What to Do After Moving into a New Home or Apartment

In just under a month now I'll be moving for the 7^th time in 3 years, but that's the joy of being in college. I was fortunate to rent a brand-new home for the summer with a couple of room-mates, and it came out to be surprisingly cheap. I was paying about $425 a month in total for my portion of the rent. If you're going to be moving any time soon, be sure to take care of the following tasks right away.

Change Your Address - Stop by your post office and grab a change of address form. You should do this a couple days before you move. You'll also want to get in touch with your bank(s), insurance company, magazines in which you hold subscriptions to, or any company that regularly sends you mail (and that you want to continue getting their mail). This will ensure that you never miss a bill or other important letter.

Call The Utility Company - If you're renting or own a home, move out, and don't get the utilities moved off of your name, you're still liable for any utilities that anyone else uses until you take your name off the bill. Before you move, simply stop by the utility company and tell them that you'll be moving out on such a such date, and tell them where you're moving to so they can get you setup at your new location. This might mean quite a few stops if you have several different companies which manage your electric, telephone, gas, cable, garbage, water, sewer and internet.

Smoke Detectors - It's always a good idea to replace all of the batteries in the smoke detectors in your new place of living when you move in. That way you know that the batteries in them are good, and can test to see whether or not they are working.

Emergency Kit - No matter where you are in the country, you'll always have the threat of some sort of natural (or unnatural) disaster. You'll want to get a first aid kit, candles, some canned goods, bottled water, matches, and just about everything you would need in the case of a natural disaster.

Change The Locks - This is one of those things that 98% of the time you could not do and get away with just fine, but I've always thought it's a good idea to change the locks when you move. This will prevent any previous owner or someone else who had a key from getting in. This is your house now, not anyone else's!

Find The Circuit Breaker and Water Shutoffs - Always know where your main circuit breaker and water-shut-off is. Label all of the switches on the circuit breaker if they aren't done so already. You never know when an appliance might go haywire and need to have the water or power cut to it

Meet Your Neighbors - It's kind a saddening observation that more of us don't know our next door neighbors. On the day that you move in, go over and say hi to them. Introduce yourself, tell them who you are, and invite them over for dinner sometime. If you have a good relationship with your neighbors, they can watch your house for you while you're out of town and it's a lot easier to ask for a screw or a cup of flower when you know the people you're asking!

Satisfy Government Agencies - You'll want to go update your driver's license, voter registration and car registration fairly soon after you move in. This way it'll be done, and there won't be any nasty surprises from the state government a few months down the line.