Moving house is very rarely a secret. And why should it be?
If you happen to be moving out soon, one of your first reactions will most likely be to tell all your friends about the move in the hope that you get move-related assistance from anyone who’s willing to offer it.
In the end, it’s just a percentage game – the more people know about your upcoming house move, the higher the chance of receiving help from the people who care about you.
The help you can get from your friends and family members can range from valuable advice about which moving company to hire and supplies of free packing materials such as moving boxes and bubble wrap all the way to assistance in packing up your stuff and lifting and carrying heavy furniture pieces.
Therefore, under normal house moving circumstances, you’ll want to let everybody know that you’re moving – including your landlord, of course. However, this time you may be moving under unusual circumstances, forcing you to keep your move a secret for various reasons. And if that’s the case, then you’ll surely want to move out discreetly without anyone learning of your intentions.
Moving out secretly can be the only way to get out of a bad situation – such as a breakup or a divorce, for example – without any further complications and no added drama on Moving day. And yet, moving out discreetly is not as easy as you might think.
Read on to learn how to move out without anyone knowing.
Step 1. Be absolutely sure you want to move out secretly
They say that desperate times call for desperate measures, so if you’re planning on pulling off a secret move, then you must be desperate enough to want to do it.
Before you decide to move out discreetly, you must be 100% sure that the underlying reason for your extraordinary decision can be justified. In other words, you have to have a really good reason to want to move out secretly simply because your hasty actions may offend or hurt some of the closest people you have by your side.
Make sure that your decision to move out secretly is well justified.
If you want a way out of a bad relationship, then you can choose to move out without anyone knowing to save yourself the drama on the day of the move. The person you’re leaving could cause trouble when they learn of your intention, so sometimes it can be much better to just move far away secretly in order to keep your sanity.
If you want to move out without your parents knowing due to a big fight or a strained relationship with them in general, then you can move out of their house secretly as long as you’ve officially become an adult at 18. Of course, there will be many things to consider when moving out of your parent’s house in such a secretive way, including the fact that you may not be able to return if things don’t work out the way you hope.
Moving out without informing anyone can be an option when you desperately wish to leave the area you live in at the moment and you don’t have too many friends with whom to share your desire to run away. In that case, moving out secretly and getting a new start in another part of the country will make all the sense in the world and you won’t even have to justify your decision to anyone but yourself.
Caution: When moving out of a rented place, you must inform your landlord that you intend to move out and then make sure you’ve paid any debts you may have such as the rent and utility bills before moving away.
When you wish to move out secretly, one important aspect of the entire stealth relocation is to think about the proper timing to complete the secretive move.
Whenever you wish to move far away from a person who you know will make things much harder for you if they are present on the day of the move, then the logical choice is to move out when he or she is not around.
Good timing is crucial when planning a secret move.
Wait for the opportune moment when they are away from home – either at work or out of town for a few days – and then take matters into your hands by organizing an emergency move. That way, you’ll spare yourself highly dramatic and stressful moments during a situation that’s already been too stressful from the start.
The most opportune moment to move out without anyone knowing will depend on why you want to go away and the specific parameters of the move itself. If you wish to move out secretly so that even your neighbors don’t see you leave, then you might be able to leave the place during the small hours of the night when most people will be sound asleep in their beds and won’t be stretching out their necks out the windows to see who’s moving out and why.
Alternatively, choosing a bad timing can really botch up your plans of organizing a successful break-away move that nobody will know anything about until you’re far, far away as originally planned. In such emergency situations, WHEN is often much more important than HOW, so think of a good moving-away strategy that will rely on impeccable timing.
Step 3. Resist the urge to tell anyone about the move
Since you’ve made up your mind to move secretly, your top priority should be to keep the upcoming move a secret until it’s all done and over with. And that could actually prove to be the most challenging aspect of your stealth move.
Resist the urge to share your intention to move away.
