Posts by mibox

Every January, the same scene plays out in New Hampshire homes from Nashua to Laconia: the tree comes down, the lights get wound into a ball, and a dozen mismatched boxes get shoved into the attic or under the basement stairs. Then next November someone spends an afternoon untangling lights and finding out which ornaments did not survive the year. Packing holiday decorations well takes about an hour longer than packing them badly, and it pays you back every season after that. Here is how to do it so your decorations come out of storage in the same shape they went in.

Sort and Purge Before You Pack

The easiest decorations to store are the ones you no longer keep. Before anything goes into a box, spread it all out and make three piles: keep, donate, and toss. Test every strand of lights while it is out, and throw away strands with broken sockets, frayed wires, or dead sections. Damaged light sets are a fire risk, and they will not fix themselves in storage.

• Donate decorations you have not put up in two seasons. Local thrift stores and churches are happy to take them in November and December.
• Toss cracked ornaments, crushed bows, and anything with mildew or water stains.
• Use up or throw out leftover candles, which warp and melt in a hot attic or a summer container.
• Group what is left by holiday and by room, so each box has one clear purpose.

Protect Ornaments and Breakables

Glass ornaments, ceramic villages, and heirloom pieces need the most care. Work through them in this order:

1. Use divided containers. Ornament boxes with cardboard or plastic dividers keep pieces from knocking into each other. Egg cartons and plastic cups glued into a shallow tote work well for small ornaments.
2. Wrap each piece on its own. Use acid-free tissue or plain packing paper. Skip newspaper, since the ink rubs off onto painted finishes.
3. Keep original boxes for village pieces. Ceramic houses and figurines fit best in the foam packaging they came in. If that is long gone, wrap them in bubble wrap and pack them snugly in a small box.
4. Pack heavy on the bottom, light on top. Put sturdy items like tree stands and metal signs in their own boxes, and never stack them on top of ornaments.

Our guide to packing fragile items for storage covers more wrapping techniques for glass and ceramics.

Keep Lights, Wreaths, and Garland Tangle-Free

Lights are the most frustrating decoration to unpack because they are the easiest to pack badly. Wrap each strand around a piece of stiff cardboard, a plastic hanger, or an empty coffee can, and tape the plug end down so it does not unravel. Store each strand in a zip bag labeled with its length and where it goes, such as “Front porch railing, 25 ft.” Wreaths keep their shape in a round wreath box or hung from a hook inside a closet. Garland can be coiled loosely into a tote, since tight coils crush the branches. Artificial trees last longer in a tree storage bag than in the original cardboard box, which tends to split after a few seasons.

Label So Next Year Is Easy

Clear plastic totes with lids are the best choice for most decorations, because you can see what is inside and they keep out moisture and mice better than cardboard. Color-coded lids help too: red for Christmas, orange for Halloween and fall, and another color for everything else. Label each tote on two sides with the holiday, the room, and a short list of contents. Number the boxes and keep a simple list on your phone so you know which bin holds the stockings without opening six of them. Our post on labeling boxes for portable storage has a system that works well here.

Where to Store Decorations in New Hampshire

Attics in New Hampshire swing from below freezing in January to well over 100 degrees in July, which warps candles, melts glue on ornaments, and cracks plastic. Damp basements bring mildew. A dry, steady spot is better. If your home is short on space, especially during a move, a renovation, or a houseful of holiday guests, a portable container is a simple option. An 8ft MI-BOX holds a full set of holiday decorations along with patio furniture and other seasonal gear, while a 16ft or 20ft container makes sense if decorations are part of a larger move. Keep totes off the floor on pallets, load the boxes you will want first near the doors, and read our tips on winterizing a storage container if it will sit through the cold months. Our moving and storage containers are delivered to your driveway and picked up whenever you are ready.

Local NH Cities We Deliver To

We deliver portable storage containers across Central, Southern, and Western New Hampshire. Most-requested cities: Manchester, Concord, Nashua, Milford, Laconia, and Keene. Don’t see your town? We probably deliver there too, get a quote.

