Ask anyone about their last move and you get the same short list back: the utilities, the toothbrush, the cable they could not identify. Nobody regrets the packing. They regret the ten-minute jobs they did not do.
Here is that list, in the order it usually bites.
1. Pack the box that never goes on the truck
If you do one thing from this page, do this one.
Pack a box or bag for the first two days and keep it in your own vehicle: toiletries, toilet paper, hand soap, medication, phone chargers, a change of clothes for each person, bedding and a towel each, basic tools and a box cutter, some food and water, and whatever your coffee habit requires.
The point is not the contents. The point is that it does not go into the load, so it cannot end up behind forty other cartons on the night you need it.
2. Reconfirm the scope, in specifics
Call two or three days ahead and confirm the things that are actually variable:
- The arrival window, and what happens if a building window changes
- Both addresses, spelled out, including unit numbers
- Access codes, gate codes, elevator bookings and parking arrangements at each end
- Anything needing special handling or extra crew
- How payment is handled, and when
The purpose of this call is not reassurance. It is to catch the one detail that was written down wrong while there is still time to fix it.
3. Move the utilities before you need them, not after
Book the changes now, and stagger the dates rather than stacking them on the morning.
- Power and gas transfer or cancellation, set to end at the end of move day at the old address and start at the beginning of it at the new one
- Water, where the municipality requires a call rather than handling it at title
- Internet installation, which is the one with a genuine queue and the one you will most regret leaving
Do not schedule a disconnection for the morning of the move. You will want light at both ends of the day.
4. Change the address everywhere it exists
The list is longer than anyone expects. Work through it in one sitting:
- Postal mail forwarding
- Driver's licence, provincial health and identity records, and vehicle registration
- The federal tax record
- Banks, credit cards and any lender
- Home, auto and life insurance
- Employer and payroll
- Subscriptions and anything that ships you something
- Doctor, dentist, pharmacy and veterinarian
- Schools and childcare
Forwarding buys you time; it does not replace the updates. Anything that ships physical goods should be corrected at the source.
5. Empty the fridge and the freezer properly
Start a week ahead. Stop buying perishables, then plan the last few meals around what is already there.
Twenty-four hours before the move, defrost the freezer and clean the interior. A fridge that travels with water in the tray drips through everything under it, and a warm compartment that has been closed for a day arrives smelling like something you will not want to unpack.
Leave the door slightly ajar in transit and while it settles at the other end.
6. Photograph anything you will have to reconnect
Before you unplug: the back of the television, the router and modem, the desk setup, the speakers, and anything with more than two cables going into it.
It takes two minutes. It saves the specific misery of standing behind a cabinet at ten at night with four identical black cables and no idea which port is which.
7. Take apart what comes apart
The night before, deal with the obvious ones — bed frames, table legs, anything flat-packed that will not clear a doorway assembled.
Keep every fixing in a labelled bag, and tape the bag to the underside of the piece it belongs to. Hardware that travels loose in a toolbox is hardware you will spend an hour looking for.
A crew can do this on the day, and for anything complicated or awkward they should. The reason to do the simple ones yourself is time, not capability.
8. Prepare both ends of the move
At the place you are leaving: clear the routes from every room to the door, put down floor protection where it matters, confirm the elevator booking and make sure a truck has somewhere legal to sit.
At the place you are arriving: walk it and photograph the condition while it is empty, clean it while it is empty, confirm the utilities are actually on, confirm the elevator booking at that end too, and decide in advance which room each large piece is going into.
That last one sounds trivial. It is the difference between a crew placing furniture once and a crew placing it twice.
9. Keep the irreplaceables in your own hands
These do not go on a truck, regardless of how good the truck is:
- Passports, certificates, wills, titles, deeds, policies and tax records
- Cash, jewellery and anything precious in a small package
- Prescription medication, especially anything on a daily schedule
- Every set of keys, including the spare set in the drawer
- Laptops, phones and any drive holding the only copy of something
- Photographs, letters and the small sentimental things that cannot be bought again
The full version of this list, including the items a truck is not permitted to carry at all, is in what not to let movers pack.
10. Stop packing and sleep
The temptation on the last night is to keep going until everything is done. Do not.
Move day is a day of decisions — where things go, what comes apart, what needs to be handled differently than planned — and decisions made on four hours of sleep are worse than a few unpacked drawers. Leave the last odds and ends for a final box in the morning. That trade is always worth making.
Bringing it together
One more that nobody puts on a list: have some cash on hand. Not for anything in particular — for the parking meter, the depot fee, the thing you forgot, and the meal at the end of a day when every pot you own is in a box you cannot identify.
Every item above exists because it takes minutes in advance and hours to fix afterwards. If you would rather have the sequence written against your own two addresses and your actual date, send us the route and the access details at both ends and the plan comes back in writing. Start your move brief, or call 778-994-2303. The wider version, counted back from move day, is here.