Ultimately, your secret move must remain a secret but when there are plenty of days until the scheduled move-out day, it can be much harder to keep your plans confidential as opposed to a last-minute move where the impulse decision to move out will give you much less time in which you could spill the beans unintentionally.
Make an effort not to mention to anyone that you’re planning to move out. The urge to share the news with your friends can be really strong but you just have to resist it. Keep repeating to yourself that moving out without anyone knowing – not even your best friends – will be better for everyone.
Bear in mind that even the slightest of hints of moving away could get things worse and you may be forced to admit your plans if you’ve chosen the wrong choice of words and have given away too much information. When unsure, it’s best to remain silent or change the subject to avoid giving out any possible clues.
In most cases, it’s a good idea to stop posting stuff on your preferred social media network until the secret move is already a fact. Again, the idea here is to avoid the scenario when you’ve given too much information and people start asking too many questions as a result.
It can be really challenging to remain secretive about your plans to move out secretly but it can be done through strict self-discipline. A good rule of thumb is to avoid talking or even mentioning the major cause for your desire to move out discreetly.
If you wish to move out secretly as an effective way to end a bad relationship, then you’re going to have to take care of something that may or may not be a serious issue in your particular case – how to divide the shared possessions.
Since you want to move out secretly, then it won’t be possible to discuss the issue with your partner in order to divide your shared belongings in the fairest way possible. In such cases, the best thing you can do under such abnormal circumstances is to take the items that are indisputably yours and leave anything else that the other person might potentially claim as theirs.
Even if you love your big sofa bed, you may have to leave it behind in order to pull off a discreet move.
If unsure whether to take an item or not, it’s usually better to leave it behind than to create more problems for yourself later on and deal with possible disputes down the road.
When moving out without anyone knowing, a good rule of thumb is NOT to take any big and heavy items such as furniture pieces. Remember that the key to a successful discreet move is usually the speed with which that secret move is organized and executed. In other words, the faster you manage to move out, the less likely it is for the people around you to guess what you have in mind.
In addition to slowing you down, taking furniture with you during a secret move is also a bad idea simply because there won’t be anybody around to give you a hand with moving the large and heavy furniture items in your home. Nevertheless, if you must move a specific furniture piece with you (mostly because of its sentimental value), then your only option to move furniture while moving discreetly is to hire experienced furniture movers.
Therefore, when moving out without anyone knowing, be very careful which items you choose to take with you when you leave. Take only the items that you really need and that are 100% yours to avoid any complications later on. Leave bulky stuff behind since you’ll also want to complete the secret move as quickly as possible.
If you’re moving to a place that’s not too far from your current one (moving locally), then one good way to pull off a discreet move is to use your car and transport your belongings by doing a few trips (or maybe even one if you’re only taking with you absolute essentials).
Moving out during the night is a viable option that is not likely to attract too much attention.
However, if you happen to be moving to a place that’s pretty far from where you are right now (moving long distance), then you should seriously consider using a full-service mover to help you move out in a secretive way.
A reputable moving company will do what they do best without asking you any private questions – the moving professionals won’t be interested in the reasons for your desire to move out. What they’ll be interested in will be providing high-quality moving services and then getting paid according to the terms and conditions laid out in the moving contract.
During a time when you need your house move to remain a secret, hiring movers who understand your specific needs is crucial for the overall success of your stealth relocation operation. As an added bonus, the professional movers you get to help you out will complete the job quickly and safely, thus increasing your chances of keeping your move a secret.
Speak with your movers about whether they can help you move out at an unusual time of the day so that your move attracts as little attention as possible. With a little bit of luck, you may be able to negotiate with the moving company a move-out time that’ll work great for you but you may need to pay extra for the add-on service – for example, movers working outside their normal working hours.
Get free quotes from top-rated moving companies in your area that will be willing to help you to move out discreetly.
*At MoveAdvisor we will connect you with a professional moving company. Please note that we may not be affiliated with
and you may be speaking with another licensed provider.
We use cookies to optimise your experience.Accept and close or Learn more
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment