Family Owned Packing Services
West Valley City, Utah

People end up packing houses that are not theirs more often than you would think. A parent who cannot manage it, a relative in hospital, somebody who has moved ahead of their belongings, or a household where illness has made the job impossible.

It is a different job from packing your own home, and the difference is not physical.

Just-In-Time Moving is locally owned and packs homes across West Valley City and Salt Lake County.

Pack, do not sort

The most important rule and the one people break with the best intentions.

When you pack somebody else's house you will constantly encounter things that look like rubbish and are not, and things that look valuable and are not. You do not have the context, and the context is not recoverable later.

So pack almost everything, and defer the decisions to the person whose things they are, even if that is slower and even if it means moving things that will eventually be discarded. The alternative is throwing away something that mattered, which cannot be undone.

If the volume is genuinely impossible, sort into keep and undecided rather than keep and discard, and let the undecided be revisited.

Look for the important things first

Before any packing, go through the whole house looking only for documents, financial papers, jewellery, medication and photographs.

In a long-occupied home these are rarely in one place. They are taped inside drawers, in books, in coat pockets and at the back of wardrobes. Finding them first means they are safe before anything is moved, and it means you are not looking for a deed in a stack of forty boxes in six weeks.

Label for somebody who was not there

Number the boxes and keep a list with real detail, because the person unpacking will have no memory of the packing. Contents matter here in a way they do not in your own move.

Photograph rooms before you dismantle them, particularly if anything is going back in a similar arrangement. It helps enormously with furniture and with shelves.

Ask before you throw anything away

Even things that seem obvious. Especially things that seem obvious.

And if you are doing this for somebody who could be consulted but it would be slower, consult them anyway. The efficiency is not worth what it costs.

If the job is beyond what family can reasonably do, we pack whole houses and can work to whatever instructions have been agreed. The estimate is free and in writing.

Call (435) 862-3080 or email office@movingjustintime.com.