It’s that time of the year again!! Time to help your students pack up their dorms/apartments to move back home for the summer. Let’s be honest, moving is a PAIN! Between all the boxes and discovering the dust, lost items under their beds, and how gross your student’s rooms can become in one short year, it’s usually not something anyone looks forward to. Here are 5 tips to help the process go by smoothly.
1. Use trash bags to move big bulks of hanging clothes:
While clothes are still hanging in the closet, put 8-10 hangers of clothes inside the trash bag and then tie a drawstring about the hangers! This is an easy way to move your clothes in bulk. (Hint: don’t use scented trash bags (they will leave your clothes smelling like potpourri!)
2. Protect your fragile items :
Put Styrofoam plates in-between your breakable plates and platters! Wrap glass objects in your towels instead of buying/deling with bubble wrap and packing peanuts (you hae to pack up your towels to move anyway -might as well put them to good use!). Packing peanuts can be messy and end up EVERYWHERE.
3. Ask local businesses for their gently used boxes:
Running low on moving boxes? No need to worry. A lot of local retailers and businesses will have boxes in the back of their stores that they aren’t using. Usually they are more than happy to get rid of them!
4. Label EVERYTHING
Nothing is more annoying than not knowing where anything is in your new place that is full of boxes. Pack every box with things similar to each other. For example, put all of your bathroom items together in one box. If you are OCD like myself, labeling each rooms boxes with the same color duct tape is also a great idea. Hint: label the sides of the boxes so you can still be able to read the labels even when they are stacked.
5. Last but not least, don’t procrastinate
Do you plan to travel to Oxford to help your student move? Encourage them to have their clothes semi-packed and their closet cleaned out ready to go BEFORE you get there. That is a big bulk of moving out and if they have that done, it will make moving out of the dorms/apartments much faster and easier.
If you don’t want to transport some of your student’s furniture or personal goods, make sure to check out our friends at University Avenue Storage to get a storage unit before they are all gone!
Happy Moving!