The day I signed my new lease, I also bought my favourite scented candle (Glasshouse 'Montego Bay'). I lit up that bad boy the day I moved in, and let it burn while I unpacked.

Smelling like home = feeling like home.

Start painting!

Set up something to play music. You'll want it while unpacking and doing all that deep cleaning.

I always line my cabinets before I start unpacking.

The true first thing, before you actually get in: make sure your utilities are turned on.
That wasn't obvious to *us* when we bought our house, so when they handed us they keys at the signing, we went straight over and wanted to clean/paint/etc, only to find NO WATER or HEAT! Fortunately the electricity was still on, but we had some awkward times painting without water available.
(Also: if you're planning to refinish the floors *sometime*, just do it before you move in. We have to do ours and pretty much have to move out of the entire house to do so. Argh!)

Run around naked: PERFECT :)

I have a cutesy little needlepoint door hanger that says "Go Away" that I always hang up first thing. Then I know it's home!

lol, first thing i bought when i got my place.... a tv. haha. felt good to finally impulse buy SOMETHING. took a few years before i started to actually start my renovation project :) .... dont buy a tv first. haha.

I never feel as though I really "live" in a place until I've cooked something from scratch. I try and do that just as soon as possible. Homemade bread and pizza are my favorite "first things" to do in a new home.

Love the "favorite candle" idea.

"Buy a new toilet seat" was the best advice I received when I bought my first house. I'm glad to see it on this list.

To me the toilet seat only applies if it really looks somewhat gross. Otherwise bleach and cleaning does the trick. When we moved in there was honestly nothing wrong with ours. No cracking, no stains.
I guess the toilet seat company can profit nicely from people who think that a toilet seat needs to be automatically discarded upon a move ( never mind the amount of waste).

We move a lot for school, and these tips are great. I also agree with RMF325 above, that a place only begins to feel like home when I cook something in it. Homemade bread is also one of my favorites, but something easier, like a batch of muffins and coffee, will definitely do the trick.

One more tip: try to *enjoy* having no / reduced furniture for a while. Get into the childhood "living room camping" game. Read a book on a sleeping bag, build a blanket fort, eat dinner sitting cross-legged on the floor. Notice how clean, uncluttered, and spacious your apartment feels for now.

One of the things I did when I moved was remove every decor choice the previous owner made that I hated. For me, that was curtains. I took down every hideous valance and curtain rod, and while it meant I had naked windows for a little while (no running around naked then!) it really removed that person from my home and felt more like a blank canvas for me to work with.

I don't get the new toilet seat advice. Once you did step 1, why would you need a new seat (unless it was broken)?
We moved with our stuff so there was no empty place. The very first thing we did was make the bed. Having that all set up is priceless at the end of an exhausting day.
No running around naked until we had shades which wasn't for a few weeks.

A resounding YES on a new toilet seat. Even if it looks clean, I still purchase a new one because you just never know what kind of germs might be hanging around. They're less than $15 and well worth the investment.

as an addendum to "post pictures on the internet," take pictures of EVERYTHING.

But only if you want your security deposit back.

New toilet seat, cleaning, fresh coat of paint and getting one room completely setup during the move in process (so when I become overwhelmed with unpacking I can look at that room and think, if I finished this room, I can finish everything else), Once that happens I know I am home.

When I bought my condo, I had the money to put down new floors & gut the main bathroom. I pulled down the sliding doors & hung curtains to both bedroom closets. I installed closet organizers with rods & drawers.
I wanted to put in a shower in the 1/2 bath & gut the kitchen but I didn't have the money to do so. It's been 3 years now & the kitchen is still as it was but I'm planning. I did put in a new pedestal & new toliet in the 1/2 bath about 2 months ago but I'm glad I didn't put in the shower. It would have been a waste of money for someone who is single & lives alone. The moral is, if buying, wait & live in your home a while. You'll get a feeling of what you can live with & what needs to be re-done.

These are great suggestions, both in the post and in the comments. For me ther top three immediate things to do would be:

1. Deep clean the bathroom and kitchen- you gotta use those right away, so they should be clean
2. Make sure that whatever I'm SLEEPING on is LUXURIOUSLY dressed- Moving is stressful. Sleep time should be a chance restore, not the time to use all your junkiest sheets and pillows. A candle's a great touch, too.
3. Yes, the internet. That way I can instantly research anything moving or decorating-based that crops up while I'm nesting.

I also paint. I either add color right away or paint everything white so I can see what I'm dealing with, then add color as I see where all of my stuff will live in my new space.

Thanks for a great topic.

