with a cleaning product that is right for the individual surface. If you don’t own a mop, then you can just grab a Swiffer from the local corner store and get to work!

How movers can help with this: just like we mentioned above — the pro movers will NOT scratch your floor or rip your apartment carpet when you enlist their help during your move. Why risk it? Hire the movers and let them handle it.

Schedule the Inspection

You may have taken all the necessary precautions when cleaning your apartment. You might have even gone above and beyond and done a spectacular job. But if you don’t plan an inspection with your landlord, you might have a huge issue on your hands. In order to get your security deposit back, you must plan a landlord inspection a few days before you move out. The landlord will verify that the place is in good condition and the systems and appliances are in working order. Use this opportunity to request your security deposit back. If they say you need to fix up a few more things, at least now you know and you have time to do so.

Overall, there are many areas of an apartment that need to be cleaned and fixed up prior to moving out. If you want your security deposit back, then it’s important to give yourself the necessary amount of time to meet the cleaning requirements of your landlord. After all, they hold the key to your deposit.

And if you’re overwhelmed with the pressure of cleaning an entire apartment, you can always call on the help of cleaning and moving professionals!