Moving Idea – Make Moving Easier For The New People
Here are some more moving ideas from Jodee, one of our readers:
When we were putting together our “kits” for moving we also made one to leave in our old house.
- We put toilet tissue, paper towels, hand soap, paper plates and cups, plastic utensils, and some band-aids in it.
- We also put in some simple, “kid friendly” snacks like peanut butter crackers and fruit roll-ups.
- In a separate box, we included all of the owners manuals and warranties for various appliances, faucets and other items in the house.
- We also included a list that identified the various plants and fruit trees around the property, the locations of faucets, the locations of the shut-offs for gas, electric, and water, and other similar information about the property.
- We also left a local phone book on the counter and wrote a list with the names and numbers of the local electric, gas, phone, and cable companies on the front, as well as the phone numbers of a few good restaurants that delivered and the names of nearby neighbors.
The entire project took less than 30 minutes and cost very little. We did it just because it seemed like a good idea and because we thought it would have been nice for someone to have done that for us. Several weeks later, we received a gracious card from the new owners thanking us profusely. They appreciated it so much that we have decided that when we move again we will do the same thing again.
-Jodee
When Mike and Tawra moved from Kansas to Colorado, they left instructions a their old house about how some unusual items in the house worked– the location of the septic system and some other information they hoped wold be helpful to the new owners.
Along this same line, when Tawra moved into a new house a couple of moves ago, her new neighbor didn’t just bring a plate of brownies. She brought a basket with a few inexpensive things for the kids like bubbles, coloring books and small games to help entertain them while mom and dad were busy trying to get settled in. I thought this was such a nice and different idea!
-Jill
photo by: artotemsco
I didn’t know people still brought food etc. to their new neighbors! Tawra is fortunate to have such a thoughtful neighbor. And the “kit” for the new owners is wonderful and no doubt saved them a lot of time and confusion.
Great ideas!
I know things are hectic now but I would love to hear how Tawra and family are settling in and if they love their new home. I hope all is going well. :-)
Thanks Angie, well, when you wish you’re new house would get burned down I think it’s time to step away from the boxes! :-) We are getting there. Getting organized has been very slow and hard with the kids home from school. We will get there. We have been doing a lot of dumpster diving of the construction dumpsters and are trying to collect enough wood for a shed and some other projects. We hope we can get enough to get one built by fall. I’ve also been hitting tons of garage sales and found lots of good stuff to replace everything we sold. My latest find was a really nice couch and chair for $30 for both!!! We now have a place to sit down! I am going to try and get some pictures posted if I can get around to it. I dropped a board on my foot yesterday and so now I’m not moving to fast so it might take me a little while to get them up. Thanks for thinking of us!
Those are real jewels of neighbors. Nothing like the snobs around me.
Tawra, ouch! Hope your foot is better soon. Hang in there! Sounds like you are making good progress! I’m a little envious of your garage sale furniture finds. :-) I live in an area that doesn’t have a lot of garage sales with good stuff. That’s an awesome deal on the couch and chair. Take care of yourself getting everything finished up…don’t get too exhausted. I can’t wait to see pictures as you have time. :-)
Alternatively, as the neighbor, instead of bringing over food (issues with food allerigies and diet preferences nowadays…) you could take the phone book/takeout menu idea and bring that over to the new neighbor along with kid-friendly stuff. I would LOVE to have someone bring that over as a “welcome to the neighborhood” gesture! It would certainly help me navigate the new area.
This is true auntie JB. If nothing else at least we should go over and introduce ourselves and welcome them. Even like now Tawra and Mike are meeting their new neighbors on all sides and it helps to learn what doctors, hairdressers, dentist etc. that they like. They are even finding out about all the different fun events which are happening in their town through their neighbors.
When we moved from Maryland, I left the house with cookies in the refrigerator and it was really, really clean because someone had done that for our first home when I was 8 months pregnant! The couple that was buying this Maryland home was a young couple and it was their first house.
I generally leave the houses clean (we’ve moved alot, too!) but I also always leave a folder of all the household information. We also tend to never move curtains (because I enjoy making new ones for the next home) and all appliances.
Moving in is hard work but at least cookies can be a reward!
Feel better soon!
That is so sweet! We have always tried to leave leave the lists & Tpaper etc, but did not think to leave the rest, which is really a nice touch.
Try to find this Internet site, it really does ask some pointed questions about new places BEFORE you move there. Some even I had never thought of, and used to move a lot with a military husband. It suggests that you go there and visit for a week or so, and I’d add visit in all four seasons. And in the area you want to live go on weekends and evenings, especially on Fridays and Saturdays. And when kids are out of school, especially teens. Check with local police departments as to where the bad areas are and the quietest ones are located, where the best schools are with few police problems, especially with teens.
is the grass really greener? 7 questions to ask when moving to a new town from Frugal and Thriving frugalandthriving.com.au
When I put this in an email it turned blue so I could click on it.