Early November is when a lot of New Hampshire closets hit their limit. The shorts and beach towels are done for the year, the wool sweaters and flannel sheets are coming out, and if you are in the middle of a move or a renovation in Concord or Manchester, half your wardrobe may need a temporary home. Fabric is easy to pack and easy to ruin. A little care up front means you open your bins in spring to clean, fresh-smelling clothes instead of yellowed shirts, musty sheets, or a sweater with holes in it.

Start With Clean, Completely Dry Fabric

Almost every storage problem with clothing traces back to what went into the bin. Body oils, deodorant, food spots, and perfume that you cannot see in November turn into yellow stains and odors by April, and they attract moths and other pests. Damp fabric is worse: it grows mildew fast in a closed space.

• Wash or dry-clean everything before it goes into storage, even items you only wore once.
• Skip fabric softener and starch on stored items. Both leave residue that can attract pests and stiffen fibers over time.
• Let laundry air out for a day after the dryer. Thick towels, quilts, and comforters often hold moisture in the middle even when the outside feels dry.
• Empty every pocket and close zippers and buttons so garments hold their shape and nothing snags.

Choose the Right Containers for Each Fabric

Not every piece of fabric wants the same packaging. Matching the container to the item keeps things fresh without crushing or trapping moisture. Work through it in this order:

1. Everyday clothes and linens go in lidded plastic totes. Sealed totes keep out dust, moisture, and rodents better than cardboard. Line them with a clean cotton sheet or acid-free tissue so fabric is not pressed directly against plastic.
2. Suits, dresses, and coats go in wardrobe boxes. A tall wardrobe box with a hanging bar keeps structured pieces from creasing. Use breathable cotton garment bags, not the thin plastic bags from the dry cleaner, which trap humidity.
3. Wool and cashmere get extra protection. Fold sweaters rather than hanging them so they do not stretch, and tuck in cedar blocks or lavender sachets as a deterrent. Keep cedar from touching fabric directly, since its oils can stain.
4. Bulky bedding gets compressed carefully. Vacuum-seal bags save a lot of room for synthetic comforters, pillows, and spare blankets. Skip them for down, wool, and leather, which need some air to keep their loft and shape.

Rolling t-shirts, jeans, and casual knits fits more into each tote and leaves fewer hard creases. Fold heavier items like sweaters and table linens loosely, and put the heaviest pieces on the bottom so lighter fabric is not crushed. Wrap heirloom quilts, christening gowns, or wedding dresses in acid-free tissue and give them their own box. Then label every bin on two sides with what is inside and whose it is, such as “Kids winter, sizes 8-10” or “Guest room sheets, queen.” Our guide to labeling boxes for portable storage has a simple system that works well with clothing.

Loading Fabric Into a Portable Container

Once your bins are packed, how you load them matters. Keep totes of clothing off the floor on a pallet or a couple of 2x4s, and stack them away from the walls so air can move around them. Put the items you will want first, like holiday outfits, snow gear, or the spare flannel sheets for guests, near the doors. Toss a few moisture absorbers in among the bins, and never store fabric next to anything that can leak, such as paint, cleaners, or propane. Our posts on winterizing a storage container and keeping pests out cover the rest of a cold-weather setup. Most households storing a season of clothes and linens alongside some furniture find an 8ft MI-BOX plenty, while a 16ft or 20ft container makes sense when clothing is part of a full move or a whole-house renovation.

Common Mistakes With Stored Clothing

• Packing anything slightly damp. One damp towel can raise the humidity in a sealed tote enough to spread mildew to everything around it.
• Using garbage bags or dry-cleaner plastic. They trap moisture, tear easily, and get mistaken for trash during a move.
• Overstuffing bins. Jamming fabric in crushes fibers, sets deep wrinkles, and makes lids pop loose. Leave a little room at the top.
• Forgetting to check in. If clothing will be stored for several months, open a bin or two partway through to make sure everything still smells fresh and dry.

Unpacking Fresh in the Spring

When it is time to swap seasons again, open bins somewhere dry, shake out each piece, and give clothes and linens a day to air out before they go back into drawers. Anything with a stale smell usually just needs a wash. If you packed clean, dry fabric in the right containers and kept it off the floor, that is about all the work there is. Whether you are clearing a closet for the holidays or packing a whole house, our moving and storage containers let you do it from your own driveway, and MI-BOX can pick the container up whenever you are ready.

Local NH Cities We Deliver To

We deliver portable storage containers across Central, Southern, and Western New Hampshire. Most-requested cities: Manchester, Concord, Nashua, Milford, Laconia, and Keene. Don’t see your town? We probably deliver there too, get a quote.

The first real cold snap in New Hampshire does something predictable: every field mouse within a few hundred feet of your house starts looking for a warm, dry place to spend the winter. A storage container sitting in a Concord driveway or out behind a barn in Tilton looks like a five-star hotel to them. If your container is packed with soft furniture, cardboard, and holiday decorations, you have handed them bedding, a food source, and a nesting site all at once. The good news is that pest problems in portable storage are almost entirely preventable, and most of the work happens before you ever load a single box.

Why NH Containers Attract Pests in Fall and Winter

Mice, red squirrels, and the occasional chipmunk are not trying to be destructive. They are cold, and your container is warmer than the woods and drier than the ground. A steel MI-BOX container is actually one of the harder targets out there because the walls and roof are solid, but pests are patient and they will test every seam at floor level. Understanding what pulls them in tells you exactly where to focus.

• Warmth and shelter from wind, rain, and snow, especially once overnight temperatures drop below freezing.
• Food residue — even a few crumbs in a kitchen box or a scented candle can register as a meal.
• Nesting material like upholstery stuffing, paper, cardboard, and natural fibers.
• Quiet, undisturbed space. A container you never open all winter is far more inviting than one you check monthly.

Seal the Entry Points Before You Load

It is far easier to pest-proof an empty container than one packed to the ceiling. Walk the container before your belongings go in and close off the handful of spots that matter.

• Check the door gaskets and make sure they sit flush when the doors are latched. Daylight at the bottom corners means a gap a mouse can use.
• Keep the container level. A box set on uneven ground in a gravel driveway can twist slightly and open a seam — our drivers place it level for exactly this reason.
• Set the container on a paved or compacted surface when you can. Tall grass and leaf piles right against the doors give pests cover to work undetected.
• Clear away brush, firewood stacks, and bird feeders near the container, since those are the staging areas pests travel from.

Pack So Pests Can’t Settle In

How you pack matters as much as how you seal. The goal is to remove the three things pests want — food, nesting material, and hiding spots — from the equation.

1. Clean everything first. Wipe down kitchen items, empty the toaster crumb tray, and never store open or perishable food. A sealed container is not a pantry.
2. Trade cardboard for plastic bins. Hard-sided totes with tight lids keep pests out and resist moisture better than boxes, which mice chew into nests.
3. Seal soft goods in bags. Vacuum bags or heavy contractor bags around cushions, bedding, and clothing remove the cozy nesting material they are hunting for.
4. Leave an inspection aisle. A narrow walkway down the middle of a 16-foot container lets you step in, look around, and spot any activity early instead of unpacking everything in spring to find out.

Common Mistakes That Invite Pests In

Most infestations trace back to a few avoidable habits. Steer around these and you have won most of the battle.

• Storing food “just this once.” A single box of pantry staples or a case of dog food is enough to draw mice from across the yard.
• Using scented deterrents as the whole plan. Peppermint oil and dryer sheets smell nice to you, but on their own they do not replace sealing gaps and removing food.
• Packing wall-to-wall. A container crammed floor to ceiling gives pests endless hiding spots and leaves you no way to inspect it.
• Setting it and forgetting it. A container left untouched from October to April is the ideal undisturbed nest. Regular visits break that up.

Check On It Through the Season

Pest-proofing is not a one-time job, but keeping up with it takes only a few minutes. Open the container on a dry day every few weeks, step inside with a flashlight, and look for droppings, chewed corners, or shredded paper near the floor. Catching one mouse in October is a quick fix; discovering a nest in April after the whole winter is a mess you do not want. A quick monthly walk-through, a couple of well-placed snap traps near the doors, and the packing habits above will keep a MI-BOX container clean and dry straight through to spring — whether it is parked for a renovation, a move, or just seasonal overflow.

Keeping pests out pairs well with the rest of your cold-weather prep. See how to winterize a storage container in NH, our guide to prepping a container for long-term storage, and the list of what not to store in a portable container.

Local NH Cities We Deliver To

We deliver portable storage containers across Central, Southern, and Western New Hampshire. Most-requested cities: Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Bedford, Laconia, Tilton, and Derry. Don’t see your town? We probably deliver there too — get a quote.

Here is a scene that plays out every spring in Concord and Laconia: a homeowner opens the MI-BOX that has been sitting in the driveway since the fall renovation, stares at a wall of identical brown boxes, and has no idea which one holds the good winter coats or the box of tax records. Everything is in there somewhere. Finding it is another story. A short inventory, made before anything goes into storage, turns that guessing game into a 30-second lookup, and it is the one storage habit most people skip.

Why a Home Inventory Is Worth 30 Minutes

An inventory is simply a record of what you put into storage and where it sits in the container. It does three jobs at once, and each one saves you a headache later.

• You can find things without unpacking. A quick list tells you the holiday decorations are in the three bins by the door, so you grab them and close up in minutes instead of emptying half the container.
• It is your proof for insurance. If anything is ever damaged or goes missing, a dated list with photos is what a homeowner or renter policy wants to see. Reconstructing it from memory after the fact almost never works.
• It keeps you honest about what you own. People routinely store things they meant to donate or toss. Listing everything first is the easiest moment to catch that and shrink the load.
• It makes a future move faster. If the stored items are headed to a new home, the inventory doubles as your unload-and-place plan on day one.

What to Capture for Each Item or Box

You do not need a spreadsheet with fifty columns. For most households, five simple details per box are plenty to make the inventory genuinely useful.

• A box number. Write it on the box and in your list so the two always match.
• The room it came from. "Kitchen," "primary bedroom," "garage" — this is how you will want to search later.
• A short contents summary. Three or four words beats a novel: "winter coats, scarves, gloves."
• Rough value for anything worth noting. You only need estimates on the items that matter for insurance, not every spatula.
• A photo. One picture of the open box before you seal it is worth a paragraph of description.

The Fastest Way to Build One

The whole point is a system you will actually finish. Here is the approach that takes the least effort and holds up months later.

1. Number and photograph as you pack. Before you tape a box shut, write its number on two sides, snap a photo of what is inside, and jot the room and contents in a notes app or a single sheet of paper.
2. Keep one running list. A phone notes app, a free spreadsheet, or a dedicated home-inventory app all work. The best tool is the one you will keep open while you pack, not the fanciest one.
3. Group by room, not by trip. Sorting your list by room makes it searchable. You will almost always go looking for "the garage stuff," never for "the third load."
4. Mark the high-value and fragile boxes. A star or a highlight on the list, plus a note on the box itself, tells you and anyone helping to load those last and handle them carefully.

Match Your Inventory to the Way You Load

An inventory and a smart loading plan work together. If your box numbers march from the back of the container to the door in the same order as your list, retrieving anything becomes a matter of reading the number off the list and walking to it. Our guide on organizing a 16ft storage container shows how to keep aisles and access points clear, and a clear box-labeling system is the physical half of the inventory you are building on paper. The list tells you where something is; the labels confirm it when you are standing in front of the container.

Common Inventory Mistakes to Avoid

• Waiting until the container is full. Trying to inventory after everything is loaded means unpacking to see what you have. Capture it as the box goes in, not after.
• Vague contents. "Misc" and "stuff" help no one. Even four honest words make a box findable.
• No photos of valuables. For electronics, tools, and anything you would file a claim on, a photo plus a model number is worth far more than a line of text. Our long-term storage prep guide covers how to protect those items once they are documented.
• Storing the only copy inside the container. A list that lives on a sticky note in the locked MI-BOX is a list you cannot reach. Keep it on your phone and backed up.

Keep the List Where You Will Actually Find It

The finished inventory only earns its keep if you can pull it up the moment you need something. Save it to your phone, email yourself a copy, and if you share the container with family, send the list to them too. Months from now, when you need the winter boots or the box of records, you will open your phone, find the box number, and walk straight to it — which is the whole reason you spent 30 minutes on it up front. A little organization before the MI-BOX doors close pays you back every single time you open them.

Local NH Cities We Deliver To

We deliver portable storage containers across Central, Southern, and Western New Hampshire. Most-requested cities: Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Bedford, Laconia, and Derry. Don't see your town? We probably deliver there too — get a quote.