More than half of Britons still have unpacked boxes lying about ten months after moving into a new home, new research from London removals and storage firm Kiwi Movers found.
The survey of more than 1,000 people who have moved home in the last five years revealed 51 per cent had not finished unpacking their belongings after 304 days in the new place.
Nearly a fifth (18 percent) of movers said it took them between a year and a year and a half to get things organised and fully settle in, while a small minority ( 7 percent) said they still had things in boxes after two years of living somewhere.
Waiting to decorate was the most common reason given for the delay in unpacking, with 44 per cent of responding saying so.
Almost a third (31 per cent) said the delay in unpacking was due to having insufficient storage, while 12 per cent said they could not agree with their significant other on where to put things.
Three-quarters (75 per cent) of the movers said not having unpacked in full after ten months or more made them feel stressed and half of them said it was a cause of arguments.
Men living on their own are the most likely to have full boxes lying around, with 79 per cent saying they still had unpacking to do by month ten in their new pad. Single women were far less likely to let their belongings gather dust, with just 21 per cent with unpacking to do by month ten. Single women were also most likely to get the job done inside week one, with 20 per cent claiming to have successfully found a home for all of their belongings.
A tiny proportion of super-organised movers (3 per cent) were done with unpacking within a day.
Regan McMillan, director of Kiwi Movers, believes a lot of movers are making their lives unnecessarily hard by packing items they do not actually need.
“If a quarter of people are saying they’ve got boxes they never unpacked since their last move, you’ve got to wonder if they really need what’s inside. We recommend having a thorough de-clutter prior to moving house so you don’t end up paying to move, then storing or living among items they don’t actually need. In most cases, if you haven’t used it in the last six months, you can most likely do without it,” he said.