Moving made easy with these services designed to take the stress out of the experience of moving out and moving in to a home

As much hard work as it can be, at least moving out of a property is a finite process with a clearly defined end in sight. Moving in, on the other hand, is not so simple, with the potential for tasks to drag out.

It can help to get a couple of tasks knocked on the head right away. Unless you’re moving into a completely empty shell, no matter how clean the previous residents left things, it’s always nice to know that certain areas – the insides of cupboards and the awkward corners soon to be hidden by furniture – have been given a thorough going over before you start unpacking or redecorating.

A raft of digital services have sprung up over the past few years offering domestic help at the push of a button and charged by the hour.

We plumped for Handy and opted to trial a two-hour one-off clean, to give the new place a thorough going over before we messed it up afresh. Services can be booked ahead, or fairly last minute (it recommends 10 hours as a minimum) making it easy to fit in with your own arrangements. You just enter your postcode, the desired time and date you wish to book and fill in a few basic details about anything you’d like the professional to focus on, as well as your payment details. You and your allotted cleaner can then contact each other via the app.

Even better, when your entire life is in boxes, for £5 extra the cleaner will bring their own supplies.

If you’ve lost a regular, trusted cleaner through relocation, apps like Handy can also be a good way of finding a new one. All workers registered with the site have been vetted and verified, great if you haven’t yet tapped into the local word-of-mouth network.

We also tried out a handyman, booked via the same system, who in two hours blitzed all the niggly, inessential jobs – hanging pictures, putting up shelves – that can linger uncompleted for months, but which really help a new property feel like a home.

Of course, these services aren’t designed specifically for home movers but their ad hoc, one-off and pre-verified nature certainly makes them well suited to the occasion.

handy.com