Last weekend I packed up my student house for the last time and left Southampton, heading home for the summer, before hopefully moving out into a place of my own once I start my graduate job and my girlfriend finishes her masters degree.
However, I’m getting ahead of myself, as that is several months down the line and I wanted to talk about the moving out process, not the moving in process!
My girlfriend and I at a family gathering last weekend, where we were asked a lot of questions about our futures!
The first thing you should do before moving out is to contact your landlord/letting agency to tell them that you are leaving the accommodation and to ask if there’s anything you need to do before you leave. Make sure you do this plenty of time in advance to give you time to sort any last minute errands out!
The obvious thing to do is to hand in your set of keys, but some landlords may require a house/room inspection before you leave and for you to sign a few documents. It’s normally nothing to strenuous, but if it feels strange make sure you get in touch with SUSU's Advice Centre as they are great for housing help! You can also find out more on the University's Accommodation website.
Naturally it is important that you clean your room and communal areas before you leave - you probably didn’t move into a dump, so don’t leave it that way. The opposite goes for when you move back into a student house, if it hasn’t been cleaned make sure you let the landlord know, as it is not your responsibility to clean other people’s mess!
It is unlikely that everyone will leave the house on the same day, so make sure you clean everything you’re responsible for before you go and offer to help with tidying up communal areas before you leave – don’t just think the last person left will do everything, as if nothing has been done to help them, it probably won’t get done and then everyone faces losing some money from their deposit! If you have lots of items that you no longer need make sure you use SUSU’s new Shift Your Stuff campaign!
On the tidying front, there is one thing that many students forget to do before they leave: the garden! In most housing contracts, unless the landlord does the gardening for you, it will state that you are responsible for keeping the garden, well, garden-like! It doesn’t mean it has to be fit for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, but it should at least be recognisable as a garden, rather than a tangle of knee high grass and weeds!
It’s no landscape garden, but it’s a lot neater than it was!
If you can’t get your hands on your parent’s or a neighbour’s lawnmower, then it can be done with cheap tools, such as shears or even makeshift gardening equipment! I’ve heard of whole houses cutting rather large gardens with all sorts of bizarre tools. As long the bulk of the garden mess is gone, it doesn’t really matter how it was achieved! I found it to be quite fun...well until my hay fever kicked in anyway!
If you start thinking about moving out a week before you actually leave then the moving out process shouldn’t be too stressful. As long as you’ve left you house in a clean and tidy state, then there should be no issue in getting your full deposit back.
Just make sure you have enough suitcases and boxes and that your car boot is big enough!
James
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