Filling The Gap Between Move-In & Move-Out Dates

This is a something we get asked this about a lot. When you’re moving, it’s not always going to be a perfect transition. If you just bought or rented a new home, the move in and move out dates don’t always line up.

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you where need to make accommodations for a month or longer before you take possession of your new home.

A short-term rental is an obvious solution to the problem of where you’ll stay but there is still another issue - what do you do with your belongings in the meantime?

Whether you bought a new home, but the closing dates don’t line up, or you’ve rented new apartment, but you have a month gap before you move out of your old one and into the new, one thing is for sure you’re going to need a storage unit.

Moving is incredible stressful and requires good planning. Finding a well-reviewed and reputable moving company is probably where you’ll start. One of the first question you have after you’ve done that is, “what size truck do I need?”

Answering this question can give you some good insight into what size storage unit you need too.

When it comes to moving trucks, conventional wisdom is to air on the side of caution and go a little bigger than you think you’ll need. You’ll want to be sure you can move it all in one trip – especially if you have a long way to go.

It’s important to remember, that when you’re renting a truck, you should think of your belongings in terms of how much cubic space they would take up – think Tetris. You’ll want to pack the truck relatively tightly, so things don’t shift in transit.

So, should you get a storage locker that’s the same size as your truck? Afterall, if all your belongings fit in a truck what’s the difference?

If you have a bachelor (500-700 sq ft) or a small one-bedroom apartment that’s sparsely furnished you’d be well suited to arrange for a 12–14-foot truck – think the classic mail truck. If you’re moving from a home that 900-1200 sq ft, look to a 15 to 17-foot truck. If you’re moving out of a 3 bedroom in the then you’ll want something in the 20-24 ft range.

So how much space is there in a 15-foot truck?

Depending on the model, a 15ft truck has a space that is about 12’ 5” x 7'8" x 7' 2" (plus a cubby above the cab). You can expect to fit a mattress, a sofa, some chairs, and a bunch of boxes in this range. That said, if you’ve never moved before or it’s been a long time, you might be surprised by just how much stuff you have.

You can load that space up and pack it tightly when your belongings are only going to be in in there for hours or maybe a day or two even. A storage locker of the same size would of course fit your belongings the same way - but we wouldn’t recommend it.

Consider this, you have your Livingroom furniture in the truck then you’re packing boxes on top of if it. That’s not likely going to be an issue for a few hours of travel before it’s unloaded. Now imagine that same packing job sitting for a month or more. You’d come back to get your things only to find a box shaped indent in your favorite seat for one thing. Or maybe worse, you find that because you packed your belongings tightly there is no airflow between them - they haven’t been able to breathe leading to a musty smell after being stored improperly for two months. Not a good scenario.

Needless to say, you’ll want to make sure you get the right size storage locker by going bigger than the truck size you need. You can check out our handy sizing guide with images to get an idea of what to expect.

Notice in this guide how items are packed. This is not just to give you a good idea of what you can expect to fit into your locker, but also to show how you might want to go about it – boxes are on shelves and platforms, and there is a reasonable amount of space between items for access and to air can pass between them.

While movers think in cubic space, your storage locker should be thought of in square feet. So for example, a 12-foot truck is approximately 65 square feet and so you’re likely going to want a 10x10 (100 sq ft) unit over a 10x5 (50 sq ft). A 15-foot truck is approximately 114 square feet so if you can fill that you’ll want at least a 10x15 (150 sq ft) and so on.