How do you stop losing things during a cross-country move?
Frequent long-distance relocations cause whole categories of related items, hardware, and essential gear to vanish during transit. This forces people to waste countless hours searching through boxes or replacing missing necessities like furniture parts and winter coats.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1buying replacements for missing items and later finding the originalsDid this help you?
- 2purchasing replacement parts from the manufacturerDid this help you?
- 3Checking renters insurance policies for off-premises coverageDid this help you?
- 4Refusing to accept the initial low payout from the moving companyDid this help you?
- 5Considering small claims court or legal action against the moversDid this help you?
- 6Attempting to reason with the moving company to claim through their own insuranceDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“moving from new york to georgia, back up to delaware, down to south carolina and now new jersey has basically turned my life into one long cycle of packing, unpacking and looking for tape”source ↗
“somehow a whole group of related things disappears, like every winter coat or all the power cords.”source ↗
“The four legs on my IKEA bench never showed up. Taken off the day of the move and put somewhere by the movers. Never seen again.”source ↗
“Hi, I just moved apartments where I keep a lot of business inventory and during the move $6k of inventory was "lost in transit" or stolen.”source ↗
“Business insurance isn't covered because it's a move and off the insured premise, and also they need a police report.”source ↗
“The moving company said they only compensate by 60 cents per pound, which equals $6.00 total pay out.”source ↗
“I spoke to the police and they said I need to take it up with the moving company since I hired them, so they won't file a report.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to decide what to keep when moving abroad
- 12How to fix laminate floor damage before moving out without losing deposit
- 2I regret moving my family, can we go back?
- 3What to do with pets buried in the backyard when moving
- 2How to move out of state by the next business day
- 3Cleaners keep moving my things and I can't find them