Perhaps it will do the same if you copy and paste it into an email, then send it to yourself if it doesn’t turn blue.
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Moving Idea To Help The New Owners
I’ve never thought of leaving food or anything like that for the new owners, but I have left appliance manuals and I drew a rough sketch of the neighbourhood with the neighbour’s names in each “house”. I find it’s sometimes hard to remember all your neighbours’ names when you first move in & it’s nice if they’re already written down.
We also leave special info e.g. in one of our houses, we got permission from the city to plant hedges right along the sidewalk (which was actually on city property) so I mentioned that in the note. Funny enough, the new owners still dug them up & moved them to the property line (I don’t know why since it made the yard smaller).
The house we’re in now was owned by another family for 5 years first. They didn’t remove the garden centre’s labels on their plants so that helped us figure out care.
My husband and I are buying a house and closing the end of July. We are so excited…we can’t think of anything else right now! :)
One issue, the seller had cats and my husband is allergic (really allergic!) to cats. We are trying to think of everything we can do to clean the house so my husband will not have allergy issues when we move in.
I spent about 3 hours in the home yesterday during the home inspection and noticed the utility room, where the cat box was kept, still reeks of cat urine/litter smell. I’m baffled by this because the room has a vinyl floor. Any tips for getting rid of that odor?
There is carpet in the bedrooms that needs replacing anyway, so we are taking that up and putting down laminate. All of the other floors in the house are either laminate or vinyl. I would think a good cleaning of the floors, dusting the ceilings and washing the walls before we paint will get rid of any lingering cat dander. Also, I have a HVAC company scheduled to come out and clean/sanitize the vents/cold air returns and a/c coils.
Can anyone think of anything else that should be done? I think after we do all of the above it should be ok for my husband but I really don’t have experience with this and would appreciate any advice.
Oh, also the carpet in the bedrooms (that we will be removing) reeks of cat urine in some places. I am hoping this did not soak through the padding and into the plywood floors. If it did, will we still have the cat urine odor after we put down laminate? Anything we can do to neutralize that?
I know it probably sound like we are buying a dump, but the house is really nice except it just needs some paint and the carpet removed in the bedrooms…and the cat odor gone! Lol!
Cat odor is so hard to get rid of but I think you are doing the most important by putting down new flooring. Things to watch for – chances are almost 100% that if there is cat wet on the carpet that it went all the way through to the plywood. You need to or have someone to put something on it to get rid of the odor first. Even though that will help a bit it won’t get rid of it totally so you then will need to make sure there is some sort of good sealant on the floors no matter what you put down for flooring because it will eventually work it’s way up if you don’t.
Other places to check is like the sheet rock in the utility room because male cats can spray at the base of the wall and it can seep down in between the baseboard and sheet room. It can even seep into concrete. Both my kids have had to deal with homes that had cats and you have to mainly be aware that if they wet someplace it has probably seeped all the way through where they wet.
As discouraging as that sounds I still think with you doing all the new flooring you should get rid of most of it if you use a good sealant. Am so excited for you. Getting a new house can be so much fun. I think you are doing the right thing in getting a house that you can redo all the floors the way you like them. Sometimes in new homes you don’t always get floors and things that work for you after you get in them but feel bad or don’t have the money to take them up and do what you want with them so you way is really good.
Hi Jill! :)
Thanks so much for the advice! We are so excited. It’s going to be a lot of work cleaning, painting, taking up carpets and putting down new flooring. We can’t wait to get started though! :)
Try painting the sub-floor with Kilz Max primer-it is odor blocking and designed for situations like yours-if you just put down new flooring without sealing the sub-floor the new flooring will just absorb the smell.
One way people get rid of cat odor is to varnish the floors where it has seeped in. The varnish locks the odor into the wood and out of your home. I don’t know if enamel paint would do the same for your walls. You may want to consider a light sanding of the floor
too, but I don’t know how much that would help or how it would impact your wood. Please ask a carpetner. Best wishes.
Don’t be afraid to ask the people at the hardware store for help. They are experienced it all!
Angie, congratulations on the new house! Some of my daughter’s clothes that were in a chair in the garage got urinated on by our cat. I washed them in warm water with det’g and vinegar. It completely got rid of the smell. I had not thought of the wood under the carpet needing a sealant. But is it concrete? Maybe a good cleaning with vinegar then? Good luck!
I would like to add one more thing – give the color of the paint on your walls or leave the paint cards.
We liked the color in our new living room so we didn’t paint over it. Except when we replaced the old thermostat with a programmable one, which were different shapes, we realized the previous owners only painted around the old thermostat and not under it. Now we have nice crescents of the old color above and below the new rectangular thermostat. Unless we chip paint off the walls there is nothing that we can bring to a hardware store to have them create a match off of.
I’ve saved all of our paint cards for the next family.