The week after you move in Des Moines
Every moving checklist ends on the day of the move. This one starts there, for a household that has just arrived in the Des Moines metro from across town or from another state, and works through what has a deadline, what has a phone number, and what can wait.
Where a deadline is quoted below, it comes from the body that sets it. Where it is not, the article names who to ask, because these things change and a website is not where they change first.
The first two days: the things that keep the house running
Confirm the utilities are in your name and not merely working. A house where the power is on because the previous occupant's account has not closed is a house that goes dark on a random Tuesday. MidAmerican Energy serves electric and gas across most of the metro. Water depends on the city: Des Moines Water Works serves the city and several suburbs, West Des Moines has its own, and each has its own process. Des Moines Water Works asks for two business days' notice and has a separate tenant application for renters, so a rental not set up before the move is a call on the first morning.
In the City of Des Moines, garbage collection is tied to the water account. Public Works collects garbage weekly on a day assigned by address and recycling every two weeks on a color-coded calendar. The carts should be at the house; if not, the Public Works call center is (515) 283-4950. Suburbs run their own collection, and a new resident's first job is finding out which day the cart goes out.
Find the water shutoff, electrical panel and gas meter before you need them. Change the locks if the house was a purchase, and test the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Inside thirty days: the Iowa DOT and the county treasurer
Iowa law requires you to notify the Iowa DOT of a new address within thirty days of moving. The online change through myMVD updates the mailing address but does not produce a new card; a license that shows the new address means a visit to a driver's license service center. It is a small task, and easy to let drift past the deadline.
For someone arriving from another state it is bigger. Iowa requires a new resident to title and register a vehicle with a county treasurer within thirty days of establishing residency, even while the old plates are still valid, and the license has to be swapped too. In the metro that means Polk County for most of Des Moines, or Dallas, Warren or Story County depending on the address. Check the document list on the county's page before going; a missing document is a second trip.
Tell the auto insurer the new address in the first week. The premium is tied to where the car sleeps, and a claim on a car registered to an old address is a conversation nobody wants.
- Iowa DOT: address change within thirty days, online through myMVD for the mailing address, in person for a new card
- County treasurer: vehicle title and registration within thirty days of residency for new Iowa residents
- Auto insurer: new address, and the new garaging location, in the first week
- Voter registration: the Polk County Auditor's election office, online with an Iowa license, or the polling place on election day with proof of residence
The addresses nobody remembers until the mail stops
The postal service forwards mail for a set period and then stops, and the stopping is what catches people. Use the forwarded envelopes as a to-do list: every piece with a yellow forwarding label is an organization that does not have the new address yet.
The list is longer than the obvious ones: the bank and every card, payroll, the doctor, dentist, pharmacy and vet, the children's school, anything that ships, anything that pays, and the state tax return, which will otherwise send a refund to a house you do not live in. Do it in one sitting with the forwarded mail on the table, then again a month later.
Voter registration, schools, and the things with their own calendar
Voter registration in Polk County goes through the County Auditor's election office at 2309 Euclid Avenue, and anyone with an Iowa license can update online through the DOT's system. A voter who moved within the county can also report the change at the polling place on election day with proof of identity and residence, but that is the fallback, not the plan.
Schools have registration windows and document lists, so a move in term time means a call to the new district in the first week. Metro district boundaries do not follow city limits, so confirm which one the address is in.
Pets need their license moved where the new city requires one, and the microchip registry needs the new address, which people forget until the dog turns up two streets away and the chip points home.
The boxes, and the furniture that did not fit
Flatten boxes as they empty and put them out in bundles; a mountain of cardboard on the curb in a non-recycling week will sit there. If a packing service supplied crates, confirm the collection date.
Then there is the furniture that looked right on the floor plan and is wrong in the room, which a household knows a week in: the sofa that does not fit, the dresser that blocks a door, the treadmill that cannot get down the basement stairs. Each is a single-item delivery to a buyer, a donation pickup or a small removal job, and dealing with them in the first two weeks is easier than living around them for a year.
Keep the mover's paperwork until the last box is open. Damage has to be reported within the window on the estimate, which is shorter than the time most people take to open every box.