Packing Services

Packing services mean that packers come to your home before the move, wrap and box your belongings, label every box by room and leave everything ready to load. You can book packing for the whole home, for the kitchen and fragile items only, or as top-up help when you have packed most things yourself. MovingIL coordinates the booking and the price. The packing itself is done by independent moving companies we work with, and the scope is written down before it is confirmed.

Packing is where most of the time in a move goes, and where most of the damage starts. A kitchen holds hundreds of small, breakable pieces. A bookcase turns into twelve boxes that each weigh as much as a child. A mirror wrapped badly takes thirty seconds to pack and a lot of regret to replace. People who pack their own homes often underestimate the time and end up taping boxes at midnight.

There are three common ways to use packing help. With full packing, the packers pack everything except what you set aside, including cupboards, shelves, wardrobes and the storage room. With kitchen and fragile only, they pack dishes, glassware, pictures, mirrors, lamps and electronics while you pack clothes, toys and books. With top-up packing, you pack as much as you can and the packers arrive to finish what is left, check that your boxes are strong enough to travel, then tape and label them. Tell us which one you want and the scope goes into the price.

Different things are packed in different ways. Plates go on edge, wrapped in paper, in small strong boxes, never stacked flat. Glasses go in boxes with dividers or paper stuffed into every gap. Books go in small boxes, because a big box of books is too heavy to carry safely. Clothes on hangers go into wardrobe boxes and arrive ready to hang. Pictures and mirrors are wrapped and packed upright, never flat under other boxes. Lamps travel with their shades packed separately. Electronics are best in their original boxes if you kept them, otherwise wrapped and padded. Rugs are rolled, not folded.

A kosher kitchen needs one extra step. If you keep separate meat and dairy dishes, tell us before the packers start so the two sets go into different boxes with clear labels, and do the same for Pesach dishes and utensils. Packers cannot guess which is which, and it is much easier to keep things apart in the box than to sort them out at the other end. We pass this on to the movers before they arrive. How you set up the new kitchen is up to you. The packing simply makes sure nothing gets mixed on the way.

Labels make the other end easy. Each box should carry a number and the room it belongs to, written large on the side and not only on the top, because boxes get stacked. Carriers read Hebrew room names fastest, so write those next to your own language: salon (סלון, living room), mitbach (מטבח, kitchen), cheder shena (חדר שינה, bedroom), cheder yeladim (חדר ילדים, kids' room), mamad (ממ״ד, safe room), mirpeset sherut (מרפסת שירות, utility balcony) and machsan (מחסן, storage room). A colored sticker per room works too. We ask the packers to list the boxes, so you can tick them off on arrival.

Keep a few things out of the packing. Documents and passports, jewelry, cash, medication, laptops and chargers should travel with you. So should a first-night box with a kettle, mugs, bedding, towels, toiletries, a phone charger and anything a child needs to fall asleep. Moving companies generally will not carry gas cylinders, flammable liquids, open food or plants, so plan for those separately. Tools and garden equipment from the machsan are awkward to carry, so they are boxed or bundled and listed like everything else. If you are unsure about an item, ask us and we check with the movers.

Climate matters in Israel. In summer a closed truck or a storage room gets very hot, so candles, cosmetics, chocolate, some medications and vinyl records are better kept with you in an air-conditioned car. In winter, damp can soften cardboard in a ground-floor storage room, so boxes that will wait are better stacked off the floor.

If you pack part of the home yourself, start with the rooms you use least. Use small boxes for heavy things and bigger ones for light things, fill the gaps with paper or towels so nothing shifts, and tape the bottom of every box in an H shape. Do not mix rooms in a box, and do not close a box you cannot lift. Pack a room a day for a week rather than a whole home in a weekend.

Before the packers arrive, clear the work surfaces, empty the refrigerator and freezer if they are moving, and decide which things stay out. Put a sticker or a note on anything that must not be packed, or gather those things in one room and close the door. Tell us if you will still be sleeping in the home, and which rooms you need until the last night.

When should packing happen? For a normal apartment the usual pattern is the day before the move, or the morning of it. A large home, or one with a lot of books and kitchenware, may need a full day or more, so packing is scheduled earlier with some things left out for daily life. Ask for a time estimate for your home in the quote and we will get one for you.

With children and pets, keep favorite toys out of the first round of packing and agree which room is off limits. A pet is happier in a closed room or with a friend for the day than among open doors and stacked boxes.

What packing does not include. Packers do not sort your belongings or decide what to throw out unless you ask them to. They do not clean the home. Taking furniture apart is a separate service, and so are carrying and driving, which belong to the move itself. Moving crates, the reusable plastic boxes, can replace cardboard for part or all of the packing if you prefer them.

The packing is quoted as part of one closed price, tied to the number of rooms and the scope you chose. What shapes it is the amount of kitchenware and books, the number of fragile pieces, the floor and the access, and whether packing materials are included, which the quote states. We do not publish numbers, because a price for an unknown home is a guess.

Is it worth it? If you have the time, off-season clothes and a few boxes of books are easy to pack yourself and a good use of a weekend. If you are short of time, have young children or a full kitchen, paying for the parts that eat the most hours is usually the best use of the money.

To book packing, tell us the number of rooms, the size of the kitchen and the floor, add a few photos of the cupboards and shelves, and say which of the three options you want.