A Des Moines apartment move-out checklist
Apartment moves have a whole layer that house moves do not: a landlord, a building, a lift, a loading area, and a set of rules that nobody mentions until you break one. The general preparation guide covers the move itself. This is the renter-specific part.
It is written around the Des Moines metro, where the buildings range from downtown high rises with managed loading docks to converted houses in Sherman Hill and Drake with a shared front door and a staircase.
Read the lease before you book anything
The lease decides your date, not you. Find the notice period, which is commonly thirty or sixty days, and work out exactly when written notice has to be given and in what form. An email may not count if the lease says written notice.
Then look for the move-out conditions. Most leases have something about cleaning standards, whether carpets have to be professionally cleaned, and what happens with holes in walls. Reading that before you move is the difference between a small job and a deduction.
- The notice period and the exact form notice has to take
- The date the tenancy actually ends, which may not be the date you leave
- Cleaning and carpet requirements
- Whether the building restricts move-out days, hours or lift use
- Whether a certificate of insurance is required from your mover
- How and when the deposit is returned, and to what address
Ask the building the questions the lease does not answer
Managed buildings run moves as a scheduled event. There may be a booking system for the lift, a designated loading area, a permitted window of hours, and a requirement that your mover provides a certificate of insurance naming the building as an additional insured.
The certificate is the one that most often derails a date, and not because it is hard. Movers issue them routinely. The problem is lead time: asking for one two days before a move, when the building also needs to approve it, is how a Saturday move becomes a Tuesday one. Ask the building what it needs as soon as you have a date, then ask your mover to produce it.
In smaller buildings and converted houses, the question is different and more practical. Where does the truck go, is the front door propped or does someone have to hold it, is there a shared stairwell, and are there neighbours whose cars need to move.
The deposit is a documentation exercise
Deposits are lost to disagreements about condition, and disagreements about condition are won by whoever has evidence. Under Iowa law a landlord has a set period after the tenancy ends to return a deposit or provide a written statement of what has been withheld and why, and you have to have given a forwarding address in writing for that to work.
So do two things. Give the forwarding address in writing, and keep proof that you did. And photograph the whole apartment after it is empty and cleaned, with timestamps, including the inside of the oven and the fridge, the carpets, every wall, and any pre-existing damage you noted when you moved in.
If you still have the move-in inspection report, put it side by side with the photographs. That comparison is what an argument about normal wear and tear actually turns on.
The order to do things in
Working backwards from the last day is easier than working forwards from today, because the fixed points are all at the end.
- As soon as you know: give notice in writing, and book the crew
- Same week: ask the building about lift booking, loading area, hours and a certificate of insurance
- Two weeks out: arrange utilities at the new address and the disconnection at this one
- Two weeks out: change the address with the post office, the bank, your employer and anything with a subscription
- The week of: finish packing, and set aside anything the crew will not load
- Move day: walkthrough with the crew, then photograph the empty apartment
- After: return every key and fob, and confirm in writing that you have
The Des Moines specifics
Parking is the local variable. Downtown and the East Village have limited street loading, and the City of Des Moines runs an oversize and overweight moving permit through requestmovingpermit.dsm.city with a two business day lead time, not counting weekends or city holidays. If your building has no dedicated loading area, ask the city rather than guessing.
Timing is the other one. Leases across the metro cluster at month end, and in August the student moves around Drake and out at Iowa State in Ames absorb a lot of the region's capacity in the same two weeks. If your lease end is the last day of July or August, the date is contested and worth booking well ahead.