What should be in a first-night box?

Everyone arrives at a new house tired, and everything they need is somewhere in forty identical boxes. One box packed deliberately and kept separate is the difference between a manageable evening and a miserable one.

Safety

Step by step

1. Keep it in the car, not the van.The whole point is that it does not depend on the removal van arriving, being unloaded, or being findable. If it goes in the van it is not a first-night box.
2. Pack the tea-making kit.Kettle, mugs, teabags, coffee, milk, sugar, teaspoons. First thing everyone wants, including anyone helping, and the kettle is invariably packed at the bottom of a kitchen box.
3. Include bathroom basics.Loo roll — more than you think — hand soap, towels, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Loo roll in a new house is the single most reliably forgotten item.
4. Pack bedding for every bed.Sheets, duvet, pillows and cases, in a labelled bag per bed. Making the beds first is the most valuable half hour of the day, and doing it at eleven at night is not.
5. Include cleaning things.Cloths, spray, bin bags, kitchen roll, washing-up liquid. Somewhere will need wiping before you use it, and the previous occupants' standards are not yours.
6. Pack chargers for everything.Phones, watches, laptop, and a power bank. Phones are how you deal with everything that goes wrong on moving day, and they will be flat by six.
7. Include a torch and light bulbs.You may arrive after dark, in a house where you do not know the switches, and previous occupants sometimes take bulbs. A torch and a couple of bulbs cost very little.
8. Add a basic tool kit.Screwdrivers, a knife or scissors for boxes, a hammer, and a tape measure. Something always needs adjusting, and the toolbox will be in the last box off the van.
9. Include a phone charger, a pen and paper.Meter readings, notes for the removal firm, the neighbour's name. A pen in a house full of sealed boxes is surprisingly hard to find.
10. Pack food that needs no cooking.Snacks, fruit, biscuits, water. Everyone will be hungry hours before the kitchen is usable, and nobody wants to leave to find a shop.
11. Include the documents and keys.Contracts, meter reading sheet, the estate agent's number, spare keys. In a bag that stays with a person, not in the box.
12. Add anything a child or pet needs.The specific toy, the blanket, food and bowls, litter tray, medication. These are the things whose absence turns a difficult evening into a bad one.
13. Label it unmistakably.Bright tape, large writing, and tell everyone helping that it does not go in the van. A first-night box that gets loaded is a first-night box that does not exist.

Tips

• Use a clear plastic box rather than cardboard. You can see what is in it, it does not collapse, and it is obviously not one of the packing boxes.
• Pack two if you have children — one for adults, one for them, so the children's things can go into their room immediately.
• Add a bottle of something and two glasses. Sitting down at the end of moving day with a made bed behind you is worth planning for.

Common mistakes

• Putting the first-night box in the van — It then depends on the van arriving and being unloaded before you can find anything. The entire purpose is that it does not.
• Forgetting loo roll and hand soap — They are needed within an hour of arriving and are always packed in a bathroom box somewhere in the middle of the load.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask