Clear Out Drawers and Shelves
It may seem easier to leave your socks, sweaters, and underwear in your drawers during the move. However, some armoires and wardrobes must have their doors or shelves taken off during the move or the components could break in transit.
Completely clearing out your drawers and shelves allows you to inspect and organize your clothing. When you clear your drawers and wardrobes of clothing, use the opportunity to purge garments you never wear. Create a giveaway pile or use unwanted clothes as cleaning rags and packing cushions during the move.
Pack small items, including socks and underwear, in totes or boxes to keep them folded together. Clearly label each tote or box of clothes with its contents. If you leave the items in a drawer during the move, they may fall out of an improperly secured drawer and spread all over your moving-van floor or new driveway.
Order fresh cardboard packing wardrobes for your hanging clothes and clean packing boxes for folded pants, sweaters, and shirts. Used packing boxes may be soiled with dust, grease, and stains that can damage clothing. You can order clean packing boxes from your mover.
By purging, packing, and labeling all of your clothing boxes, you set yourself up for a more organized new home. You take only the clothing you want, and your clear packing labels help you efficiently put away your garments in your new space.
Closely Inspect Your Dressers and Armoires
When all of the clothes are out of your storage furniture and packed away, you can easily inspect your drawers, shelves, and hanging clothes racks. Closely examine your furniture now to reduce the chance you’ll bring pests or other problems into your new space.
As you emptied your drawers and shelves, you hopefully didn’t find any pests or their nests. However, bugs or odors from pests could still be lurking in your drawers. Pull out all of the drawers, clothes rods, and shelves to inspect every side of the wood or material.
Look for the following:
- Mouse droppings and urine spots
- Spider eggs
- Carpet beetle larvae or adults
- Clothes moths and larvae
- Silverfish, ants, and cockroaches
- Mold and mildew
- Dust and dirt
Look under and behind dressers, chests, armoires, and wardrobes for signs of bedbugs and other insect infestations. Clothes pests love to hang out in the carpet under furniture. Identify all pests, mildew, and droppings inside and outside of your clothes storage before the move to keep pests and odors from infesting your new home.
Refresh and Clean Drawers and Shelves
Remove any drawer or shelf liners, and vacuum all surfaces of the drawers and shelves in your dressers and wardrobes. Vacuum the interiors, drawer slides, bottoms, and backs of the furnishings to remove dust, cobwebs, and spider eggs.
Dust, mold spores, bacteria, and tiny bug eggs can still be present on the surfaces of shelves and drawers after you vacuum. Use a clean, soft, damp cloth to wipe down the surfaces of the drawers to remove surface debris.
Remove dresser and wardrobe odors by wiping with a solution of two tablespoons vinegar mixed in one quart of water. Let the furniture air dry.
Other odor-removing techniques include:
- Sprinkle borax; vacuum after 24 hours.
- Sprinkle baking soda, or leave box in drawer.
- Place activated charcoal in furniture.
- Use bowl of kitty litter in furniture.
Both cedar and lavender add pleasant scents to dressers and wardrobes. The scents of cedar and lavender also repel fabric-eating insects, so use sachets in drawers to refresh and protect clothes and furniture.
Be gentle and don’t use any abrasive cleaners or tools to wipe the wood on your dressers and wardrobes. Use as little moisture as possible to refresh the surfaces of wooden drawers and shelves. Allow all shelves to dry before replacing them in furniture or wrapping them for the move.
Load and Secure Dressers and Armoires Carefully
Dust and polish the wood or other material of furniture and the front-facing sections of the drawers. Fresh furniture polish helps the wood repel any moisture during your move. If you must remove glass, mirrored, or other fragile wardrobe doors, relocate them in secure packing boxes made for mirrors or framed artwork.
You can stuff drawers and armoires with blankets, pillows, and other bulky items during your move. However, never tape your dressers or drawers closed to secure them. The adhesive on tape can damage wood finishes and may not be strong enough to hold a heavy door or drawer closed.
Wrap your dressers or wardrobes in moving blankets instead. The blankets protect the finishes of your furniture. Tie strong rope around the drawers or doors to stabilize them and keep them securely closed during the relocation.
Order clean packing boxes for all of your clothes by contacting our moving specialist at Wheaton World Wide Moving today. We can safely and securely relocate valuable dressers, armoires, and wardrobes across your city or across the nation.