Decide where the art will go! Out of everything I own, my art and photos are my most precious possessions. I'm currently in the process of moving to a rental house after living in my own home for 9 years. I stopped by my (old) house on the way to sign the lease and loaded up the car with my art. I haven't hung most of it up yet, but just having it in the new place helps it feel like home.

1. Locksmith to re-key all the locks to 1 key instead of 3. No telling how many people have a key that works in your new house. This will be pricey, but worth the peace of mind.
2. Utilities
3. clean
4. Measure all room and start planning out furniture placement. Handy for shopping later if you noted windows, doors, outlets, switches.

No on the new toilet seat.

I'm sorry, but unless it's broken or really really awful, there is no need. If you can't get it clean then how will you keep your new one clean? Do you really never use public restrooms? Or a friends toilet? What if they didn't change it when they moved in?

It just seems pretentious that that is a must do. Why aren't you also replacing the bathtub? The bathtub has probably seen just as many disgusting things as the toilet seat.

It just seems so silly and wasteful to me.

Two things I have always done in every new NYC apartment are replace the toilet seat and install a more-functional kitchen faucet. We'll be moving into our first house soon (not in NYC) and I'm keeping with my traditions :)

I agree with getting one room set up. For me it's the living room (at least have a spot for the couch and coffee table with the TV/stereo set up for eating takeout). Also, setting up the bed is one of the first things I do when I get into a new place.

But.. it never feels like home until I've hung pictures. For me, putting stuff on the walls makes my apartments home.

Clorox + 10 minutes = zero germs.

It's absolutely not necessary to get a new toilet seat. This sounds like a myth passed down from germophobic parents (akin to 'no swimming for half hour after eating or you'll cramp up and die) that has no connection to real danger.

Mind you, if you're a germophobe and it makes you feel happy... knock yourself out. But from a practical standpoint, it's just a waste of time and money and natural resources. Toilets have cleanable surfaces so you can get rid of the germs any time you want.

Anyway, what I need in a new place are:

1) My music
2) My TV
3) My Internet connection
4) My bed, with clean sheets and nice pillows.

Everything else can come later.

Two things I absolutely do on moving day - make the bed as soon as the truck is gone. That way we have someplace to crash when we're too exhausted later to make the bed (we haven't had to do the air mattress move yet, but same applies!). Then I unpack and set up/decorate one room to be completely useable and box-free. Usually the bathroom since it's only unpacking a couple boxes. It makes me feel somewhat less chaotic to know that one spot is DONE.

I just moved to a new apartment about a week ago. Setting up my bookcases and putting all my books away added color, filled some space in the cavernous living room and made it feel like home. Cooking dinner in my new kitchen was a great help, too, not to mention a relief after so many days of takeout and frozen meals. Next on the list: rugs and curtains.

And no, I didn't bother to replace the toilet seat. I did give it (and everything else) a good scrubbing, though!

My family has an old tradition that when you move into a new place, you need a new broom and new box of salt for good luck.

I always, and I mean always, order pizza on the first night. Even if there is no furniture yet, all you need is a cell phone, radio, and some floor pillows. When there's pizza, there's home.

Among listed things, the first thing I do in a new apartment is unscrew the plain ol' shower head and replace it with my handheld. Soooooo nice.

Also, change window coverings!!! In a new apartment, this usually means yanking down awful vertical blinds (I may live with naked windows for a minute before bothering with curtains or fabric blinds, but hey, I'm lazy).

I can see the point of the toilet seat thing (even if you're not a germophobe, just the feeling of a simple something you use on the daily being 100% brand spankin' new is nice), but I don't think I'd bother, myself. But I'm sure I have something which is arguably just as unnecessary/silly.

Make it smell like my place. Maybe that means cleaning or deodorizing, but I always like to light candles or spray some stuff to make it smell like home for me. Then it's mine.

Also, I made sure one of the first things put up in our new place was a picture of me and my boyfriend. My mom did this too with their new place - she made absolutely sure that the first things she brought into the new house were the family Bible and a family portrait. Some Asian cultures do this too, but it's a bag of rice.

I have a rather large photo that a dear friend of mine took & printed for me a few years back. Taking a few moments to find the best wall for it tends to quiet my mind from the chaos of having just moved, and sets the tone that the new space is indeed my home. I also then can know for sure it won't get messed up in the tornado of cleaning & unpacking that happens next :)

We definitely burned a LOT of candles. The prior owners had some kitties!!!! And I bought a gorgeous Craigslist piano. First thing I needed now that I had room in a house!!!!

If you're buying, maybe even renting.. have the air ducts cleaned!! I bought a house that smelled like an old lady, and once I had the system professionally cleaned the smell was gone. It isn't expensive neither, usually the first time has a higher cost, but if you do it yearly it'll run you about $25. Worth every penny!

