More than 80,000 Canadians will be doing this on June 30

This week, most Canadians are making plans for the Canada Day long weekend. Most of us are planning little getaways, trips to the cottage, or preparing to attend/host a barbecue with family and friends. But, a significant percentage of us are planning something much more stressful and less fun. 

According to moving company, Two Men and a Truck, the weekend of June 30 is the busiest moving time of the whole year. Every year, 4.4 million of the 37 million Canadians move into a new home (or roughly 1.5 million families). 

A good chunk - 40% - of these people happen to move sometime between the beginning of June and mid-September. In June, 14% of these moves occur, with one-third of them being on June 30. That means roughly 246,000 Canadians move in June, and 81,312 of them do so on the last day of the month. 

“The period between mid-June and early September includes two major holiday long weekends,” says Chuck Resnick, Two Men and a Truck – Canada’s Vice-President, Marketing & Operations. “This year, June 30 is the Sunday of the Canada Day weekend, and Monday July 1 is the statutory holiday. Children are home for the summer, so it’s easier to schedule a move without juggling school hours. Many people don’t have to work July 1, so it is less stressful as far as unpacking and organizing their new digs. They then have the summer to enjoy before the new school term begins. Weather is another consideration – it’s far easier to change residences when fighting ice and snow is removed from the picture.”
 
With this in mind, here are a few tips from Two Men and a Truck that should help your move go smoothly:
 

• “Use sturdy boxes and/or totes instead of used boxes from the grocery store
• Resist over-packing. Use more boxes with less in each one. We suggest this rule of thumb: the heavier the item, the smaller the box. Think books and how difficult it is to lift a large box full of them
• We sell white newsprint paper and bubble wrap for packing. Newspaper makes a mess of your possessions
• For clothing in closets, use wardrobe boxes. Pack folded clothes into suitcases.
• Label boxes on the top and sides
• Remember to pack a ‘moving day’ box with items you will need right away such as a coffee pot, mugs, kettle, a few towels, toilet tissue, green garbage bags, toothbrushes and toothpaste, band-aids, as examples
• Make sure your ‘moving day’ box is placed on the truck last so it can be unpacked first”