10 moving tips: how to index your boxes and keep dishonest movers from opening them

When you’re moving, sometimes it’s all you can do to get everything packed and ready for the day the truck arrives. But you know as soon as you get to the new place, you’re going to be frustrated if you can’t find the items you most need when you need them. Just a little bit of planning ahead can make this task so much easier.

Of course, you could write the name of the item on the box, but then the movers will know what’s in it. And unfortunately, movers are not 100% trustworthy. I’ve moved many times and been very lucky (except for the time a mover tried to intimidate me into giving him my guitar to cover an invented expense he’d tacked on, which I dealt with by telling him to get his supervisor on the line so we could all discuss that deal over our copies of the original paperwork stating precisely what he was due), but you don’t want to take any chances. It’s always easy for a mover to open a box, take out a few valuables, rearrange the stuff and tape it back up – for you to discover after completing and paying for the move.

So how do you index your boxes so you’ll know what’s in them without alerting dishonest movers that there’s something worth stealing inside? There are several ways to go about it.

Colored tape. Movers don’t carry colored tape, so if they open a box and reseal it with clear, it’s not going to be that hard to spot. You can order colored packing tape online at a reasonable price (you may also be able to find it in a local store, but neither Staples nor Office Depot seem to carry it). You can also use different colors to code priorities on your boxes. Just don’t use red for the most valuable or important items – that’s the color someone would expect to hide your best stuff.
Mark boxes with priority numbers. This is really simple and doesn’t take much time. You just need to devise a “code sheet” telling you what each number means, and then use them. A big “1″ on the box could mean it contains something you’ll need immediately like your alarm clock or bed linens. A “2″ would be for, say, table linens – something you can live without for a couple of days but might want fairly soon. You could code your valuable stuff with an innocuous number like “5.” You’ll want to check those boxes very soon to make sure nothing’s been stolen, but a dishonest mover is more likely to rifle through the boxes marked “1″. Or:
Make a complete index if you have time. Mark every single box with its own number or letter and keep a paper list (which the movers never see) documenting every item (or every item you really care about) that’s in each box. This is obviously the very best way to be organized; unfortunately most of us won’t have time. You can always do a modified version so you keep up with those items that are most essential.
Pack cheap stuff on top of valuable stuff. Pack your valuable stuff at the bottom of boxes and put trinkets and cheap, easily replaced items on top and all around it.
Wrap every single item in newsprint. Forget bubblewrap and styrefoam packing peanuts – not only are they not eco-friendly, they also just don’t work as well as newspaper or newsprint for keeping fragile items from breaking. I’ve gone through two cross-country moves with newspaper and had almost no breakage. It doesn’t take much time to wrap (and later unwrap) everything in it – even the trinkets. And if a dishonest mover opens a box full of items hidden in newspaper, then unwraps several at the top only to find cheap stuff, he’s more likely to give up before he gets to anything valuable. For items you’re afraid will transfer the ink from a newspaper, buy some newsprint (unprinted newspaper) at an office supply or art store. Newspaper ink has rarely transferred to my items, and when it did was always easily rubbed off, usually with a brush of my thumb.
If you use plastic transparent cartons, make sure items aren’t visible inside. Wrapping everything in newspaper will do that trick. If you don’t want to bother with that, you could line the whole carton with newspaper.
Don’t be specific when asked what’s in a box. Movers need to know what sort of materials are in a box so they can determine what can be stacked on top of what, so they’ll often ask, “What’s in this one?” In the past I used to tell them specifically what was inside, but then a mover stopped me and politely said, “I don’t need to know that – just tell me, is it glass or what?” He didn’t even want to know where my valuables were for fear something really would get honestly lost and he would be blamed. Smart man. When asked what’s in a box, don’t say, “My grandmother’s irreplaceable china,” just say “Dishes.” If you want to impress on them that a certain box is priceless to you, don’t: just tell them “Be really careful with this one, it’s glass/fragile/already has a break I sealed with Krazy Glue.” That doesn’t indicate whether it’s valuable or not. They don’t need to know.
Consider shipping really valuable stuff – maybe. I have mixed feelings about this tip. A work colleague recently shipped a $12,000 machine part via UPS in a double-locked container, and it just happened to somehow fall open and lose all its contents (into the hands of someone who fenced it, I’m sure). Shippers can be dishonest, too. The difference is, you can insure your valuables and process a claim for what they were worth pretty quickly in most cases. Of course, it’s declaring what they are to the shipper that would tempt a shipper to steal them. I personally have never used this option (then again, I don’t own much that’s valuable to anyone but me), but it’s there for you to consider.
If you’re concerned, pay special attention to boxes they stack on the bottom in your new home. Most of the time, movers make a big stack of boxes in your new place as they carry them off the truck. If your gut is telling you these guys might not be trustworthy, pay special attention to the boxes they stack on the bottom of the heap – those would be the last ones you get to, and therefore where someone would put a box that’s been tampered with. The sooner you spot tampering, the easier it is to prove your case. If you’re too busy, you might be able to assign a child (if you have one) or a new neighbor you trust to look at the boxes and let you know if anything looks wrong.
If you’re really, really concerned, photograph the boxes before and after. If you label each box with its own number (see tip #3), photograph it when it’s all sealed up and print off the photos to keep with you on the move. Then photograph it when it comes off the truck. Compare each box with its photo, and any tampering should be easier to prove.

I hope I’m not making anyone paranoid about movers. I’ve moved a lot more times than I’d have liked to, and aside from that one incident never had a mover behave in an untrustworthy way. It’s just that you don’t want to be the exception where something actually does go wrong, because it’s really hard to prove that something was stolen as opposed to lost in a move.

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