I bought a new toilet seat, too. I don't like those cheap, plastic things. I like a wood one with brass hardware.

The first thing I did when moving in was setting up my bed. Being able to sleep in my own bed the first night made the move more tolerable.

First things first... light up a cigar, then replace the toilet seats.

I baked cookies, I moved into your new place first, and started to get things set up, but with the house still mostly in boxes and without enough furniture or storage to even start putting everything a way, I started to feel uncomfortable in my new home. So I made thekitchn's no flour no butter (because we didn't have any!) peanut butter cookies, once the house started to smell of sugar and peanut butter, i finally was able to relax and start organizing the kitchen at least.

1. Put out any comfy pet or kid stuff so that your critters can relax asap. (Once I see my little group snuggled in, the same relaxation comes over me.)

2. Run around and hang some of your artwork or whatever on any empty nails/hooks that were left behind. You can always rearrange later, but in the meantime you've covered up the glaring empty spaces with familiar things.

I had unpacked most of my stuff and still didn't feel like the house i'm renting was mine until someone randomly dug the alphabet magnets out of a box of "stuff that isn't important" and stuck them on the fridge.

When I came in the kitchen, I actually had to stop for a second because I was a little bit startled by how at home I felt all of a sudden. It was a pretty random thing, but sometimes getting the little, colorful, "personal" things that make a space feel lived in is just more important than putting all of the silverware away immediately.

The toilet seat phobia is hilarious! FYI: Nurses SIT DOWN on public toilet seats. But open restroom doors with a paper towel after washing our hands. The doorknob is where the germs are...from people who don't wash their hands afterwards.

When we moved into the apartment we rent from my dad, the previous owners (weird Polish guys) had left behind some stuff. And by some stuff I mean a fridge full of Polish food, a deep freezer full of indeterminable meat (a steak, ground meat or sausages I would recognize, but this...), a few ugly cabinets and a small tub in the shower with greyish dirty water full of dead flies, and, ickiest of all, they left their old toilet brush. It was so dirty everywhere that I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't cleaned... ever.

We immediately got to cleaning and scrubbing every inch of the place, bought new furniture the day after, and hung up photo's to make it feel at home. We just bought the essentials and let the apartment grow on its own terms.

Running around naked sounds like fun... But only after putting up curtains.

Before I move I throw out all the stuff I really don't need to keep. I hate packing and it costs you to move it. So some clothing and can goods get donated.

1. fresh paint. either the landlord did it and when I owned, I did it. it just looks cleaner and fresher.
2. clean before anything comes in.
3. bring a couple boxes over to the new place that I don't trust a mover to break.
4. utilities set up. I am no camper!
5. movers bring stuff in.
6. I unpack the bedding, plates, pet stuff the 1st day.
7. go food shopping. I don't pack up food. not even spices.

I'm not religious, but when I was a kid my family always hung a mezuzah on the doorpost before we moved anything into the house. I've done this in every apartment I've ever lived in- I hang the mezuzah, say the prayer, and immediately plug in my iPod stereo. It's home when I've moved my mezuzah, I guess!

If I'm moving to a place where anybody has lived, then changing toilet is as must for me. When we came here at first toilet n all fittings were in dark maroon color. Euuu... I couldnt even look at that. I mean I hate toilets other than white. So first thing we did change toilet n the fittings to white...

Love the idea, candle n music...

Bedroom gets tackled first thing, then bathroom, then kitchen:
1. Set up and make bed so I can fall into it later when I run out of steam.
2. Open wardrobe box (I can't recommend those enough), hang clothes, and break down box.
3. Empty duffel bag contents into dresser drawers.
4. Dig out toiletry essentials so I can shower before plopping into my freshly made bed.
5. Find coffee mugs, coffee & french press for the morning.

I'm in the middle of moving (for the 5th time in 6 years--ugh) right now. Can you tell? :-p

I don't get the replace the toilet seat thing either. I never realized people even did this until AT. Unless its cracked or seriously an odd shade of discoloration... its meh to me. Nothing Clorox cant kill.

well, one of the first things I do (cause ya know I'm Californian boho bred) is light sage and walk through the house. Sounds kookie this works for me to feel secure that only positive energy now lives in my home.

I also strip down the ugly blinds or roman shades. Put up curtains.

It honestly doesn't feel like home though till my 'Rents come to visit and or I have other out of town guest spend the night/weekend. Once I have other guests in my house and my role is now hostess. It all clicks into place.

Toilet seats are actually the cleanest part of the toilet.

