Packing Services in Orange County

Green Moving provides packing services in Orange County for households on the move: our movers can box up the entire home or only the breakables, then unpack at the new address. The packing and unpacking service page covers the service in general, and our Orange County moving hub lists the cities and the other kinds of moves we handle across the county.

There are three options. Full packing covers every room of the house, partial packing is for fragile things only, and unpacking gets the new home working again before the crew leaves. Blankets, shrink wrap and tape are part of the hourly rate either way.

What makes packing here different is the housing and the rules that come with it. An older house with a full garage, a Laguna Woods Village unit with nothing allowed on the balcony and a new build in Rancho Mission Viejo each call for a different order of work, and the sections below show how we plan each one.

Parking, Permits and the Clear-Out Bin

In Ladera Ranch, the bin for a pre-packing clear-out follows LARMAC's community guidelines. A rented container, dumpster or Bagster bag may stay on the homeowner's own lot for up to 96 hours. Otherwise, the Front Yard SBA neighborhoods and the Christopher Homes neighborhood allow one parking space on LARMAC property, while Covenant Hills keeps such items on private property only.

We ask where the bin will stand before booking the packing day, since a dumpster in the driveway pushes the truck to the street. If your street needs a temporary parking permit on moving day, we'll tell you how many car lengths of curb to keep clear.

Village and HOA Rules for Packed Boxes

Laguna Woods Village asks residents to keep nothing on patios or balconies and to use carport storage cabinets or enclosed garages instead. So the balcony is no staging spot: boxes you fill early wait inside or in the carport cabinet, and patio pieces are wrapped on moving day and go straight to the truck.

The Village also wants empty boxes broken down and stacked flat beside the trash bins, not inside them. That matters if you unpack yourself; when our movers unpack, they fold the empties and take them away with the paper. Other associations set their own rules, so we ask for yours in writing.

Older Houses and New Builds

The County Housing Element credits the 1960 to 2000 building boom with about 70% of Orange County's housing stock. By 2022 American Community Survey figures, 35.4% of units predate 1970 and 37.4% date from 1970 to 1990. In houses that age we ask early about garages, attics and built-ins, which set the length of the day, and pad door frames along the carry path.

In unincorporated Orange County, most residential building is happening in the Ranch Plan Planned Community in Rancho Mission Viejo, approved for 14,000 homes at full build-out, from detached and attached houses to multifamily buildings. For a move into a new home there, unpacking matters as much as packing, so the crew sets up the kitchen and beds first.

Routes, Arrival Windows and the Hourly Clock

The 133 Toll Road runs from I-405 to the 241 Toll Road on the Lake Forest-Irvine border. When a packing job sits near either end, we weigh that route against the freeways before setting your arrival window, which you get 24 to 48 hours ahead, with a call from the crew about 30 minutes out.

The move itself runs on the hourly rate, with a 3-hour minimum, or 4 hours when the job starts 30 or more miles from our service area, and time past eight hours in a day billed at 1.5 times the rate. For a large house, packing the day before can keep moving day under that line.

How a Packing Day Runs

Packers start where you'll feel it least. That usually means the garage, the guest room, high cabinets and bookcases, then closets and wall art, while the kitchen you cook in and the bathroom you use stay open until late. Every box is sealed and marked with its room and a short note on its contents, which is what makes unpacking quick later.

When packing gets a day of its own, a few things stay out overnight: the coffee maker, a plate and mug per person, bedding, chargers, toiletries and medications. They go into the last boxes first thing in the morning, before furniture starts moving. Mark one closet or bathroom as a no-pack zone for documents, keys, jewelry and anything you'll carry yourself. A few jobs before the crew arrives are yours:

• Empty and defrost the fridge the day before if it's coming with you.
• Photograph the cables behind the TV and computer before anything is unplugged.
• Put a sticky note on furniture and fixtures that stay behind.
• Finish the laundry and the dishes, since wet things shouldn't go into boxes.
• Point out anything valuable or irreplaceable before the crew starts on that room.

Full Packing or Fragile Only

Packing services in Orange County, CA, come in two forms with us. With full packing, the crew boxes the entire home, down to the linen closet. With partial packing, it packs only what can break and leaves books, clothes, toys and tools to you.

The fragile-only route suits people who don't mind filling boxes with sweaters for a week but would rather not wrap a cabinet of wine glasses. Glassware rides in dish packs with plenty of paper, and mirrors and framed pieces are padded before they share the truck with furniture. Tell us which rooms are already done, so the crew brings the right mix of boxes.

What the Rate Covers and What You Buy

Much of the protection is already paid for. Moving blankets, unlimited shrink wrap, heavy-duty tape and furniture wrapping are included in the hourly rate, and so is taking beds, tables and shelving apart and reassembling them at the new address.

Boxes are billed by the piece, so you pay for what the home actually uses. Current prices on our moving rates page: book box $1.25, dish pack $3.50, small, medium and large boxes at $4, $5 and $6, and moving blankets or wardrobe boxes to keep at $20–$25 each. Packing paper is sold by the bundle and bubble wrap by the roll.

A two-bedroom condo and a four-bedroom house with a full garage need very different box counts, which is why we ask about the home before listing materials. Book boxes are for heavy things such as books, records and canned food; the large sizes take bedding, pillows and lampshades.

Packing for a Long-Distance Move

Boxes headed across the state or out of it are packed fuller and padded more, because they are handled more often and ride longer than a same-county move. A box filled to the top doesn't crush under the ones stacked on it, which counts on a truck loaded floor to ceiling. How those moves are priced is explained on our long-distance moving page.

For the load day itself, see our page on moving out of Orange County. If a piano is part of the household, a four-person crew moves it within the same job, and our page on piano moves in Orange County explains how that works.

Unpacking and the Empty Boxes

Unpacking is where careful labels pay off. The crew opens boxes in the rooms written on them, puts things where you point and leaves with the empty cardboard and used paper, so your first evening isn't spent flattening boxes.

A sensible order is the kitchen and beds first, then the bathrooms, with books and decor last. If you'd like only some rooms unpacked, name them; the other boxes are stacked in the rooms they belong to, ready for you.

The weeks before packing are also the time to part with what you won't move. Laguna Woods Village, for example, refers residents to its trash hauler, CR&R Environmental Services, for bin rentals and bulky-item pickup; book that first, and the crew packs only what is really going.