Category Archives: Moving

How You Can Make Your New Place Pristine Before You Even Move In

Moving, Relocating in Retirement

This post was contributed to Leisure Freak by Curtis Fisher of Tradesbright. We’re all now ready to get back to a normal life. For those ready to make a move to a new home, Curtis offers tips to make the new place pristine. Tips that those of us staying put can also apply to our existing homes for better living. 

Moving to a new house or apartment in retirement is, metaphorically speaking, a fresh start. The trouble with metaphors is that they don’t always translate to the concrete. If you want your new place to be truly fresh and clean from day one, you must take steps to ensure it is pristine before you move in. The Leisure Freak site offers some tips on how to make that happen from floor to surface to air. 

How You Can Make Your New Place Pristine Before You Even Move In

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Making Your Old and New Place Pristine

Clean Up Your Old Place as Well

Naturally, you’re excited to get into your new place and get things set up. However, don’t forget that you can use the cleaning tricks found in this article before you bid farewell to your former home. Cleaning your apartment from top to bottom is a great way to leave a lasting impression on your former landlord, and it can help you get back your security deposit. However, when you clean up the home you’re selling, you can actually increase its value on the market, as well as help win over buyers who’ve taken an interest in the property. So, before you focus on the new place, make sure you’ve taken care of everything at your old place!

Breathe Easy

Houses and apartments, due to their confined nature, are better at breeding allergens and pollutants than outdoor spaces and larger public enclosures. While you will do what you can to control the air quality in your living space once you move in by changing your air filters regularly, vacuuming and dusting, and controlling pet hair and dander, there is plenty you can do before you move in to make it safe and ready for you and your family. 

First, install carbon monoxide and radon detectors. These gases can be present in homes and can lead to acute medical issues — even in small quantities. Open the windows and run the air conditioning to get allergens out of your home. Dusting and deep cleaning can remove dust mites and other insect byproducts. You can even run an air-purifying unit for a week or so before moving in to help rid the indoor air of pollutants. 

Finally, don’t forget to check for mold, which is one of the worst pollutants. The best way to prevent mold is to reduce the moisture in your home. Do this by running a dehumidifier and by fixing any leaky pipes (dark, wet areas are breeding grounds for mold). 

Deep Clean Like It’s Never Been Cleaned Before

Your new place may look pretty clean when you give it a gander, but you need to know this: It can always be cleaner. Taking a Saturday or Sunday to give your new home a truly deep clean will help remove allergens, dirt, and bacteria from the home’s many surfaces — floor to ceiling. So, what are the most important things to clean before you move in?

  • Appliances. These rarely get cleaned by previous occupiers. You should use sanitizing tablets for the washer, dryer, and dishwasher. Ovens and fridges can get really nasty, so a full-scale scrub down is warranted there. 
  • Carpets. Vacuuming isn’t enough. You should consider steam cleaning any carpet in your new home. 
  • Anywhere high up. Once again, often neglected. Tops of ceiling fans, tops of cabinets, air vents, and room corners are usually covered in dust and other particulates. 
  • Grout. Any caulk or grout in your bathrooms and kitchens will need chemical cleansing. 

Check out this checklist for more guidance on what you should deep clean before you move in. 

Hire Professionals

Even if you attempt to deep clean yourself, there’s a good chance you won’t do the best job. Many people don’t have the time or energy to truly deep clean an entire house. If either of these applies to you, it may be best to hire professional cleaners. You want your new place to be truly spotless, and working with a pro will ensure your home is cleaned from top to bottom. Finding solid cleaning services in your area can be tough, but luckily there are online resources available to make locating experienced professionals a little easier. 

We think our homes are the cleanest, pollutant-free places around. This can be true, but it’s usually not the case if you don’t take steps to make them pristine. So, purify the air and surfaces in your new place before you unpack to make your new home in retirement exactly where you want to be. 

Thank you Curtis Fisher for contributing this tip filled post to Leisure Freak. 

Author bio: “Curtis Fisher created Tradesbright to highlight the stories of tradesmen and women who have raised the bar by going above and beyond to help a fellow neighbor, community member, or someone they happened across while on the job. Big or small, the acts of kindness deserve to be recognized!”

Moving Pains: Top Things That Can Go Wrong When You Switch Houses

Moving

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Ranked among the most stressful experiences that you can go through during your lifetime, there is no doubt that moving your house can come along with a whole host of complications and difficulties. You are better off knowing what the common pitfalls are so that you can put yourself in a position to avoid them. Let’s look closer at a few of the worst-case scenarios. This way, you can put the proper provisions in place to avoid falling into these traps yourself.

Avoid These Moving Pains

Packing Problems and Damage to Your Property

When you are moving, your stuff has a tendency of being bashed around, and you need to be extra careful with your packing to ensure that it all remains in good condition when you get back again. Of course, your other alternative is to hire a professional company like Berkins Moving Solutions. Finding a local moving company that you can trust can be worth the cost. If you are planning to do everything yourself, you should start by making sure that you have enough packing supplies. Make sure to give yourself plenty of time so that you don’t end up throwing everything in boxes at the last-minute. Plan your packing carefully so that you don’t end up putting breakables in with heavy items which are likely to cause damage. It is also a huge help if you out your black marker to work and label each box with the room it is moving too. That way, kitchen boxes end up in your new kitchen.

Furniture That Doesn’t Fit Through the Door

Before you rush out to purchase any furniture for your new place, you need to measure it and the doorways at your new place to make sure that it is actually going to fit. The same goes for the furniture that you may be transporting from your current home. If you have to sell it, you are better off knowing about this at the earliest possible opportunity rather than paying to transport it and even risking damage to your new property by trying to force it through the doorways or up/down impossible stairways.

Injuries

One of the biggest moving disasters that you can face is that you end up causing yourself some sort of injury during the process. Forward planning can help you out a great deal here. So, rather than just lifting up a big piece of furniture and hoping for the best, you should take the time to clear obstacles out of the way, dress according to the conditions, and wear protective gear. Lift with your legs, not your back! It is always a good idea to buy, rent, or borrow a moving dolly. Not only for large items but you can also stack boxes to make fewer trips to your moving truck. Of course, as we mentioned before, you can help to avoid these problems by hiring a professional moving company.

Overspending

When many people come to moving their home, they get so wrapped up in thinking about the price of the house that they don’t think about the cost of the move. Factor in all expenses including moving company fees, van rental, packaging materials, and any other additional costs that are out there. The last thing that you want is to start your life in your new home in a difficult financial situation.

So, there you have just a few of the things that can go wrong when you are moving to a new home. Now you can take some preventative steps to avoid them happening to you.