You already know what you need to do before you move – turn off utilities to your old place, pack up your life, connect TV and internet – but what do you do when you get there?
1. Get utilities up and running.
Actually, this is something you’ll want to do before you move in to your new home. For some reason it seems like getting utilities set up always becomes an event, right? Make sure to notify the utility company for your new place to transfer them to your name.
2. Call the locksmith.
You never know who the previous owners gave keys to, so you’ll want to get new keys and change the locks as soon as you can. You certainly don’t want to suddenly be making friends with some stranger who has a key to your house.
3. Get buddy-buddy with the circuit breaker box and main water valve.
Don’t wait until the power goes out or your toilet overflows; become familiar with them and ensure the breakers are labeled. If they are, double check so they correspond to the right areas of the house.
4. Check out the safety features of home (i.e. smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, security systems).
Go through your house and check to make sure all the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors work. Bring some batteries along with you too just in case.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to change the garage code if you have one, but if there’s a security system, you’ll need to reconnect the service or choose a new provider. Or you could just leave it and have the alarm armed, the noise alone could deter a possible intruder.
5. Use inspection report as a to-do list for any maintenance fixes (if you didn’t ask the seller to do them before you moved in).
Get these out of the way before you’re too comfortable in your new home, otherwise you run the risk of putting them off until they become a bigger problem. Using the home inspection report, make a list of fixes from the most to least urgent.
6. Change your address.
It’s pretty easy these days to change your address – just go to the USPS website, go to their Change of Address page, and they’ll lead you through the process. This way, you won’t miss anything important coming through the snail mail. And while you’re at it, you might as well register to vote under your new address and update your license.
7. Remember to keep all your moving receipts.
Did you know there’s tax write-offs for certain moving expenses? Make a designated collecting place for them, like a folder or a notebook, and make notes on what each item is, including information that may be helpful once you’re filing your taxes.
8. Change air filters and toilet seats.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be sharing a toilet seat with the previous owners – you never know what crime scenes happened there. Replacing the toilet seats will give you that peace of mind.
Additionally, you don’t want to be breathing the same dust as the previous owners. Unless you know the sellers changed them when they moved out, install some new air filters and mark the date on them so you can keep up with it.
It’s best to make these things into a checklist before you move, along with anything that might pertain to you personally. This way, you won’t work yourself into a panic when you realize your forgot to change your address after wondering why you haven’t gotten mail in a few months. Hopefully it wouldn’t take you that long to notice, but we can’t all be perfect. To err is human and to forgive is divine or however that saying goes.
