ECT Moving & Cleaning News

The Cheapest Way to Move a Mattress (Discount Tips)

Moving a mattress can definitely be a huge hassle. Because of the size of a mattress, it can be difficult to transport your mattress from one place to another. Things are going to be even harder for you if your mattress is larger or heavier. With that said, if you’re hoping to move your mattress without spending a fortune, there are some options you can try.

Enlist the Help of Your Family and Friends

You don’t necessarily need professionals in order to move heavy items like mattresses. Let your family members and friends know that you’re going to be moving. See if any of them are willing to help you. A lot of people will be glad to assist you with your move if you supply them with food.

If you can work with people you know instead of movers, you’ll be able to spend a lot less. If you have enough manpower on hand, you’ll be able to move any item without issue, even something as heavy as a mattress.

Move Your Mattress Last

If you’re trying to navigate your mattress around the other furnishings in your home, you’re going to have a tough time. Instead of moving your mattress right away, you should prop it up against the wall. You can move in later on when all of these items are out of the way.

You don’t have to rush to move your mattress. If you save this job for last, the experience will be a lot smoother. In addition to that, it’s far less likely that items will be damaged while you’re transporting your mattress. You’ll be able to save yourself some trouble and protect your stuff at the same time.

See If You Have the Option of Hiring Movers When You Rent a Truck

If you’re already going to be spending money to rent a truck or a van for your move, you should see if you can afford to hire movers as well. While it can be very costly to hire movers, the price will be a lot lower if you’re the one taking care of the truck. Depending on your location, it’s possible that you’ll be able to hire movers for as little as $100.

If you do hire movers, they’ll be able to load and unload the truck you’ve rented for you. This means that they’ll be able to move your mattress. You won’t have to lift a finger; they’ll do all the hard work. Your movers won’t just help you with your mattress; they’ll take charge of your move and make things easy for you.

Look Into Replacing Your Mattress

Are you happy with your mattress? If you’re not satisfied with your current mattress, and you’ve been thinking about replacing it anyway, why not do that now? It doesn’t make sense to spend money to move your mattress if you already wanted a new one.

If you do replace your mattress after your move, you’ll only have to move your old mattress to a place where it can be disposed of. Doing this will save you from the stress of moving a mattress, and it will also allow you to pick out a mattress that will allow you to sleep peacefully at night. If you need a good discount just Google something like ‘mattress coupons’ and you’ll find countless disocunts.

If you’re concerned about how much it will cost to move your mattress, you should take a deep breath. While moving items like this can be expensive, there are also a lot of things that you can do that will allow you to spend less. If you look at all of your choices, you’ll be able to control your spending and still get your mattress taken care of.

Spring Clean like a Pro!

Spring cleaning. No one want’s… Ok, yes I know it’s boring but your don’t need to fall asleep just yet!

Are you back? Ok good!

As I was saying no one want to spring clean at the end of the day. It sucks! But is a good thing to do on a yearly basis. Here are my top tips for spring cleaning like a pro and save you some money while you’re at it.

1. Use an Onion to cry all day clean your Grill

You heard me! Use an onion. Yes, the thing that makes grown men cry.

You will want to heat your grill just slightly, then spray on some white vinegar. Let it site for a minute or so and the go to town! Use half and onion like a sponge and scrub hard. The acid in the onion will actually help break up the left over residue.

2. The Magic of Dustpans and Mop Buckets

Do you only have small sinks in your home? How are you going to fill that mop bucket?

Let me introduce you to the dustpan-mop-bucket combo! I’ll the the picture do the talking for you. Now you know how to do it right? Got it, good!

Now don’t forget to bill the builder of the property for the cost of your dustpan on the basis that they should have installed sinks that are large enough to fill a bucket with!

3. The Good Old Towel around the Broom Trick!

You have a towel…

You have a broom…

You have hard to reach places that are a pain to dust…

Are you getting this? Ok, if not it’s quite simple really. Wrap your town around the top of your broom. You can even use some duct tape to hold it in place. You how have a long duster that can reach all the places you couldn’t before hand!

4. Lemon Fresh Sinks!

Do your skins have those ugly water stains? That’s an easy fix. Take a lemon, cut it in half and get to work. Scrub that sink like you life depended on it. Leave the lemon juice on the skin for a good thirty minutes before washing it off. This will allow the acid in the lemons to clear out the water stains.

But you now have half a lemon, what to do? Move on to the next tip!

5. Microwave Lemon Magic

Take the left over lemon you had and squeeze it into a bowl. Add 1/2 a cup on water and plop the left over lemon into the bowl of not 50% lemon juice and 50% water. Turn on the microwave for three minutes and then let it cool down for another five minutes.

Don’t open the door for the entire 8 minutes! Heating the water for so long in the microwave will pretty much loosen up all the grime and gunk in the microwave. Once those 8 minutes have passed you can wipe everything down with minimal effort.

Read this to find out some more tips on what you can clean with something as simple as a lemon.

 

5 Office Cleaning Tips for a Budget

Are you in charge of keeping your office clean? Here are 10 hassle free tips that you can implement to keep your office clean with the help of your staff.

Keep the Kitchen Spotless

The kitchen can be one of the dirties places in an office. It’s generally not just a kitchen when it’s in the workplace. People can spend their entire lunch breaks in the kitchen so naturally it can get quite dirty and you never want your staff to get sick from a dirty kitchen.

It’s best to have the kitchen cleaned daily. Just like you would at home. Wiping everything down but due to the high volume nature of a work kitchen it’s best to scrub the sink and microwave with detergent also. Along with wiping down all the tables with a disinfectant.

Rubbish Rotation

If you don’t have professional cleaners coming in to clean for you the the rubbish can pile up. You can easily solve this by creating a rubbish roster and posting it in a place all staff can see. It’s best to add a main person and a backup cleaner in case the main person is off sick.

Send an email each Monday morning advising staff of the new roster also.

The scheduled person simply needs a janitorial cart and then they can go around the office and clear out all the bins. A janitorial cart can be bought quite cheaply for about $100.

Get Vacuuming!

The carpet should be cleaned on a nightly basis. This can be built into your cleaning schedule that was mentioned above. For this you’ll need a proper carpet cleaning machine. Now you don’t need a fancy $3,000 piece of machinery. What you will want though is a backpack vacuum.

Having a backpack vacuum will make it easy for your staff to just pop on the machine after the work day is done and spend a few minutes cleaning. These machines can run a good $500 each for basic models. But in comparison to the monthly retainer of $500 at a minimum for complete cleaning and janitorial services that $500 once off or $1,000 if you get two is very cheap for a business.

The other option is to actually hire a professional office cleaning company. Office cleaning company offers three and five day cleaning programs. You don’t need to commit to a daily cleaning program. You can start small and go from there.

Regular Keyboard Cleaning

Have you ever heard the saying that your keyboard caries more germs than a toilet seat? Well think about that for just a moment. Normally a toilet is cleaned on a regular basis but how often is a keyboard cleaned? Almost never!

Keyboard are generally missed as it’s seen as a personal item for staff to look after. But in reality no one even looks after their keyboard.

Once a quarter you should schedule a keyboard clean as a minimum but it’s better done each month. The video below is an excellent guide on how to clean any mechanical keyboard.

Bathrooms

The bathrooms are the one place you might not be able to get away with not having outside cleaning staff coming in. It’s simply not fair to have an officer work be expected to do this task. The good news is that lots of companies who offer office cleaning services also offer supplemental janitorial staff. This way you’ll be able to have the cleaning contractors come in just to deal with the bathroom cleaning.

Overall this will save you a long of money in the long run.

 

 

What to Leave for the Movers to Pack

When you move you might be wondering if you should be packing everything yourself or leaving a few things to let your moving company pack.

At the end of the day there is nothing that you can’t pack. If you pack yourself you are going to safe money but you might put your possessions at risk as you don’t pack for a living and don’t understand how easily things can be damaged when being moved. Getting a professional mover in the obvious choice and in the long run it might end up being cheaper if you end up damaging some of your goods that need replacing due to poor packing.

Use Plastic Packing Crates

If you want the Beez Neez of packing then get plastic packing crates. If you have even been in the offices of a courier or transport company you may have seen these lying around. Plastic packing crates can be dented like cardboard boxes can even if dropped. Think about how much that cardboard box is going through. How many times it will be picked up, based around, moved and so on. Before , during and after the move.

