'I moved home while nine months pregnant – here's how I did it with minimal stress'
I’m not sure if it was optimism, denial, or sheer wilfulness that led to me moving house at nine months’ pregnant. But despite people’s jaw-to-the-floor reactions when I mentioned this turn of events, a surprising number revealed they had been in a similar boat.
I guess little in life presents quite such a hard deadline as pregnancy.
Lacking energy, headspace and with fingers (and legs) crossed against an early delivery, I resolved to take the only sensible course of action and delegate as much of the hard work as possible. Here’s who I enlisted to help me with a smooth move.
Decluttering
Home Straight UK
There’s a reason decluttering shows make great television. Telling someone their beloved possessions have seen better days and might not even make the charity pile is a high-stakes task, but Kate Hunter is charming enough to pull it off without causing too much offence. Working alongside a Gentleman and a Van (more on them later), she is there to make sure you only move with what you need.
She came to my flat for a free one-hour consultation, then agreed to an intensive clearout the day before I was booked to move out. Under Hunter’s beady eye, bags and bags of things to be sent either to charity or the tip piled up in my living room and her energy kept me going for five straight hours. Had I been moving to less of a fixer-upper, where many months later most things are still shoved in a big cupboard, Hunter would have also come in and helped me unpack and arrange my new home.
Booked via a Gentleman and a Van. Minimum £150/ two hours — a daily rate is negotiable. Travel, parking and materials are not included.
Packing and moving
Gentleman and a Van
Enlisting a pack-and-move service to help you relocate makes the process unnervingly simple. Rather than dutifully piling and shifting for days, if not weeks, in preparation, I was free to live my normal life among my possessions right up to the wire. Sharply dressed Mark Godman, the gentleman at the helm of a fleet of vans, came for a quick survey of my flat a few weeks before my planned move (he recommends booking at least a fortnight in advance to allow time to suspend parking).
Then, on move day, four charming men in branded navy polo shirts arrived, laden with cardboard boxes, packing paper and bubble wrap, and got to work with a cheerful efficiency I have never once mustered for packing. The entire flat was wrapped, boxed and dispatched in one morning and on the road by lunchtime. All I had to do was answer the occasional question about the destination of an unlabelled item.
While you don’t need to lift a finger with a pack-and-move if you choose not to, it is recommended to pack anything potentially embarrassing yourself — it’s likely more comfortable all round if your knicker drawer remains a private affair. I would also suggest taking full responsibility for anything really precious. Whilemost boxes were carefully and professionally packed, down to a tube of toothpaste, a couple of cheap picture frames were less thoroughly secured and smashed in transit.
Hourly priced removals from £85+ VAT per hour; pack-and-move service from £700+VAT; to book call 020 8874 4283 or email info@gentlemanandavan.co.uk; gentlemanandavan.co.uk
Move-out clean
Fantastic Services
If you’re leaving a rental, as I was, the best way to make sure your landlord can’t try any funny business with your deposit is with a specialist move-out clean, from an operator who can provide you with a certificate if you so need. So ran my added justification for outsourcing the de-Prudence-ification of my flat.
Fantastic Services offer a wealth of ad hoc domestic help, including a move-out clean in which no nook or cranny is left unwiped. Two cleaners arrived punctually at the allotted time, with all products and equipment needed to leave all surfaces sparkling, from the carpets to the inside of the oven. No manicures were harmed in the restitution of that deposit.
End-of-tenancy cleaning service starts from £109 for a studio; fantasticservices.com
Handyman
Task Rabbit
Once the movers and cleaners were gone, I found myself with several unsightly holes and chips in my walls. At this point I really wasn’t inclined to get acquainted with a tub of Polyfilla, so a handyman’s assistance was required. Not thus far a great one for renovations, I didn’t have one on speed dial but needed someone who could come quickly while I still had legal possession of the house keys.
This is where Task Rabbit came in. It’s a database of hundreds of London-based “Taskers” including handymen bookable up to 15 days in advance, with their photo, hourly rate and particular skills prominently displayed, and reviews and further information a mere click away. I found people offering their skills from as little as £35/hour to over £100/hour and struggled to know what I thought was an appropriate fee to indicate reliability and professionalism without being too much of a chancer.
In the end I settled on Sami, thanks to his good rating, over 60 positive reviews, reasonable £45 an hour and the fact that he was available. I gave him details about the job and sent photos via the dedicated chat so we were clear on pricing and what tools and materials he needed. And now I have a handyman on speed dial.
Tasks have a one-hour minimum and can then be charged in 15-minute increments; VAT and a trust and safety fee (27 per cent) are added to the advertised rate; taskrabbit.co.uk
Storage
Gentleman and a Van
Anyone who has navigated the London property market enough knows it’s perfectly likely they’ll spend some time in interim accommodation while waiting to complete on a new home. Delays in the process are about the only certainty and so it was in my case too, necessitating a couple of months in another rental before getting the keys to my new home.
Loath to move with things I wouldn’t use for several weeks, I decided to avail myself of the storage facility provided by Gentleman and a Van. During the de-clutter, Kate Hunter had helped me streamline the essentials I needed to move with immediately with allthe rest destined for storage.
The company offers a month’s free storage to new customers with three-month minimum occupancy. Once I moved to my final destination, a brief email and the remainder of my worldly possessions arrived the next week.
Storage from £20 plus VAT per container, per week