Moving Out: 3 Important Tips
If you live in the D.C. area and you move around a lot, you aren’t alone.
Finding the right place to live due to changing work locations, your individualized preferences, and a range of other variables can be difficult.
Unfortunately move in and move out days will be apart of the transition as you bounce around. While moving isn’t fun to begin with, luckily our team has assisted clients through the process thousands of times and we know what it takes to transition a busy D.C. area professional.
Although choosing great movers is an important step, today’s article isn’t about moving. Through witnessing particular client pain points and best practices in the move out process, our team has listed a few actions you should take to ensure you aren’t left in a stressful or expensive situation.
Tip No. 1: Keep it clean.
Although this may seem like a small issue, landlords will cut into security deposits if your home isn’t clean when you move out. More often than not, you’ll likely get charged extra not only for the cleaning itself, but your landlord’s time to deal with the problem.
Unfortunately we’ve seen multiple clients and some upset landlords (on the other side of the table) fall victim to this scenario.
You should clean all surfaces, floors, and carpets thoroughly after your furniture is moved out. While you may be able to clean most of your home by yourself, we highly recommend using a professional carpet cleaning company
Our local vendor of choice for the D.C., Maryland, and Northern Virginia area is the Neighborhood Carpet Cleaners (NCC). NCC is not only veteran owned, but they have 502+ excellent reviews on Google with 14+ years of experience. They’ll clean any surface and even offer you a discount for yearly move out cleanings.
Tip No. 2: Remediate damages.
If you have any damage present prior to moving out, we highly recommend remediating the damages to avoid additional charges from your landlord.
One very specific thing to look out for is holes drilled in your wall. It’s not uncommon for our team to dismount TVs and discover a series of large, conjoined holes from a DIY TV mounting project. If you find yourself in this situation, we highly recommend you hire a handyman to patch the holes and mount your TV at your new home. In addition, always reference your leasing agreement and verify with your landlord to ensure that you’re allowed to mount wall items at your new home.
While it may be convenient to have your landlord take care of this after you move out, remember that they may charge you for their time in addition to the repair.
Tip No. 3: Cancel utilities.
While this may seem obvious, we no longer live in the era of cable and satellite TV, so it’s not uncommon to forget about utilities.
Amidst the madness, make sure you call well in advance to cancel your old utilities and ensure you don’t pay for more than what you need throughout this expensive process.
While moving is usually stressful, our team offers great client service and advice to help make the process stress free. For more insightful content, stay in touch by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and/or LinkedIn.
Are you getting ready to move locally or long distance from a start point in the D.C. metropolitan area?
