Moving in the Rain: 10 Tips for Staying Dry and Protecting Your Stuff

raining outside window

Spring has sprung, and with it, the return of endlessly rainy days. And while it’s all good for the plants and the grass, rainy days are less than ideal when it comes to moving. If you’ve ever been tasked with moving in the rain, you know that even a light drizzle can be a big inconvenience—and a massive downpour an even bigger one.

Of course, moving day happens rain or shine. Most of the time, you don’t have the option to just shift your plans because of bad weather, and nor should you. While it’s definitely not ideal, moving in the rain doesn’t have to be a total disaster either. Below, we’ll go over some of the essentials that you need to know to make a move in the rain just a little bit less stressful, and hopefully, a lot more dry.

  1. Wrap what you can

    Plastic wrap is your friend when it comes to protecting your boxes and belongings from the rain. Moving blankets are not waterproof—or even water resistant—and they’re not going to be enough to keep your things dry. Use plastic moving wrap (sometimes called stretch wrap) and/or garbage bags and tightly wrap anything that you’re worried about getting wet to create a barrier from the rain. If your boxes are only going to be outside long enough to be carried from your old home to the moving truck then they’ll probably be just fine, but use your best judgment about what gets wrapped and what doesn’t. You can also cover items with tarps, though be aware that without a tight seal it’s pretty easy for moisture to get inside.

  2. Line your boxes

    An alternative to wrapping up boxes on the outside is to wrap up your belongings from the inside. This will be hard to do if you already have your boxes packed and sealed, but if you have the option, line the inside of your boxes with large plastic garbage bags and fill up the bags with your stuff. Seal them, and then seal the boxes. That way, even if the boxes do get wet in the rain everything inside of them will be protected.

    Alternately, you could just move your belongings in garbage bags and not deal with boxes at all. If you do this, be sure to label each bag so that you don’t accidentally throw out the contents of your closet when you actually mean to throw out the trash.

  3. Make a plan

    The goal when moving in the rain is to have your belongings outside and exposed to the elements for as short of a period as possible. And the best way to do that is to have a plan for how you’re going to load and arrange them. Read up on how to pack and load a moving truck, and map out your strategy for the day. Load large and heavy items first, with the heaviest of those items situated in the back of the truck bed, near where the driver’s cabin is. Small and light items will go on last, and will fill out the middle and the front of the truck (closer to the entrance). The better you can plan how you’ll load your truck ahead of time, the less time you’ll spend figuring it out on the fly—and therefore the less time you’ll spend out in the rain with your stuff.

  4. Arrange boxes and other items in a garage or front hallway

    Another thing that you want to consider when moving in the rain is keeping as much rain out of your old house as you can. Regardless of whether you were a renter or an owner, you don’t want to leave a huge mess behind on moving day. To limit the amount of traipsing around you do in wet boots, bring all of your packed up items somewhere close to the truck (but somewhere that’s still covered) so that as you go back and forth you’re not regularly walking through your entire home. A garage is probably the best place to work from, but if that’s not possible than a front hall would do, too.

  5. Reinforce any weak or damaged boxes

    A box that is already barely holding it together to begin with is not going to do very well when exposed to rain. If you see that rain is in the forecast for your moving day, do your best to ensure that any box you use is in good enough condition to withstand a little bit of moisture, or ditch the cardboard entirely and rent plastic moving boxes. If you weren’t expecting rain but it arrived anyway, reinforce any boxes that are in less than perfect condition by applying packing tape around any rips or tears. You’ll probably also want to take the time to add an extra layer around those boxes with plastic wrap.

  6. Put tarps down on the bottom of the truck bed

    Any water that gets on your belongings during their trip from inside your home to inside the truck is liable to create a potentially damaging mess later on. In addition to thinking about water protection when your items are traveling into the truck, think about how you will protect them while they sit in there during transit. A good way to do this is to artfully arranging tarps over certain items or groups of items to seal them off from both the potential puddles of water on the bottom of the truck bed and water from other things in the truck. And if you do see puddles in the truck, clean them up before heading out.

  7. Wipe off items as you load them

    Try to avoid letting these aforementioned puddles build up by wiping down wet items as soon as they get into the truck. Keep a few towels in the truck bed so that they stay as dry as possible, and whenever an item comes in that can be dried (mostly furniture—since you can’t quite dry off wet cardboard) wipe it off. This will keep excessive moisture out of the truck and mitigate your chances of water-related damage on the road.

  8. Practice safety

    Your belongings aren’t the only things that you have to take extra care with when you’re moving in the rain. Rain can also pose a safety hazard, especially when it comes to slipping indoors. Reduce the chance of slipping and sliding by laying down tarps, unfolded cardboard, or even old mats or rugs down along the path that you’ll be taking from home to truck. If you can, set up an assembly line of sorts, with a couple of people in charge of getting items from inside the house to the door, and the other people in charge of getting those items into the truck. That way, there will be less transfer of moisture from inside to outside.

  9. Stay focused

    Now is not the time to dilly dally with your move. Drink your coffee, put on your rain poncho, and get to work, prioritizing speed and safety over all else. The quicker you can get your truck loaded, the sooner you can be done with the whole process. If you’d rather not rush it—or if it’s just not a possibility for you—look at the forecast and see if it’s possible to wait it out for a couple hours. It’s better to avoid moving in the rain if you can, so if it’s an option, go with that.

  10. Unpack right away at your new home

    Normally we’re pretty lackadaisical about unpacking. After all, there’s no deadline on it like there is for packing, with the only real incentive to speed up the process being that you get to stop living among endless stacks of boxes sooner. But if it was raining on moving day, then you need to act fast. There’s always a chance that moisture seeped in to areas that you don’t even know about, and if you let it sit, it can cause irreparable damage to your belongings. You want to make sure that everything is dry and safe as quickly as you can, which requires unpacking right away. It’s probably not going to be the first thing you want to do after a long day of moving in bad weather, but it’s better than the alternative, which is ruining a bunch of stuff that you could have otherwise salvaged.

Our best tip for moving in the rain: leave it to someone else. Professional movers are experts at moving safely and efficiently in all sorts of conditions, and a rainy move is just another day on the job for them. As an added bonus, you get to stay inside and dry while they do all the work. To find movers you can trust, enter your move details in at for a vetted list of reputable movers.