Moving is a quite complex and stressful process. It is not easy to transport your entire household from one address to another. This might be even more complicated when you live in a foreign city. When you are moving, you have two options. You can either hire the best movers Hong Kong or you can organize everything alone. Doing a DIY move seems like a better solution because you might save more money. As you might know, hiring professional movers can be a little bit more expensive. However, here are all the reasons why DIY moving in Hong Kong might not be the best option for you.
DIY moving in Hong Kong – a language barrier
As you might know, Chinese is the official language in Hong Kong. Therefore, if you want to organize your relocation alone, then you need to collect all the necessary packing and moving supplies. Going to your local supermarket and asking for boxes might be challenging due to the language barrier. If you happen to know Chinese or people working in at the supermarket know English, then you might be able to get what you want. However, you need to be careful when getting boxes from places like supermarkets. They need to be clean and in good condition in order to be used for packing your items. In addition to this, if you plan to keep your items in a storage unit Hong Kong, then you must make sure that boxes are in perfect condition. You need to properly protect your items either during the move or in the storage.
The size of the houses or apartments
Most ex-pats in Hong Kong live in small apartments. These apartments are usually located in extremely high buildings with more than 20 floors. If you have many household items to move, including having large furniture, it is might be even more complicated and difficult than first anticipated. Just imagine transporting your heavy household appliances from the 20th floor to the moving truck parked outside. It sounds like a true nightmare.
Unless you have proper moving equipment and previous experience, this task is almost impossible to do. In addition to this, you also have to take into consideration the weather conditions as well, if you are organizing a winter move in Hong Kong, then you need to be careful due to all the rain and slippery roads. If you do not like the idea of carrying your items 20 floors down, then you should hire moving professionals.
DIY moving in Hong Kong – you need to protect your property
Just as it was mentioned before, most ex-pats in Hong Kong live in apartments. This means you need to measure all the doorways, corners, and similar places to see if your big furniture can freely pass through. Why is this so important? If you are renting, which most ex-pats do, you need to protect the property before moving. What will happen if you accidentally cause property damage? Of course, you will have to pay for the damage caused by the mishandling of your items. As everything is quite expensive in Hong Kong, you can also expect to pay a large amount of money for these repairs. You can avoid this if you hire professional movers. They will save you time and money since they will come to prepare everything, including your property. If you get insurance, they will be held liable for any property damage.
You can injure yourself as well
Another big problem with doing a DIY move would be injuring yourself. Since you are a foreigner, it might be a little bit complicated to receive medical assistance. First of all, you need to see if your medical insurance covers injuries suffered when moving. If not, then you will need to pay additional money for medical assistance. This can be quite expensive, more expensive than hiring professional movers. Not to mention the language barrier as well. Usually, private clinics offer English assistance, but charge more for this service. In order to prevent injuries, you need to do stretching exercises on your moving day. This will definitely loosen up your muscles and prevent some of the more common injuries that include the following.
- Muscle cramp
- Ankle sprain
- Muscle strain
- Broken bones
- Back problems
- Overall exhaustion
What happens if you fail to properly pack your items?
If you do not properly pack your items, you can make all the mistakes mentioned above. In addition to this, you can also damage your items. If you have only clothes and small pieces to pack, this is not a problem. However, if you need to move household items as well, you should know how to properly pack them. If you damage your items, then it means you need to replace them as well. This is not a problem if you break one of the easily replaced items. However, if you damage some expensive items, it is going to be extremely expensive to replace them. On the other hand, if you hire professional movers and get moving insurance, any damage will be covered by this insurance, granted only if it is caused by movers. If you don’t know how to pack items, then ask for professional assistance.
Should you organize relocation alone?
As you can see, DIY moving in Hong Kong comes with many unpredictable situations. Unless you are extremely confident in your skills, it would be better to hire one of the moving companies in the city. Most of the moving companies do offer English assistant so the language barrier won’t exist. In addition to this, all the movers are already quite familiar with Hong Kong apartments and buildings. For this reason, they know how to move your items without causing any of the damage mentioned above. Now, it is up to you to make your final decision. You can try organizing a relocation alone. If you see that you cannot follow this through, you can always seek help from professionals.