Also think about how much time you will spend taping boxes closed. Plastic packing crates jut snap shut, simple!

Be There or Be Square!

If you decide to get a professional moving company to help with your packing. Be there, be present. This way you will know what boxes contain what items. An easy way to mange this is to just take some notes on your phone. Any packing company worth half their worth will have the packing crates they use numbered or have a section on them to write a number.

You can easily keep track of what is in what or just use the room the crate is for. For example crates 1 to 5 are for the kitchen, crates 6 to 9 and for the living room and so on.

Pack Sooner Rather than Later

If you are packing yourself then start soon. Start a good four weeks out. This is exactly what I recommended my customer did when I ran my moving company and it’s also what I recommend on my moving checklist.

You would be surprised how many times I had customers ‘reschedule’ their move when they did their own packing as they though it would only take a few hours. Trust me! Start early! As in weeks early! Even a small two bedroom apartment can take a few days to fully pack to be ready to move.

Be Fragile with the Fragile

Take care with fragile items. And even if you do get a moving company to pack for you it is still best that you pack your fragile items. If they are not big it’s even a good idea to transport them yourself. If you have room to fit a few boxes in your car.

The other things you can pack yourself that don’t really need the help of a professional moving company is things like bedding and pillows. Blankets and pillows can’t exactly break from being dropped. So it’s very easy to pick up a few cardboard boxes form shops or online and pack them up. This will save you money with your move.

Bonus Tip

In the UK your moving company can’t actually disconnect your oven or white-goods. So this task falls on you. Don’t forget to do this as if you leave the property and start your trip to your new place you will get a call from your moving company telling you tom come back pronto!

 

 

Pre-Moving Checklist

Moving can be stressful and there are so many things to consider. Here is a quick checklist I put together so you can make sure you have all the steps you need covered.

Fell free to bookmark this page or just print the page off. Then you can check things off as you complete them.

Moving Checklist

8 Weeks Out

6 Weeks Out

  • Get an in home site visit from your moving company to get a proper estimate. Make sure you talk about the final cost that should be a fixed price. Insurance, packing and loading, delivery time frames and how claims work if there is damage.
  • Sort through all your things you don’t need. Maybe have a sale or just throw away thins you don’t want, give them to friends or to charity.

4 Weeks Out

  • If you are having packing completed for you by the moving company get it booked in now with plenty of time to spare.
  • If you are going to do all the packing yourself, start now.
  • If you need storage. Start looking into options now. Speak to the moving company you are going with as they might do storage also.
  • Arrange for any repair work or cleaning to start at you new house so it’s completed when you move in.

3 Weeks Out

  • Call all the utility companies and arrange for everything to be disconnected the day after you move. And for the connections to start the day before you move in to the new place (or sooner if needed).
  • Make arrangements for a hotel, Airbnb or a friends place during your move while you won’t have a bed to sleep in.
  • If you live in an apartment and have a lot of large things to move then speak to management as you should be able to reserve the elevator for when you move takes place.

2 Weeks Out

  • Start to call everyone else that needs a call for address changes. You might want to use an address change service. Most charge for this. I not do it yourself. For example insurance companies, your drivers licenses, bank accounts, credit cards and other utilities like the internet and for mobile company and so on.
  • Setup mail forwarding with the post office.
  • Make arrangements for plants and pet transport as moving companies wont generally deal with this.

1 Week out

  • Arrange any regular delivers you have scheduled to be cancelled or the address updated to you new address.

1  to 2 Days Out

  • Pack all your clothes, valuables, toiletries, and anything that you will need as soon as you move into your new place that you didn’t actually pack with your make pack a few weeks back.
  • Turn off the fridge and freezers. Make sure any excess waters is wiped down before they are moved.

I hope this moving checklist helps you. This is the exact checklist that I used to give my customers.

 

 

How to Find a Reputable Moving Company Online

In my years of running ECT Moving Group I saw dozens and dozens of removal companies come and go. Most of those companies that didn’t make it did and ended up shutting their doors did the exact things I’m going to tell you about below that you should look out for.

In fact when I retired I simply closed down my own removals business. I didn’t sell it off or let it get acquired. As I know there are lots of good moving companies out there in the UK but in my local area no one was up to par and I didn’t want the brand I spend half a lifetime building damaged.

So how do you use the internet to find a good moving company?

1. Start with Googling for Moving Companies in Your City

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with so many options for moving companies and their being so many steps to actually moving homes. So the best way to start is to just Googling the city you are in plus ‘removals company’ or ‘removals’. You don’t need to get overwhelmed. Find a few companies to start looking into by using this method. Look at the websites of the companies that come up and find a company that would suit your needs.

As not all companies will be suitable. Some moving companies only do man and a van services. Some companies offer everything and some do a mix. You’ll also be able to find out if the company you are look at covers the area you are looking at moving to if you poke around o their site. This is a fast way to narrow down a few choices and make a short list.

This also removes companies that don’t have a website. We are in 2018 now. If you run a business and don’t have a website then something is be hidden in my opinion. Find a couple of removal companies you want to go with and just keep them in mind.

We will use this house moving and removal services company – We Move and Clean as an example. So lets move on to step #2.

2. Read Online Reviews

The second step you should take when it comes to assessing a removalist is to read their reviews. There are many places online that you can go to read review of a company as long as they have their profile setup:

  • Checkatrade
  • Google My Business
  • Facebook
  • Yelp
  • Yell
  • Glass Door
  • Trustpilot
  • Bark
  • Bidvine

This is just a small sample of review sites. By far the biggest ‘go to’ sites in the UK and specifically for moving businesses are Google My Business and Checkatrade. If you look at the bigger picture there are hundreds of sites that you can leave reviews on and even some just more moving like RemovalReviews.co.uk and MyMovingReviews.com.

Just Google the companies name you are looking for and tag ‘reviews’ on to the end. For example if the company you were looking at was We Move and Clean then you’d Google ‘We Move and Clean reviews’.

That way you should get all the sites coming up and their Google My Business showing up. See what I mean with the image on the left. If you don’t find their Google My Business their search out the business name and address in Google Maps and it should come up.

So what now? Well, get reading!

The reality is that most people are at least 10x to 20x more likely to leave a good review than a positive one. It’s an unfortunate part of human nature.

So if you come across a company like say We Move and Clean and you see they have closing in on 200 reviews on Checkatrade, almost 100 on Facebook and 30 on Yell. And all those ratings are very close to perfect scores in 5/5 or 10/10 then you know you have a winner. You know that company is doing a very good job with providing their service.

But don’t just look at the number of reviews and the star rating. Actually look through the reviews. Look for recent reviews. Look at what people commented on, did they do a short move, a long move, did they mention how their property was treated, what service the got and so on.

Reviews are a true way to gauge how a company treats its customers and also how their treat themselves. As how one runs a business is also how one runs their own life in my honest opinion.

3. Check Social Media

In 2018 and beyond a company should have a presence with social media. Go to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and any other social media platform you like and see if you can find the moving company you are looking to hire.

Any good company will have a presence even if they are not very active. It’s at least a peace of mind factor. If I’m going to be frank I won’t actually use a business if they are not on Facebook. I use Facebook daily and it’s a part of my life.

If a business is not on Facebook then at least check YouTube. From example this We Move and Clean video on YouTube explains their removals service. Not only is this a good sign that you are dealing with a reputable business but in this case you’re learning more about what the business does and it can give you move confidence to pull the trigger.

Here is the same video mentioned above if you don’t want to leave our site.

 

4. Get a Quote

The next step is to get a quote and ask for an in home estimate or it can also be called a site visit.

The last thing you want to do is ask for a moving quote over the phone in a 30 second phone call. This is the fastest way to get the wrong quote and end up with a quote that is double once the move starts as you didn’t let the moving company know about a lot of things that would be chargeable.

Once you have your estimate. Get it in writing. In paper or at least an email copy and make sure the words of words to the nature of ‘quote is final’ is present. If you don’t see that ask for a new quote that mentions the quote is final and there will be no more charges.

This is very important as lots of moving companies add on extra charges and you never find out until it’s to late! Don’t fall victim to this foul play!

That wraps it up. If you follow these steps you should be able to easily find a good moving company online.