Think about it, you take a shower, get out, get dressed. Your bum is pretty clean at this point. Later on you sit down, do your buisness, get up, then touch that NASTY GERM INESTED HANDLE. Then you wash your hands and touch that NASTY GERM INFESTED DOORKNOB.

You guys are nuts. Haha

First things: set up the bed and get it made; set up the bathroom so we can shower at the end of the day; set up the kitchen. The rest can follow at a slower pace, but those things make it possible to get in and get settled.

The same day I closed on my house....I didn't want anyone else to go to the house with me..I went alone. I sat on the floor and prayed. I then got up and walked around the house, thanking God, for each and every square inch of my home (didn't take me long..my house is small)...then I went down stairs and grabbed a bucket, some hot water and bleach and started cleaning...went to town. By the time the movers came...there was an overwhelming smell of bleach in the house...one guy asked me if there was some sort of crime scene I cleaning up...LOL!

Ha! I will be buying a home within the next month or so, and will definitely be doing most if not all of these things.

Invite some friends over to share a bottle of wine and a home-cooked meal.

Get a beagle.

I imagine that the toilet seat changers are the same people who keep the cat litter box under the kitchen sink (ew) but think that the English habit of having the washing machine in the kitchen is unhygienic?

I don't find moving stressful or exhausting - it's fun.

Like MorganMR, MsPFace, and a few others, the first two things I do are set up the bed (exactly - because you'll be too tired to do it later) and hang pictures (because home is where you hang your portrait of a hat).

Unless the toilet seat is filthy dirty and stained, cracked and nasty, I wouldn't get a new one. I'd just disinfect the old one and scrub it down. Ditto the bathtub. When you stay in motel rooms, those bathroom fixtures may have been given a swipe or two, and you don't really know how well, at that. When I clean a toilet, it's clean and germ-free.

A well-scrubbed kitchen makes a place look homey, and if you put out a couple of colorful mugs, or a bright teakettle, towel, etc. it cozies the place up a bit. A candle is nice, and so is music and plenty of lamps. A dark, dreary place is depressing.

A bed with fresh clean linens is a nice touch and good for helping you settle in a new place.

I replaced the toilet seat when I moved into my new condo. But only because it was original to the place (1979) and was cracked and discolored.
Now it's so pretty.

We always setup the kitchen table, hangup photos, and unpack the kitchen first. This way we can have a family meal and that usually makes any guest feel like their at home so why not do it for ourselves. As for the cleaning thing...we dont move in until its spotless!

I usually set moving day for a few days after I sign the lease and get the keys. This bit of breathing room gives me time to figure out how to set up each room and to move all of the kitchen and bathroom stuff and get these rooms set up and ready to go by the time I move in. I also unpack all of my boxes on moving day (I don't care how long it takes) because I hate to wake up in a new place and face a bunch of boxes.

I've never replaced the toilet seat. Do the replacers take the seat with them upon moving out? I clean the bathroom and kitchen before I move my stuff in.

The last one. let's do that

I've been in my new house for one week today! Here's what we've accomplished so far:

1. utilities
2. professional cleaners to tackle the bathrooms, kitchen, floors, and windows
3. professional duct cleaners
4. established ourselves in the kitchen and bathrooms
5. internet
6. painted two rooms
7. replaced the shower head with an eco-friendly one
8. limbed up a giant pine tree in the yard (eleven low-hanging branches! such a difference)

Next on the list is more yard work, cleaning, painting, and new curtains, and then next week is the house blessing service and a housewarming party.

I moved here, six weeks ago. The Internet Guy showed up as the movers were moving in my stuff, I had internet from day one! I had a plan for where everything would go, so the movers dropped the respective boxes in their respective rooms, then left.

I immediately set up one room (my office! what does that say about me?!?) then started on my bedroom. I did not have a bed yet (that came a few weeks later) so I put on my favourite sheets and blanket on the mattress on the floor, put on my favourite jammies and had a wonderful first night's sleep in my new home, amidst the boxes in my room. The next morning I cooked myself a full breakfast, while watching the sun rays coming in through my living room windows.

It took a few days (three or four, I think, with breakfasts and dinners at home every day) but by the time all the boxes were gone and all books and albums were on their assigned shelves, I began to feel comfortable here.

The artwork takes time - the artwork has to tell me which walls it wants to inhabit.

Something that I have yet not seen, in the comments above, is inviting close friends over quickly to one's new home. I've invited so many friends to come visit, one by one, to tour my home, sit in my living room, go for a walk with me in my new neighborhood. Their goodwill and happiness for my new digs and environs imbue this new place with good karma.

I don't get the toilet seat replacement thing either. That would be very low on my list of priorities when I move in.

