Living room
Screens travel and store upright, never flat. Bag cables per device and photograph the back of anything complicated before unplugging.
The Storage Packing Checklist
Almost everything that goes wrong in storage was decided in the two days before collection, not during the months afterwards. This checklist is the two days, and it is one of our storage and moving guides.
It is ordered by room, because that is how you will actually work through it, with a separate section for the things specific to this climate — which are the ones people from elsewhere reliably skip.
The one-line version: box everything loose, dry everything wet, and take every battery out. Those three prevent most of it.
One week before
- 1
Decide by room, not by item — Item-by-item decisions are what make a clearance take three days. Pick a room and empty it.
- 2
Get boxes, uniform ones — Mixed sizes rack badly and cost measurably more floor space than matching cartons.
- 3
Defrost the fridge — It needs a full day open to dry afterwards. This is the most common source of a smell on return.
- 4
Book the lift — Or tell us to. Most Dubai towers need 48 hours and some restrict the hours.
Room by room
The specific thing that goes wrong in each.
Bedrooms
Mattress in a proper cover, stored flat. Wash all clothing before boxing — body oils oxidise into yellow marks over months.
Kitchen
No food of any kind, including sealed tins. Plates on edge like records rather than stacked. Empty and dry every appliance.
Bathroom and balcony
No aerosols, no liquids that can leak. The balcony and store cupboard hold more than anyone counts — check both.
The Dubai-specific list
The steps that are not on a checklist written for a temperate climate.
- Take every battery out — remotes, keyboards, torches, toys, clocks. Leaked alkaline ruins more stored items here than heat does.
- Return the gas cylinder to the supplier. Villa kitchens and barbecues almost always have one and it cannot travel.
- No candles, aerosols or cosmetics. They melt, and they melt into everything packed with them.
- Documents and photographs into sealed plastic boxes rather than cardboard.
- Clean outdoor furniture before it is wrapped, or the sand travels with it.
- Dry everything completely — tents, appliances, dive gear, anything that has been near water.
- Do not vacuum-bag natural fibres. It traps moisture against fabric, which in this humidity does the opposite of protecting it.
- Check the garage and the balcony last. Everything that cannot be stored lives in one of those two places — see the prohibited list.
The day before, and the day itself
- Pack a suitcase of live essentials: passport, Emirates ID, medication, chargers, tenancy paperwork, a change of clothes.
- Walk the property once more, specifically the balcony, the cupboard under the sink and the garage.
- Photograph anything valuable before it is wrapped, and keep the photos with your inventory copy.
- Decide which cartons you might want back early and say so to the crew — they get racked accessibly, and it costs nothing.
- Be present for the first twenty minutes and the last ten. The start is pointing at what goes; the end is signing the list.
- Keep your signed inventory copy somewhere that is not a box.
For what happens after the van leaves, how the storage service works covers the rest.
Common questions
Box every loose small item. It shortens the collection by roughly a third and reduces the floor space your goods occupy by around 30 per cent — which you pay for every month, not just once.
By the room they are going TO and by what is inside, not by where they came from. Label the side as well as the top, because racked boxes are seen from the side.
Not for natural fibres in this climate. Vacuum bags trap moisture against fabric and prevent it breathing, which over a Dubai summer causes exactly the problem they appear to solve.
The gas cylinder, followed by the contents of the balcony and the store cupboard. All three are discovered on collection day rather than before it.
Yes — drain the drum, the filter and the hoses, then leave it a day to dry. Residual water in a sealed appliance over months in this climate is the main cause of the smell people describe on return.
Plates on edge like records rather than stacked flat, in small boxes, with padding between them. Stacked flat they take the full weight of everything above and break far more often.
More in Guides
Everything below is part of the same service — pick the page that matches what you are storing.
How much storage costs in DubaiWhat the market actually charges, and the costs quotes leave out.Dubai tenancy & moving calendarWhen the city moves, and why your date is harder than you think.Moving to DubaiThe arrival sequence, from visa to Ejari to furniture.Best storage companies in DubaiHow the Dubai operators compare, and what to compare them on.
Collection booked?
Work through this the weekend before. It is two evenings and it prevents most of what goes wrong.
+971 50 577 3388 · support@safestorage.ae · from 12.65 AED per sq ft, VAT included