Every so often, a person or a family is ready to move out of their current residence and relocate their lives to another address, or even another city or state. When this time comes, it is important to have the right help to move a person or family’s many possessions, from furniture to silverware, from residence to another without any trouble along the way. Sometimes a family can do this themselves, especially if they have few items or own a large truck or SUV, but more often, the right call is to contact and hire local movers to help with carrying furniture, packing fragile items, and much more when making the move to a new address. A moving company will provide not only the crew members to move and lift items, but also a trailer or a truck for storing everything and delivering it all to the new address. When finding moving services for hire, there are some factors that a client may want to consider first, and a mover may also want to remember some general statistics about moving so they can figure out the best way to go about it.
Who Moves?
Plenty of Americans every year, whether a single person or a large family, will move from one residence to another, and a wide variety of local movers will be at the ready to lend a hand. It has been determined, for example, that an average American will move about 12 times in their life, and that an average 30-year-old has already moved six times. Among renters, the rate is even higher, where 33% of people will move every single year (since they have no property payments or mortgages to think about). From the years 2015 and 2016, for a recent example, the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement has found that 11.2% of the entire U.S. population had moved from one residence to another.
What is being moved? For private households, it may not be uncommon for a massive collection of items, from furniture to books to children’s or babies’ toys, to be packed up and moved by skilled workers from local movers. The average American household has a staggering 300,000 items in it, big and small, and sometimes, businesses will hire moving companies as well. In this case, computers, copiers and electronic office equipment is a major portion of what local movers will relocate for a business client, along with other items like desks, filing cabinets, conference room chairs, or even wall art, although this may vary from one client to another, and some of these non-electronic items may already be set up at the new office space. Overall, homeowners and businesses represent a fairly even divide of who local movers will work for; 44% of clients are individuals, and 38% are businesses.
Making the Move
Picking up one’s entire life and moving it to another street, city, or even state can be a major undertaking, and it is important for any household to have everything ready. Moving can act as a great opportunity for households to re-evaluate what they want to keep and what can be donated or thrown away, especially in terms of clothing, kitchen items, and kids’ toys. Families can, well before they hire local movers, gather items by category (rather than room of origin) and carefully pick through what they really want and need, and what was kept just for the sake of it. Excess clothes can be donated to local charities, and kids’ toys can also be given away. Overall, this allows a household to more easily move the smaller inventory.
Items can be packed into cardboard boxes (there are specialized boxes available for this) and homeowners can pack items by either room or category and clearly label everything. Next, local movers can be contacted, and a client can compare their rates, experience, how far they will go, and customer reviews. It will be important to get previous customer feedback to make sure that a mover will act responsibly with a client’s items and not ambush the client with unexpected fees or payments (which could happen). Once a suitable mover is chosen, that company will help the client pack up everything and deliver it by either trailer or truck to the new address.