Your first week in a new apartment

Day one, before you unpack anything

This is the most important hour of the week. Do it before a single box comes in.

1. Photograph every room, empty. Walls, floors, ceilings, inside every cupboard, inside the oven and fridge. Your phone timestamps them automatically.
2. Close-up photograph every existing mark. Every scuff, chip, stain, crack, water mark and worn patch. Over-document; you cannot do this retrospectively.
3. Video walk-through, narrating. Two minutes, and it captures things stills miss.
4. Email the landlord a dated list of everything wrong, with photos attached, within the first few days. “Noting the following pre-existing condition issues at move-in.” That email is your deposit protection.
5. Note the meter readings for electricity, gas and water, and photograph them.

If there is an official move-in inspection form, fill it in thoroughly and keep a copy. If there is not, your email is the equivalent.

Day one: the safety checks

1. Test every smoke alarm with its test button, and check the manufacture date on the back. Replace batteries regardless of what you were told; replace the whole unit if it is over ten years old, and report that in writing.
2. Check for a carbon monoxide alarm if there is a gas stove, gas or oil heating, a fireplace or an attached garage. Many states require one. If there is not one, buy one (~$25) and tell the landlord.
3. Find the water shut-off valve. Usually under the kitchen sink, near the water heater, or in a utility cupboard. Photograph it. A burst supply line floods a floor in minutes.
4. Find the breaker panel, and ideally map it: plug a lamp into each outlet and flip breakers one at a time. Ten minutes once, and it tells you which appliances can safely share a circuit.
5. Test the bathroom extractor fan — hold a square of toilet paper to the grille; it should stick. A dead fan is a landlord repair and matters for mold.
6. Check every window and exterior door lock. Report anything that does not secure properly, immediately and in writing.
7. Put paper under the sink traps and check it in a week. Damp means report it now.

Days two and three: make it liveable

Order matters here. Do these before anything decorative.

1. Assemble the bed and make it properly. One good night’s sleep makes the rest of the week manageable.
2. Set up the bathroom fully. Curtain, mat, towels on a hook, toilet paper where you can reach it, plunger under the sink.
3. Make the kitchen functional, not organized. You need a pan, a knife, a board, a plate and somewhere to drain. Organizing cupboards properly can wait a month, and you will do it better once you know how you cook in this kitchen.
4. Hang curtains or blinds. Urgent if the bedroom windows are bare. Tension rods need no drilling.
5. Clean before you fill. Wipe out every cupboard, the fridge and the oven while they are still empty. Far easier now than in a fortnight.
6. Set up internet. Book the installation before you move if you can; waiting two weeks for a connection is a common and avoidable annoyance.

The rest of the week: admin

• Change your address — bank, employer, driving license, voter registration, insurance, subscriptions, and a mail forwarding order.
• Set up renters insurance if you have not. $12 to $25 a month, often required by the lease, and it covers your belongings against theft, fire and water damage.
• Confirm every utility account is in your name from the right date, with your move-in meter readings.
• Save the emergency maintenance number in your phone before you need it at 2am.
• Introduce yourself to a neighbor. Genuinely useful — they know which bin day it is, where the shut-off is, and whether the hot water always does that.
• Find the practical geography: nearest grocery store, pharmacy, laundromat, and where the bins go and when.
• Work out where to put the recycling. Many buildings have specific requirements — ask before buying a dual-compartment bin.

The first grocery shop is unusually large

Budget $150 to $250, because you are buying every staple at once rather than topping up. The things people forget:

• Cooking oil, salt, pepper
• Five or six spices you actually use — not a 20-jar rack
• Flour, sugar, stock cubes, pasta, rice
• Foil, parchment, cling film, zip bags
• Bin bags in the right size for your bin
• Dish soap, sponges, all-purpose spray, bleach
• Laundry detergent
• Toilet paper and paper towels, in quantity
• Light bulbs and batteries — AA, AAA and 9V

What can wait, and should

Resist doing these in week one. They are better decisions in month two, and some of them you will not want at all.

• Decoration and art. Live with bare walls for a few weeks; you will hang them better.
• A rug. Wait until you have seen the floor and how the room is used.
• Organizing cupboards properly. Do it once you know how you cook here.
• Buying the sofa. Measure the route, and look at used first.
• Any second small appliance.
• Painting, which in a rental needs written permission anyway.