Top Tips to Avoid Injury When Moving House
House shifting is tremendously tiring and requires meticulously planned action. It involves lots of strength, patience, and monetary expenses to move effortlessly without getting hurt or injured.
That is why you must know how to avoid injury while moving your house. Whether you’re moving to the next town or interstate, always make a list before taking action. You can always seek help from professional packers and movers, but if you want to do it yourself, this blog is for you.
Whether you’re hiring movers Perth for a local relocation or handling the task yourself, it’s essential to prioritize your safety throughout the move. Here we will be talking about the common injuries and the tips that you can follow to avoid injury when moving house.
What Injuries Commonly Occur During A House Move?
- Back Strains and Sprains – Lifting heavy boxes or furniture improperly can easily lead to muscle or ligament injuries in the lower back.
- Finger and Hand Injuries – Pinched fingers, cuts, or even fractures can occur when handling heavy or awkward items, especially when doors or drawers swing open unexpectedly.
- Foot Injuries – Dropping heavy items or tripping over clutter can result in bruises, sprains, or even broken toes.
- Knee and Joint Injuries – Repeated bending, lifting, and twisting can strain joints, particularly the knees and wrists.
- Slips, Trips, and Falls – Unsecured rugs, packing debris, or wet floors can cause falls that lead to bruises, fractures, or head injuries.
- Hernias – Overexerting yourself by lifting heavy loads incorrectly can lead to abdominal strain or hernias, which often require medical attention.
Tips to Avoid Injury During A House Move
Moving house can be difficult, but not impossible to do it yourself. Sit and take your time to go through your entire house and follow these tips below to move your house without injury.
1. No Last-Minute Work
Injuries and accidents mostly happen when you want to get the job done within a short period. You look for shortcuts, stuff things haphazardly, and skip the rest, making you prone to injuries. But you can avoid this entire situation with a proper plan and time on hand.
Therefore, make sure not to plan your move last minute. Gather your items, procure your packing boxes and tapes, and declutter unnecessary things to run a smooth packing and moving process. Always planning a move with adequate time will help you maintain mental and physical health. Being stressed with pending work will lead to hurrying, and you are much more likely to drop things, try to lift heavy items altogether, or trip over the clutter.
2. Understand Your Body
Having arthritis and planning to move your entire house all by yourself is the most impractical thing. It is not possible to do a house move without having the stamina and physical capabilities. Therefore, read what your body can do and what not. And then arrange the task accordingly.
If you are planning, you can also set some routine exercises to build up your core strength through weight lifting, stretching, and eating nutritious food.
On the day of the move, take a short walk in the morning to warm up your body or do some stretching like rotating your hands, shoulders, legs, and waist. Followed by exercises, eat a proper high-protein breakfast, including eggs, fruits, toast, and pancakes as you like. Also, make sure to consume enough water throughout the day.
However, do not take stress over heavy items. Always seek help in lifting or moving heavier items. Otherwise, you may end up harming yourself, which may hamper your later plans. Lifting heavy items during a move often results in back pain, sprained legs, and muscle soreness. Furthermore, you may lose control and drop things, damaging your belongings.
Even if you end up moving the items, you will be too tired to think and act rationally. As a result, mistakes will happen. So, no need to tire yourself out by doing it all by yourself.
3. Get The Right Gears
With the right mind, plan, and equipment, you can easily pack and move your house entirely. Get the right equipment to lift, roll, and pack heavy items without harming yourself. For example, look for appliance dollies, furniture dollies, stair dollies, sliders, moving straps, and pulleys to move efficiently.
You can easily purchase these tools from your local convenience store or get them from other shopping platforms online. Apart from that, you can also rent these items from your preferred removalist company. You may also get people from the agency to help you understand the usability of each tool.
4. Dress Casually but Appropriately
For the task, make sure to opt for clothes that fit you well but are comfortable on your skin. As moving is tiring physical work, you would love to stay comfortable. Wearing covered clothes will save you from scratches and cuts. Wearing covered shoes will protect your toes and ankles from corner hits by heavy furniture and appliances.
Furthermore, if you have a previous history of physical injury, you must wear protective gear. Wear knee braces, gloves, and back braces to get the extra protection.
5. Make a Path for Moving Things
While lifting heavy items, you can’t see what’s in front of you. As a result, you may stumble, fall and hurt yourself. Also, if you are loading your belongings directly into the moving vehicle, you need to keep the entire pathway to the truck free from obstacles. Also, cut down the trees and extended branches to save yourself from injuries. If you have kids and pets at home, try to settle them into a safe space or ask your family or friends to keep them away. Check the route frequently so that the path remains clean and free.
It is a common human habit to walk sideways while moving with heavy items. But it will cause you lower back pain. Therefore, always walk either forward or backward to ensure your physical safety.
6. Know the Lifting Techniques
Commonly, you don’t know how to lift your freezer, but you must learn how to lift it before the move. You must have heard the common tips about lifting heavy items, that you need to lift your legs while keeping your back fixed. This will reduce the impact on your body. Also, you must place your legs shoulder-width apart to support your body weight. While lifting the item, sit in a squat position, keep the back straight, and maintain a steady breathing pattern.
7. Stay within Your Limits
You might be high in spirit to move your entire house, but you should know your limits. Every human body is different in terms of stamina and physical abilities. By pushing your limits, you may end up exhausting yourself at the end, and in the worst-case scenario, you will be extremely sick. So, take help, keep people around, make segments of items, and divide the task into small breaks to get the move done effortlessly.
8. Seek Professional Help
If you are not confident in any of the above parameters, it is advised to seek professional help from a packers and movers company. They will pack your items with care and proper packing materials, move them to the truck, and transport them to your new home efficiently.
If you want, they will unload, unpack, and arrange the stuff as you want as well. So, no need to tire and harm yourself, get a trusted agency from your locality and enjoy the process of a house move.
Conclusion
You should remember the above tips when planning a house move to avoid injuries. Always consider the weather, surrounding factors, and regional transport rules to plan your house move and stay safe.