When I move in to a new place the first thing I do is shop for food that doesn't need to be heated (yogurts, fruit, cookies, cheese, bread) because it's easy to forget what time it is while unpacking and then it's super late and nothing is open.
Then I set up the bed (or the mattress on the floor), the cat's stuff, and I unpack the kitchen stuff before everything else. I normally pack my iPod, a book, a bath towel and a flatware set in my suitcase so I don't have to dig through everything else to find these.
But I only feel completely at home after I've unpacked all my books, my records and my stereo.

I did laundry the night before moving into our new place.
As soon as the bed was delivered, I put on fresh sheets.
Fresh towels in the bathroom.
Made freshly ground coffee which filled the house with my favorite smell.
Added table cream to the coffee - decadence is good right before the awful job of unpacking. By the time it was late, my bathroom and bedroom were ready for the night. With coffee stuff unpacked (and used already), I knew I could handle anything the next night.

@Someone with a computer: I think I love you.

Oh, and I wanted to add my new number one: CHECK THAT THE HOT WATER IS ON.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, more heartbreaking than being up since 4:30 a.m. dealing with horrendous removalists, dirt, dust and sweat, setting up your crispy clean bed, then heading for a hot shower at 9 pm on a winter's night and finding...icy-cold water.

(I boiled a pot on the stove and had a plastic-bucket 'shower'. It was a major disappointment. The following morning, I found a switch for the hot water inside the main closet. *FACEPALM*)

The first thing I did after moving into my house was to dance in the living room.

I replaced the toilet seats too, though that was a few days after moving. There is no solid scientific reason to replace the seat, but emotionally it was the right thing to do for me.

Boy there are some total germophobes around here with the toilet seat comments. I'm presuming these same people wont sit on a work toilet or public toilet?

If it's not stained or broken, why replace it? More waste for a throwaway society

Something that is nice to do for new owners (if you sell your house) is to leave a bottle of wine or champagne for the new owners and a note wishing them well in your/their new house - so that they may have a good new life in it as you did.

Granted this works if you're not selling because you hate your home but it's a nice way to pay it forward to a new family/owner as God knows moving is stressful enough as is.

After I clean, I lie flat on the floor and just day dream, picture what memories I can make in the space, and at the same time, envision what it will look like with my stuff inside. Really thinking about each place carefully.

I gotta address the naysayers about changing the toilet seats. Most toilet seats are made of painted wood or plastic. Both wood and plastic are relatively porous when compared to stone, metal or ceramic. That means wood and plastic absorb odors and germs that even Clorox cannot eradicate. Wood and plastic also stain -- take a look at the underside of a used toilet. If you can't get the stain out, can you really get the germs out? Just sayin.

The day I closed on my house, the first thing I did was change all the locks. Nothing makes me feel safer in my new home, than new locks. Then I had the painter come because as previously mentioned in another post, I have horsehair plastered walls and the previous owner had wallpaper on every single wall, including the bathroom ceiling!

@seawallrunner - I echo the idea of inviting friends over. The day I moved into my current place (five years ago), I had such great friends (12 of them!) who split themselves up into helping me move from the old place and the rest were at the new place to coordinate where boxes went and setting up the kitchen*. These friends insisted on helping me set up every room in the apartment, so within an hour of my moving in, it looked like I'd lived there for months. We ate lunch a friend had simmering in the crockpot all morning and then played games until midnight - ordering in pizza for dinner (pizza does seem like home!).

The move into the previous place wasn't as quick but I had arranged to have friends over for dinner 48 hours after the movie, so I had an incentive to be as unpacked and settled in as possible.

*I later rearranged the kitchen so that it felt like "mine" and not the friend who set it up.

In addition to all these great ideas, I recommend space clearing. Out with the energy of the previous owners, bringing in your own. Clean the space thoroughly first, open some windows, light candles, hold your intention in your heart (love, peace, family, etc.) go through each room clapping out the corners (it moves trapped energy out), imagine 'sweeping' away the stuck energy all the while moving through your space. Put little dishes of salt in each room and throw out the next day, beat a drum, spritz the rooms with some essential oils, place some fresh flowers around. You will be filling your new home with your energy and intentions for a wonderful life there!

I definitely do that last one but I've never actually cleaned with fire :)

When we first moved into our new home, the first thing we got up were the some pretty curtains, for privacy first, but they made such a difference to our blank canvas of a flat. Depending on your style ( and I am a fan of bright patterns ), curtains, and cushions, liven up the place so much.

Also buy your essential toiletries and fill the fridge with food, that feels more homely too.

+1 on calling a locksmith to get everything re-keyed.

I might be a housekeeping fuddy-duddy, but I'd get some shelf paper and line everything that needs lining. Once you start unpacking, you'll never go back and do the shelf paper, so get that taken care of at the outset.

i haven't had to move yet but i think that setting up to have a piece of mail come to your new place would be great for a few reasons but mainly to see you associated wit your apt i.e., your name above the address to your new place.

@PJ

In answer to your question... yes, when something is stained it doens't necessarily mean it's dirty. If you wipe a plastic toilet seat with bleach it will most certainly kill the germs. But yes, you should change stained/cracked toilet seats if you want to. Fine. but what the "naysayers" are saying is that if there's nothing wrong with it, why waste resource and money on something that has no real benefit? It just seems so weirdly wasteful for no _real_ reason.

Anyway, I have no problem with people changing all their toilet seats whenever they want. I could care less, but hearing that this is a "must do" really did surprise me. I just don't understand why...

+1 on the Space Clearing. I've done that also. Tess Whitehurts has some great books on energy clearing. My favorite is: Magical Housekeeping.

1. Clean all the things: Absolutely! A little more than a year ago I purchased a Polti Steam Cleaner. It has been the best investment I've made in a very long time. I no long buy any type of cleaning products other than for the laundry and the dishwasher. We just moved from a rental apartment to a leased house. After the movers left the apartment I went over everything with the Polti. I cleaned the refrigerator, the oven, the ceilings, walls, windows and floors with it and absolutely no cleaning products. The 625 sq ft apartment took 4 1/2 hours to clean. The owners came in to do their walk through with the realitor and us and they couldn't believe that it was so clean. The realitor even asked if I had ever used the stove. The owners said it was perfect. That they were use to major cleanings and repaintings when other tenants moved out after only one year. Not only were we there 5+ years, but we have a dog and a cat and we entertain for pleasure. Steam cleaning is the way to go for a house that doesn't smell like a hospital yet the Pope could still eat off the floor without offence.

Unfortunately, we didn't have our steamer when we moved in that same evening. It seems that while packing the last bits in our car the steamer was left behind the car. Amazing what a big heavy car can do to a poor little steamer when it backs out of the space. Not to fear though. I've order another one today from the same manufacturer. Another thing, that you may not be aware of with steamers is that if a garment is wrinkled you and steam it. Most of the time the wrinkles just fall out.

My first apartment had a cracked toilet seat that pinched my leg every time, so I would sit on my hands. I didn't know til later that it was replaceable-ha!!

if a toilet seat is stained I would replace it. who the hell wants to look at a stained seat? think of your guests if nothing else! ha ha

Make a memory: put on some tea or coffee to make the place smell good (or a glass of wine), pull out your favorite blanket to curl up in, and watch your favorite movie.

Regarding the toilet seat: I've always replaced mine, ever since moving into my first apartment (in which everything was filthy and in disrepair.) It only costs about ten bucks, and it's an important symbolic gesture to me. I also play nice music and bake cookies in my new kitchen- even if they're just from the refrigerated tubes of dough at the grocery store, they make the apt. smell like home.

So there are germs that can be absorbed through the skin on your legs and bottom? What do you catch? What do seat-changers do when faced with a public loo? Or at someone else's house or in an airport or a bar?

PJ: Yes, you can get the germs out even if something is stained. Germs are living things, and Clorox kills them. 100% of the time.

Stains, on the other hand, are some other (germ-free, non-living) chemical substance that has most likely discolored the original substrate, and are completely separate from germs.

I wouldn't keep a stained toilet seat, either - any more than the blue-green-grey toilet seat (and shower and sink and tiled bathroom including diagonally tiled ceiling). It's aesthetically unpleasing. But that's a different issue from this modern germophobia that treats a perfectly clean object as if it's destined to infect the entire household.

I also agree with Amaranta - the skin of your rear thighs and butt are pretty darned clean, and unless you have open, oozing sores, your body has a very strong defense mechanism in place to disallow foreign bacteria from making their way into your body through your butt.

Plus - here's a secret that most moderns seem not to understand - YOUR BODY IS SWARMING WITH GERMS! Every square centimeter of your skin is a miniature bacterial and fungal ecosystem. They're healthy. They're good for you. Your living fauna keep other people's germs from making it into your blood stream. It's a little skim-coat army of microorganisms. You can't remove them; a swab of alcohol, and they are back within hours. They go through mitosis every 20 minutes. Even if you sterilized yourself (which would probably do you in, because your entire digestive system would have to be washed with alcohol to remove the beneficial bacteria that make your vitamin K and who knows what else), you would become a colony of whichever bacteria you happened to brush against, within a day or less.

