The biggest moving home fails revealed
Moving home is stressful at the best of times; you’re constantly trying to ensure that you’ve remembered to box everything, packed everything correctly and ensure that you don’t damage any of the new furniture.
If you think you’re the only one that’s suffered a big mishap on moving in day, arguable one of your biggest life events, then you’re wrong. A survey of 2,000 movers has shown that over half of homeowners (yes, half!) have experienced some sort of stress inducing fail on their big day.
A third of these have had furniture delivered only to find that the furniture is in fact damaged, while a quarter have found that one of their removal boxes had split on them, smashing objects and making things twice as difficult to carry.
The top 10 moving home fails are:
1. Damaged furniture
2. Scratched walls
3. Not being able to fit an item through the door
4. Not being able to manoeuvre furniture up/down the stairs
5. Not being able to manoeuvre furniture around a corner
6. Boxes breaking and the contents spilling out everywhere
7. The previous residents not clearing up – or leaving things behind
8. The house not being ready
9. Not having everything packed up in time
10. Delicate possessions breaking
Sadly, a huge 90% of people have had possessions broken in the moving process, with the average cost of replacing that item costing £196. Ouch!
As well as finding out what difficulties movers had when moving home, Happy Beds also looked into what pieces of furniture were the most difficult to transport from one property to another. It’s no surprise that the wardrobe took the top spot, followed by the sofa and then delicates such as vases and kitchen china.
Mike Fallon, director and conveyancing solicitor at Howells Solicitors, offers some handy move-in advice:
“Delegating tasks to supportive friends and family is an effective way of helping the move go smoothly.
Having the support of people you can rely on can really make the difference – taking the worry out of this exciting period of your life.
If you can relax in the knowledge that the exchange and completion is in safe hands and will go through without a hitch, that is one less concern off your plate and you can concentrate on packing and unpacking again.”
Preparing yourself for the worst is the best method, so that you know exactly what to do in advance of it actually happening. This will take some of the strain off so you’re not panicking about something unexpected.
It’s also important to remember that this is such a special day in your life, so you’re best off focusing on all of the good things rather than the things that go wrong. You only get a first home once!
