List of Services:
Prior to your move:
- Organize kitchen cabinets and drawers, home offices, linen closets, toy rooms and bathrooms.
- Unpack, breakdown and remove all boxes.
- Line cabinets, pantries and drawers.
- Arrange all living and work spaces.
(note: shelving liners are not supplied unless specifically requested)
- Pack household items.
- Coordinate estate or unwanted item sales.
- Organize home for real estate showings.
Dover locals Heather A. Hodgson and Jenni Hodgson Brady founded Unpacking Solutions in 1997. While getting her MBA, Heather researched the moving process and discovered the unmet need for home resettlement assistance. In the spring of 1997, the two sisters pursued their dream of owning a business and started Unpacking Solutions to fill this niche.
Unpacking Solutions markets its services through moving companies, real estate agents, retirement communities, and directly to people selling their homes. Realtors often give Unpacking Gift Certificates as a thank you to their clients, and family members often giving them as house warming presents. "We have helped people locally and as far away as North Andover and Cape Cod. Clients usually are working couples—too busy to pack or unpack themselves, and families with young children—too distracted by little ones to get things done" said Hodgson.
Unpacking Solutions helps seniors moving to retirement communities. At Thirwood Place, in Yarmouth, the ladies resettle residents moving into and within the accommodations. Debbie Swenson of Chatham wrote "you proved every word in your brochure to be true—'handle with care, stress free resettlement, etc.'. You were so sweet with Aunt Mary and so professional in your work. When she walked into her new home, it was as if she had been there all her life."
Unpacking Solutions assists people selling their homes by offering organizing services. They de-clutter and prepare homes for real estate showings, pack household items in attics and basements, coordinate estate sales, and organize donations to local charities.
Unpacking Solutions is subcontracted by moving companies to help with packing. "At first, we didn't offer packing services. We wanted to be an extension of the movers not a competitor, " said Hodgson. As it turns out, moving companies have welcomed their services—especially in the handling of delicate and breakable possessions. Unpacking Solutions is a member of the Massachusetts Movers Association.
Unpacking Solutions realizes the need for someone at the end of a move to make your new house a home. The hardest step in moving is the last one, and you cannot trust it to just anyone. With an idea whose time has come, Unpacking Solutions is revolutionizing the moving industry, and your next move.
Excerpt from a Dover Sherborn Press article by staff writer Christine Leonard:
Dover—Sisters Heather Hodgson and Jenni Hodgson Brady are the masters of solutions when it comes to redecorating and reorganizing after a move. Through their company, Unpacking Solutions, the partners have helped many people before, during and after a major household move."We had helped many friends and family members move over the years, " said Hodgson. "But we found it was much easier when you didn't have any connection to the items you were putting away."
After receiving her MBA, Hodgson, who was working in banking, knew she wanted to go into business for herself. "I realized that I just wasn't passionate about what I was doing. I wound up doing a lot of research about the moving industry and found that there were areas that needed to be improved. My sister and I found this niche in putting people's homes back together after they moved."
"Moving companies," Hodgson said, "will take marked boxes and put them in the correct room, sometimes unloading items to one corner, but that's it."
"We take it a step further by actually putting things away in closets or drawers, washing dishes for the kitchen and making sure everything is in its place."
They also breakdown and remove all boxes.
Moving companies take responsibility for helping people pack their precious items in the first place, but Unpacking Solutions also provides that service. "We want to be an alliance to moving companies, not a competitor" said Hodgson, who has been distributing literature to various companies to pass on to their clients.