I think I'm going to start a blog, and call it "urban superstitions." We all know that black cats don't really cause bad luck, and that an itchy palm doesn't really mean someone is talking about us. But there are so many things that modern people are superstitious about, even though their basic high school biology classes should have informed them out of believing them.

#1: Germs are an anomaly in my body, and I must eradicate them.
#2: I have to drink 64 ounces of water every day, or I'll be damaged by dehydration.

Now I'm getting excited. :D

I think the toilet seat changing is mostly a mental thing. I moved into my in-laws' old place back in May, and I would actually like to replace EVERY surface they had touched! They smoked in the house (which is a rental, btw) and had two old, dirty dogs that smelled up the place. We've done A LOT of cleaning, but I just don't feel like this is MY home.

I read this article hoping to find some ideas to help me adjust. I like the suggestion of having the duct work cleaned professionally. We've also been working on painting. It's a slow process, though, because I'm pregnant and can't really be around the fumes. I'm gonna try some of the other tips, too. And possibly change the toilet seat in MY bathroom! *ha ha*

@MARY B C I'll read your blog!

Sabrina K, I definitely get the "icky surfaces" thing. I have lived in my house 9 years, after a couple who lived here for almost 50. The first thing I did (before unpacking my underwear, even) was rip out carpet and start ripping off wallpaper. I just needed the grime of 5 decades of another person's life out of my space.

I left one big closet as is when I moved in, because I needed someplace to stuff things. Well, this week I pulled out the old carpet and linoleum to clean, repaint, and install deep shelves - and the smell of the old couple (and the things they cooked, and their former pets, and later-life mild incontinence) came oozing back into my life for a day or two. SHUDDER!!

My motherand I move alot, and it's never been into a brand new place. I'm not a germaphobe by any means, but I really hate smelly air and touching gross things when I first move into a place.

First I open all the windows in the house. Nothing like fesh, clean air to get rid of that gross carpet/grease/oldfood/old paint/ empty house smell.

I ALWAYS spend about an hour or so burning sage in all the corners of the house with the windows open so all negative energies from the old tennants can leave and I'm left with my blank empty place for my mother and I to fill up with our own, new happy energies to start our new chapter! Sure you know if they fried alot of food because of grease on the walls, or had pets or something, but you never know what kind of person they were, if they did dangerous, bad things in that house to other people or themselves or what kind of thoughts they enetrtained. I think mental/spiritual health is just as important as how clean a place is.

I HATE carpeting iwth a passion. I have yet to move into a place with only wood or only tile in the whole house. I walk with socks on in the house for like 4 weeks after I move in just because I feel like It's so nasty. I always drench the carpets in soap and water and scrub the crap out of them and use a carpet vac to make sure it's super sanitized. I mean really, carpet holds smells, dead skin cells, dirt, it stains ( it offgases and pollutes iar with toxins) it's like never washing your hair. I love floors that I canget all soapy and whipe them nice and dry and know that nothing else is on them except what I put on them.

I just finished painting my room today so I'm feeling like I do when I first move into a new place I love that feeling :D

The toilet seat wasn't stained or cracked when I moved into my apartment. Because it was puffy vinyl. It was the second thing I changed after replacing the locks!

@en_tee - ha ha - OMG. I was going to say 'bleach the existing toilet seat and be done with it', but puffy vinyl?!? Yeah, that's a step too far. That'd be getting ripped out, stat.

But otherwise: honestly, I've lived in a billion rentals, and bleach is your friend. It's not environmentally friendly whatsoever, so I don't splash it around, but for the toilet: a good scrub with bleach, and there is NOTHING on there to fear. So if you're changing out your toilet seats, fine, but be aware that it's purely psychological. Which is sometimes a good enough reason to do something, I guess.

I can't believe no one has said, "Have sex." Now that's a way to christen a new place.

Thank you, Austinisticalist. I was wondering where that one went! I've moved nine times in the past eight years and am moving to a new apartment in just a couple weeks. My list goes like this:

- Before ANYTHING enters my new place, I measure and draw out the floorplan and get to work figuring out where everything will go. This makes moving so much easier in my opinion.
- Smudging (walking around clearing space with incense) is a must. I know it sounds goofy but it's just not my place till it's done... if for no other reason than the unique smell since I make my own incense.
- It's not home until the I've had sex there, showered, and delayed putting on clothes as long as possible.
- Still, not quite home till I've had coffee and some sort of breakfast there (pancakes, croissant, something).
- Put up my grammy's photo and set out tea for her (I still make my dead grandmother tea. It's my way of remembering her and - since she believed very strongly in an after life - making sure she always feels welcome in my home.)
- Move my bewildered cats in who've been watching stuff slowly disappear from my old place, usually over a period of several days or more.
- Make a huge batch of sauce and have a big spaghetti dinner and stick extra sauce in the freezer.

