All Smiles Moving

Getting ready for a big move might just make you frazzled enough to make some not-so-great judgment calls. That’s fine, but you should catch yourself in time before something really goes awry. There are at least seven things you should never put on a moving truck and with good, common sense reasons why.

1. Pets

Pets can overheat and die in the back of a moving truck. Even in a crate with water it isn’t a good idea. You have no idea how soon the moving truck will get to the next destination, and it’s not the responsibility of the movers to check on your pets inside the truck. Put your pets in your own vehicle where you can monitor them and let them out every hundred miles or so to stretch their legs and breathe some air.

2. Anything Containing Flammable Liquids

This includes your lawn mower, chainsaw, snowblower, ATV, etc., that has gas and oil in it. The volatility of these items in shipping combined with the intense heat inside a big moving truck is a recipe for fire. Unless your gasoline-powered and oil-lubricated items have been completely drained, don’t put them on the moving truck. If you can, put them in your own truck or borrow a friend’s pickup truck. Better yet, rent a pickup truck for moving day and take it back to the rental location closest to your new home.

3. Highly Valuable Items

You should never place anything of exceptional value on a moving truck. It’s not about whether it will be stolen. It’s about items that need to be in temperature-controlled environments. For example, owning an incredibly valuable artwork and placing it inside a hot moving truck will destroy it. Sculptures are destroyed when they aren’t boxed properly, and paintings will crack or become damaged in shipping. If you want to protect these items and still move them to your new home, hire a professional dealer to ship them for you. Smaller valuable items, like jewelry, should travel with you in your personal vehicle. Cars and very large valuable property should be shipped another way.

4. Your Kids (or Any Other Living Being)

Kids would probably think it great fun to ride in the back of a moving truck. Maybe you want another adult to ride back there to keep big items safe. Whatever the living thing, it doesn’t go in the back of the moving truck. It’s dangerous not only because of the heat, but also because boxes and furniture can shift in shipping and fall on living beings in the back of the truck causing extreme injury. No matter the need, the fun idea, or the reason, no living thing goes in the back of the truck. 

5. Anything You May Need During the Move

Anything you may need while you’re moving to the new home shouldn’t go on the moving truck. This includes changes of clothing, medications, medicines for headaches, allergies, or colds, etc. If you would need these items while traveling on vacation, then you may need them while moving. Put all of these items in your personal vehicle.

Better yet, pack them in a suitcase and place it in your trunk. Anything you might need for kids or pets should also go in your trunk and not on the moving truck. You may arrive at the new house before the moving truck does, and everyone in your personal vehicle needs their personal items right away at the new house.

6. Tools

Some tools are needed to reassemble your furniture at the next house. Whatever tools you used to disassemble furniture shouldn’t go on the truck. Put those in your personal vehicle too. That way you have access to those tools so that you can start putting beds and other key pieces of furniture together as they come off the truck.

7. Food

Nobody wants to throw out a lot of food while clearing cupboards and the refrigerator in preparation for moving. It is a grave mistake to attempt to put the food in the back of the moving truck. Some things will spoil. Others will spill. Likewise, don’t load a fully loaded chest freezer and hope everything in the freezer will be fine because the freezer is closed. The best way to address this situation is to eat down everything in your cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer before you move.