Moving Tips Part 2 - Prepping Your New Home for the Move

As I go through the process of moving from my first solo-apartment to my first (solo) house, I am covering some tips for people who are, well, moving! On Monday I talked about packing, and today I’m going to talk about prepping your new home or apartment for your move. Sometimes, due to timing of lease or the distance of your move, it’s not possible to prep the new place…but if it is possible, it’s absolutely something you should do.

We’ll make a list. I like lists. Actually we’ll make a couple of lists.

First, you’re going to want to walk through the new house/apartment while it is empty and catalogue anything that is wrong with it. If you are moving into an apartment, this is critical because you will be asked to turn in a checklist where you list the existing damages. If you’re moving into a house, you should do this during the inspection, and again during the final walkthrough. You can use this information to ask for money off the house price, make sure nothing changes between the inspection and final walk through, and to make a To Fix List for yourself.

Things to Look For:

1. Open all of the windows to make sure the open correctly. Look for rips in the screens as well. You also may want to check for broken seals and drafts – those things will jack up your heating bill in the winter.
   
2. If possible, run the furnace and/or AC. You can mess with the thermostat to make these things turn on during the off-season.
   
3. Run all faucets and flush all toilets. Look for water that doesn’t drain correctly and faucets that don’t run well or drip.
4. Run all appliances (if they are included with the apartment/house). Stove, laundry machines, dishwasher, garbage disposal, oven, fridge (don’t forget any automatic ice makers or electronic garage doors!)
   
5. Examine shower grout and caulk. Shower tile should be properly grouted and a bead of caulk should run between the tub and shower walls, and around the edges of the shower. These sealants prevent moisture from getting into the wall and causing mold. If it’s a house, you can easily (and inexpensively) fix this, and you’ll want to do so right away. If it’s an apartment, you can ask them to fix this.
6. Examine all heat vents. Look for broken stuff.
7. Look for water damage. Namely, check ceilings and basements. You want to make sure that your place doesn’t leak. If you’re in a lower story apartment, still check – I had a leak on the first floor because the complex never cleaned the gutters. In a house, you’ll want to make sure the ground slopes down from the house; if it doesn’t, you can re-grate the yard to prevent possible leaks.
8. Check gutters. This is only relevant in a house, but make sure these aren’t broken. You’ll want to clean them when you move in, so don’t worry about that, but make sure all the pieces are there.
9. Check locks – make sure locks and keys work. Sometimes they don’t.
10. Look for bug or rodent problems – look for bed bugs, roaches, and mouse turds. This is important in a house or apartment -  the last thing you want is to move n somewhere with an infestation problem…and even clean places can have these issues. For apartments, check online reviews to investigate this thoroughly, as well as peering into dark crevices and looking for droppings. In a house, you can looks at the peoples’ bed for the bedbugs (they won’t be there during the inspection, so this won’t seem that weird).
11. Examine the exterior for cracks and holes – you can’t get money off your house because of this (unless it’s terrible, but then you might not want to buy that house), but you will want to seal those cracks to keep pests, cold air, and water away.

Once you buy/rent a property, you’ll want to clean it before you move any stuff into it (if you can). It will never be easier to clean the house as it will be now, when there’s no stuff in your way. Apartments generally replace carpet and do a small clean before renting an apartment out, but you still want to deep clean the kitchen and bathroom (because they don’t do that). If you’re getting a house, you will want to thoroughly remove any residual dirt, pet hair, cigarette smoke, or other gunk. The last thing you want is to deal with someone else’s dirt and germs.

Here’s a list of some Important Things to Clean.

1. Kitchen cupboards. Wipe out the cupboards with an all-purpose cleaner. Be mindful of any sticky spots, crumbs, and greasemarks – including the marks on the cupboard doors. I use a mixture of 1:1 vinegar and water. It costs almost nothing. If the cupboard are really bad, you can use a degreaser and paper towels to get the excess crumbs.
2. Closets. Same thing – wipe out with all-purpose cleaner. The degree of scrubbing depends on the dirtiness of the shelves
3. Windows & Blinds – you can wash the windows and clean out the tracks. These are often-neglected jobs in both houses and apartments, but clean windows and tracks makes a huge difference to both your view out the window and the amount of dust in your home.
4. Kitchen Appliances. These will probably be pretty dirty. Apartments don’t clean them, and a lot of people don’t clean them. If you have a self-cleaning oven, run that – warning: it will take about 4-5 hours. You can scrub of a cooktop or range with degreaser, all-purpose cleaner, or special cooktop cleaner (if you have a cooktop), depending on how bad the range is. Cooked on food can sometimes come out with baking soda and brush. The fridge can be cleaned out with all-purpose cleaner as well, or degreaser if it’s terrible.
5. Laundry Machines. Make sure the washing machine doesn’t smell – if it does, run it on the cleaning cycle, and wipe the rubber gasket with vinegar or all purpose cleaner. Vacuum the vents of your dryer (can disassemble the back of the machine) and clean out the lint trap. This will improve the efficiency of the machine and prevent fires.
6. Vents. Vacuum your heat vents and the vent fans in the bathroom(s). These are huge contributors to inefficiency and dust.
7. Carpet. In an apartment, hopefully they cleaned this professionally or replaced it. In a house, you may want to hire carpet cleaners, especially if the previous owners had pets. There are also DIY methods you can look up – I only have carpet on my stairs and in the closets, so I used Rosenthal to clean up stains. Since carpet has to dry after being cleaned, you do it before you move in. If you don’t need to clean the carpet beyond a quick vacuum, don’t worry about it before you move. You will track in dirt during the moving process anyway.
   
8. Walls. Hopefully you won’t need to do this, but check and see if the walls are super dusty or stained. You should be able to just spot clean marks and grease spots, unless the house is filthy.
9. Basement & Garage Ceilings. Vacuum these, preferably with a shop-vac. They collect spider webs and dust, and it’s an easy thing you can do to start your new residence in cleanliness
10. Upholstery. Sometimes apartments are furnished and house-sellers leave you stuff. If the upholstery is in good shape and the place seems clean, just vacuum it. If the place isn’t real clean or it has spots, you can use upholstery cleaner.
11. Bathroom Tile. Get some good grout cleaner and scrub that grout! This job sucks, but it’s worth it when your grout returns from dingy brownish-gray to white. And no, most apartments and homeowners do not do this.
12. Bathrooms In General. Bathrooms are gross and you don’t want to leave this uncleaned. Clean the toilet, shower, and sink as you normally would, but be attentive to detail. You should probably do this first so you can use the bathroom while you are working. You can also wipe out vanity cabinets.

***Notice that I didn't include floors. If they're bad, you may want to clean them - especially before you put heavy furniture in a room - but otherwise, you might as well vacuum after you track in all the dirt during your move***

These lists are, sadly, not fully comprehensive. Clean anything that is dirty and catalogue anything that is broken. But they are a good starting place!

Whew! Tired yet? Getting a place prepped for move-in is a lot of work, but it’s worth it once you’re done!

Apartments tend to be easier to deal with than houses, since they’re usually semi-clean and they’re a lot smaller, but don’t neglect this task in either type of property. And this will prevent you from going to put away towels and finding grease or crumbs in the linen closet, touching something gross on the stove, or having other unpleasant surprises when you’re first moved in. You can do these jobs after you move in, if you have to move right away due to an ending lease or if you’re moving several hours away…it’s just way easier to clean an empty house.

Stay tuned for Part 3 – Actually Moving Stuff.