Maybe a wacky list of essentials but that's what it takes for a place to be officially home for me. But after so many moves, I've come to learn that home isn't so much about stuff or walls as it is about what goes on within those walls, how you live there. :)

Running around nekkid is the best way to say this is my home LOL; I concur.

As someone who is currently moving for the eleventh time in 4 years (no, seriously. This is the 11th time), the absolute first thing I do is set up my sleeping area. Sometimes I've moved into a furnished apartment so I just need to make the bed, sometimes I've had an air mattress on the floor, and most recently I finally bought a bed.

I then usually do some cleaning. I'm not much of a germaphobe, so it's really cleaning just whatever's gross.

Then it's the alarm clock. I typically move one or two days before I have to work or go to school, so that's important.

Making the bed up is one of the first things I do. I don't make my bed everyday but there is something about having a made bed that makes a new place seem like home.

I've always left places cleaner than when I arrived & always get any deposit back + usually a 'WoW' note. 'Cleaned before' has meant anything from moderately professional to maybe the owner or one of the owner's kids. Still, surprised at some of the commentators that took a place, but then here describe it as being absolutely filthy.

First things; usually for cleaning kitchen & bathroom - minimum of spray bottle of bleach/water solution. Vacuum with hose and crevice attatchment to get into cupboards (they still get washed/wiped out). Use same attatchmen to clean window sills and crevices. Spray bottle of rubbing alcohol for windows - not an immediate priority. Do the fridge, stove, tub/shower first; they're going to be the most hateful to clean. Bring a fan to speed up drying of kitchen / bathroom floor. Bring a small clock, radio, xtra coffee pot or thermous if you're going back and forth between old & new place. Ditto a cooler with something to eat if fridge isn't on. One or two folding chairs; beats sitting on the floor anytime.

Don't worry about it being 'mine' til furniture etc. is inside.

wow, people are most stuck on the toilet seat! if it needs to go, it needs to go. and i love the locksmith idea. i tell people to wait awhile before styling a new room/apartment. sure, put furniture in place, but be ready to move it. every new place will have different vibes to it: morning light, afternoon sun, rainy days. i like to get to what a wall looks like before i out a bunch of holes in it. but you also need to bring in a few things right away: plants give room/home a life; candles give a room a heart; books gives your place knowledge and music give it some soul.

CRAZY focus on the toilet seat issue! We have become a culture awash in disinfectants, convinced by popular advertising that "germs" are everywhere, waiting to invade our bodies and kills us all..HOGWASH..Many bacteria are friendly and necessary for homeostasis.
With that said, as a former oncology nurse who lived by the words "infection control" I am very comfortable stating that a new toilet seat is NEVER a necessity unless you are aesthetically turned off by the one that you inherit. If you've got a toilet seat fetish, by all means indulge it. But for us other folks, (who can catch staph and a few other nasty skin infections from a truly gross toilet seat) bleach kills EVERYTHING, fungus, bacteria, viruses, everything...(even the HIV virus although we all know you don't get that from casual contact..right?A little Clorox and elbow grease...problem solved.

As to making a place my own..I hate "apartment white" walls..I paint as soon as I can afford it, which after paying first, last and a security deposit isn't always right away.

The first thing we did in our apartment was set up the bedroom. There really is nothing better than to sleep in your own bed. Then we got cats. Honestly, our place really didn't feel like home when it was empty. But I agree with the hanging art and setting up books thoughts. We didn't have much in the way of art, but setting up our bookshelves certainly added some colour and comfort.

Never thought about changing the toilet seat... Until we decided to buy a 1930 house with a creamy yellow toilet. No amount of bleach could make that color seem clean.

The previous owner also painted the molding in the bathroom the same color and the walls a dark blue... Major revamping needed.

Yes, you are right - a throw away society. Are you kidding me??? It's a toilet seat that had a strangers dirty ass on it. Really - do you sit on public toilet seats? People urinate on public seats. How disgusting is that???

After owning a brand "new" home, and now having to rent, it is extremely difficult for me. I can't paint someone else's walls. Why would I put my money into it? The walls are extremely high. The bathroom is from the 60's, yet it was built in '05. The place is a builder's special - investment property.

Hopefully, all I can do is save money, and move on. But, I'm all for changing toilet seats, and shower heads. What's the big deal?

1. Get your utilities going - our realtor suggested that and even had the phone number to an actual human.
2. Put your bed together and dress it with fluffiness - you will be happy you did that first when it is the end of a long day.
3. Change your showerhead.
4. Unpack the kitchen
5. Take your time with the rest.
Enjoy running around naked.