Countdown to the move.

[rivka]

I just hired movers. We'll be moving on June 18th, 25 days from now, which means that it's time to start packing but not yet time to panic.

I've never been professionally moved before. The closest I've come is with the move from Iowa to Maryland, when we packed and unpacked the truck entirely by ourselves but had a professional do the driving. This feels so luxurious by comparison: three guys will show up at our apartment, wrap our furniture to protect it from scratches, load it onto their truck, drive it to Baltimore, and unload it into the proper rooms in our new house. For $94 an hour, it seems so worth it.

I'm posting my list of things to do before we move. I'm largely doing it as an aid to memory, but feel free to suggest things I've left out.
- Get boxes (curiousangel is a Hero of the Revolution.) and packing tape.
- Find out where our landlords want the June rent delivered - new house or old? (Rent check handed off.)
- Pick up our housekeys and make an additional copy if necessary.
- Set up utilities for the new place. Obviously we'll need to transfer phone, cable (TV and modem (Except that we can't get a cable modem in the new place, damn it, and there's no way to get started with DSL until our phone service starts up.)), and gas & electric, and we'll probably need to set up service for water, (Landlords will keep water in their name.) but do we need to pay for trash pickup? (Looks like our taxes cover trash and recycling pickups twice a week. Cool.) Do we have a gas furnace, or will we need to get heating oil delivered? (No heating oil necessary.)
- Switch over our insurance (renters' and auto).
- Change our address: post office, DMV, bank, Netflix subscription, magazine subscriptions, job, unemployment office, church, University of Iowa, anyone who has curiousangel's resume, friends & family.
- Pick up a neighborhood residents' parking permit from the city. (Must change address with DMV first.)
- Figure out how best to sell our station wagon, and sell it.
- Find the major supermarket closest to the new house (there's a medium-sized grocery store right around the corner but the selection isn't the greatest), and figure out how to get there.
- Transfer our prescriptions from our local CVS to the CVS nearest the new house.
- Figure out commuting, including deciding between a bus pass or bulk tokens to get to my research office, and figuring out whether I can take public transportation to my clinic in PG County.
- Switch over voter registration.
- Get Baltimore City library cards. Avoid giving up old Howard County library cards if at all possible.

Comments

[geminigirl]

On a completely unrelated note, I am supposed to meet the beloved melebeth in Baltimore sometime after 5, and was planning on dropping by your place with banana bread on the way. (It's in the oven now.) Is this okay?

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would be great! Thank you so much again.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Looks like a good plan!

I look forward to seeing you happily settled in your new home.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Why would you have to give up your Howard County library cards? I mean...why would they even have to know you moved?

Yay, professional movers!!

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

*looks around apartment* *shakes at thought of having to move this stuff ever again* *realizes will have to again someday, just not before February*

Will you organize my next move? ;)

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I discovered I could do all the address changes for magazines and memberships and credit cards on the web. Also check the Baltimore web page for info about licenses and utilities and stuff. Seattle has one of the best, most helpful websites I've ever seen. May you be so lucky!

MKK

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Make at least three times the number of house keys that you think you really need. Last time I went to copy keys I think I made 12 copies...
One each of course. One to leave with a trusted someone, or at work as an "emergency" spare. One or two for guests, or the person who takes care of the cat while you are away and so on.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

P.S. Don't forget to notify utilities and suppliers to turn *off* the old utilities.

[ex-helygen254.livejournal.com]

Get Baltimore City library cards. Avoid giving up old Howard County library cards if at all possible.

Per http://www.hclibrary.org/library/borrow_borrowing.html: "If you live, work or attend school in Maryland, you are eligible to apply for a Howard County Library card."

Happy moving!

[ororo.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

ah - the luxury of professinal movers - I have had that once - when moving from a third floor walk up in Evanston down to C/U. I had everything boxes and they loaded the truck and drove the truck and unloaded the truck.

They though it was very nice that I had a bunch of cold water and soda in the fridge for them.

Add to list - Leave a few large vanilla folders with your new address on it and a post it attchaed with about $10 asking new resident to please use this envelope to forward any mail that sneaks thru the Post office forwarding system.