10 Reasons Self Storage Can Help When Moving House

Reduce The Stress Of Moving House

According to a survey of home buyers carried out by Legal and General, 57% of people identified moving house as being the most stressful thing you can do. The finding cut across genders, with 51% of men agreeing and 62% of women, and perhaps surprisingly, ‘having a child’ was pushed into second place amongst women, with 32% of them citing it as the most stressful life event.

Asked what symptoms of stress they had experienced during the process of moving house, respondents to the survey listed the following:

• Worries over financial security – 33%
• Arguments with partner – 25%
• Anxiety – 41%
• Increased stress levels – 47%
• Sleep deprivation – 31%

Given all of that, it’s no wonder that people who are moving house do everything they can to reduce their stress levels, and often that means making use of self storage. According to the Self Storage Annual Report published in 2022 by the Self Storage Association UK, 29% of all of the customers making use of self storage are doing so while involved in moving house. Clearly, self storage isn’t going to stop worries about issues such as exchanging contracts or getting stuck in a chain, but it can ease the general process of dealing with those problems, and what follows is a list of 10 reasons why making use of self storage could very well take a fair amount of the stress out of moving house:

1. Breaks Up The Packing Process

Packing is a pain. So is unpacking. That’s true when we’re talking about a holiday and it’s multiplied 100 times over (at least) when you have to deal with the contents of your house. If you don’t make use of self storage then the alternative is packing all at once in the days leading up to the move, or living for weeks in a house full of crates and cardboard boxes as you gradually pack away the items you don’t need on a day to day basis. And then guess what? You have to do exactly the same in reverse when you get into your new house. After all the stress of moving – which could well mean shifting the contents of your home several hundred miles – you’re faced with a new house crammed with the entire contents of your old house, all of it needing unpacking and shifting into the right places before you can truly settle in. If you make use of self storage, on the other hand, you can gradually pack and shift your belongings into storage, starting with the least important and utilised items and then leaving them in storage for longer after you move into your new house.

2. The Chance To De-clutter

De-cluttering your house has become quite the trend in recent years – getting rid of anything which doesn’t ‘spark joy’ etc., but when you’re moving house it can be worth de-cluttering by moving items into self storage for a number of reasons. The first of these is that you might well be hoping to get somebody else to buy the house you’re moving out of. According to property platform Boomin, 51% of buyers claimed they would be deterred from buying a house if it contained a large level of clutter, so it’s not just a question of ‘clearing your psychic space’. If you take the time to de-clutter your house before showing prospective buyers around you could enjoy the following advantages:

• An empty loft offered as a storage space or the potential to be the site of a loft conversion
• A garage cleared of junk which could fit the family car
• A shed which is empty and could provide valuable storage space
• Shelves which aren’t cluttered with books and paperwork
• Cupboards which don’t empty out as soon as you open the door
• Rooms which are emptier and thus show off their true size and potential
• The tops of wardrobes are bare and clean looking 
• The absence of too many personal items enables potential buyers on a viewing to paint their own picture of what the house would look like for them

3. Learning What’s Important 

Once you’ve de-cluttered, as outlined above, you’ll have the chance to find out how much of the stuff which you’ve put in storage you actually need. When you move into your new house you’ll be presented with a completely blank canvas, enabling you to move your items out of self storage gradually, cluttering up your new house in the same way your old house was cluttered. The point is that you might not actually do this, because once things have been in self storage for a while you may decide that you can actually get by without them after all. In other words, using self storage to de-clutter your old house may be the very best way to enjoy a new start with a de-cluttered new house.

4. In-between Houses

The traditional view of moving from one house to another involves packing up your belongings at one end, trundling along in the removal van, and unpacking at the other end. In many cases, however, you may find yourself in the no-man’s land of being between houses. You’ve moved out of one house but for some reason – perhaps a contractual issue, perhaps some building work that needs to be done – you can’t immediately move into your new house. Clearly, you’ll need temporary accommodation of some kind, but you’re hardly likely to be able to move the contents of your house to a temporary rental property or hotel room. Having the stuff in storage means that you know it’s all safe until you can sort out the problem that’s stopping you moving into your new house. It could be that you sell your house first because you get an offer that’s too good to turn down, and then set about looking for a new house while you move in with a family member. Then, when you’ve found the house, you just take your stuff out of self storage.

5. Room For Improvement

There’s probably no better time to take a look around your house and decide what needs to be done to improve it than when you first move in. That won’t be quite so easy, however, if every available surface and bit of floor space is covered with stuff from your old house. The first priority suddenly becomes sorting through all this stuff and deciding where in your new house it goes – all the mundane business of unpacking. If you’ve opted to keep some of the contents of your old house in self storage, on the other hand, then you’ve got a lot more space and time to consider exactly what needs to be done in your new house. You can have tradespeople such as builders, carpenters and carpet fitters in without having to move furniture around from room to room, for example, and any work such as decorating which is carried out won’t be done with the risk of dirtying or damaging your belongings.

6. Security Through The Move

No matter how carefully you plan there’s simply no getting away from the fact that moving house is a deeply chaotic process. Take a look around your home next time you get the chance and just imagine having to put every single thing that belongs to you away in cases, boxes and finally a moving van and then do the same thing in reverse at the other end of the line. It’s hugely unlikely that you’ll be able to do all of that without losing or damaging some of your treasured possessions,  unless you remove a degree of the chaos by slowly shifting things – perhaps emphasising the more fragile, valuable and important items – into self storage.

7. Temporary Moves

Moving house doesn’t always mean moving house completely. Sometimes you may be moving out of one house because you’ve got a new job in another part of the country but not immediately into a new house. Perhaps your new employers are providing you with temporary accommodation while you settle into your new job and look for a new permanent place to live. Alternatively, it may be that the job is only temporary, for a period of something like 18 months. In a case such as this you wouldn’t really want to either leave all of your belongings in your empty house for 18 months or move them all into a new house, so self storage could provide the ideal means of keeping the things that belong to you safe and secure.

8. Ideal For International Moves

The same principle that applies to moving for work in the UK, also applies if you find yourself relocating to another country on a temporary basis. Shifting everything overseas will usually be deeply impractical, but you might want to rent your property out while you’re overseas, with just the minimum of furnishings remaining. Putting everything that doesn’t stay in the house into self storage will mean that it’s ready and waiting and in perfect condition when you move back to the UK.

9. Moving From Unfurnished To Furnished

On many occasions, home owners will find themselves becoming renters for a temporary period of time. It could be because you need to move into a new house after selling your house but before buying a new house. In cases such as this it would be a huge shame to have to sell your belongings because you can’t move them into your rented property, and shifting them into self storage is a safe and affordable solution. When circumstances change and you move out of your rented furnished accommodation you’ll be able to take your belongings out of self storage and move them into your new house.

10. Life Changes

Moving out of your house isn’t always part of moving into a new house. Sometimes, a change in your life circumstances might mean that you’re no longer able to carry on living in your house and have to move back in with parents, for example. It could be that a relationship has ended and the property needs to be sold with the proceeds being divided, or maybe you’ve left university and need somewhere to store the stuff which you’ve gathered over three years of living in student accommodation. In some cases, people might find that losing a job or getting demoted means that they can no longer afford to stay in their current house. This is distressing enough in itself, but will be even worse if you also have to part with many of your personal belongings. Putting them into self storage is a simple and affordable solution until circumstances change and you get back on your feet again.