Count the plastic crates, then open them. A stack left after an unpack is rigid crates, lids, and whatever is still inside. A booking that says “boxes” will be read as cardboard cartons. If the object is these crates, the note has to say crates, say they are empty or say what is still in them, and keep the cartons on a different line.
This page is the crates. It is not the cardboard from the same unpack. Flattening, a wet stack, and a timber crate belong on the guide to sorting packing material. Stay on that page when the pile is cartons, paper, film, foam, or wood. Come back here when the pile is plastic crates and the open question is whether they are empty. It is not the things that came out of the crates. Clothes, books, tools, and kitchenware are not made into crates by sitting in one. It is not a whole store. The storage-room clearance is the room, the shelves, and every destination. A stack of crates is one group inside that room, or it is this page when the crates are the only job.
Empty each crate before you call the stack ready
Take one crate off the stack. Take the lid off if a lid is on it. Look in the bottom, not only at the top. A crate can look empty from above and still hold a charger, a remote, a screw bag, or a folded cloth in the corner.
Tip the crate only if it is light enough that you can see what falls out, and tip it onto a floor you can search. Do not tip a crate you have not opened. Do not tip a crate that still has a lid clipped on. If something rattles and you cannot see it, the crate is not empty. Open it until you can see the bottom, or write “bottom not seen”.
Empty means you can see the inside and nothing that you mean to keep or to decide later is still in it. A crate that still holds the things you unpacked is a container, not a finished crate. Lift those things out. Put what you are keeping where you will still find it. Put what you have not decided in one open box that is not part of the leaving stack, and label that box “not decided”. The leaving stack is only crates you have already emptied.
If you cannot empty a crate because the lid will not come off, do not break the lid off with a knife. Write “lid stuck” and “contents not seen”. That crate stays out of any sentence that says the stack is empty. If you cannot empty a crate because it is too heavy to lift down, do not drag the whole stack onto its side. Take off only the crates you can lift. Write “lower crates not opened” for the ones you left.
A crate of soil, sand, or a plant pot is not an empty crate. Leave it out of this stack. Soil and pots have their own note on the soil, sand and pots guide. Do not empty soil onto the floor to make the crate count as empty, and do not book the soil as if it were a lid.
A liquid, a battery, a spray can, or a tin you cannot name comes out of the crate. Read the acceptance list before you put that object into any leaving pile. Do not bury it under a lid so the stack looks uniform. This page does not rename that object as packaging.
Clothes, shoes, and books come out as well. This page does not book them. If they are leaving, they need their own decision, off this note. If they are staying, they leave the photograph of the crates. A crate that still holds a bag of clothes is not an empty crate, even if you plan to deal with the clothes later.
Papers, keys, cards, and small electronics come out and stay with you. A crate is a poor place to store a document you still need. Look in the bottom once more after you think it is empty. Then put the crate with the others that have passed the same look.
If a crate still holds something and you have decided that something is leaving with the crate, say so in words a photo can match: “crate 4, still holding a folded sheet” or “crate 4, still holding cables”. Do not write “empty” for that crate. Do not hide the contents so the photo looks bare. A later message that the crates were “basically empty” is not a photo of an empty crate.
Lids, labels and a stack that nests
A lid is part of the crate if it belongs to that crate. If it clips on, clip it only after the crate is empty, or leave it off and put it in the same stack. Say which you did. A lid that does not match any crate you are sending is its own piece. Do not force it onto a crate it does not fit. Write “loose lid” and put it where the photo can see it.
If the empty crates nest, nest the ones that are the same size. Count the crates, then count the stacks. “Twelve crates, nested into three stacks” is a description. “Three boxes” is not. If they do not nest, write “do not nest” and do not stand on them to make them fit. A cracked crate that will not sit inside another stays as its own crate. Say “cracked, not nested”.
Two sizes do not become one size because you stacked a small crate on a large one. If you have more than one size, say so, and do not claim a single footprint. Measure the tallest stack as it will travel: height, and the width and depth of the base crate. Then measure one crate that did not nest, if any remain. Write the figures beside the stack, or put the tape in the photo. If you have no tape, write “not measured”. Do not replace a missing measurement with a guess about a usual crate.
A label with a name, a room, or a barcode peels off only if it peels by hand. If it tears and leaves half the name, leave the rest. Do not soak a label or scrape it with a blade. If the name is someone else’s, or you do not know whose crate it is, write “owner not known” and keep that crate out of the leaving stack until the person who may send it has said so. Age and an unpack do not decide ownership.
Some crates, blankets, or cartons belong to the mover and are due to go back. The packing guide is where that check sits. If a written note or the mover says a crate goes back, it is not part of this stack. If you do not know, write “owner not known” and leave it out. Do not cut a mover’s crate down to make it easier to describe.
A timber crate or a pallet is not this plastic crate. Nails, broken boards, and a heavy base stay on the packing guide. Do not pull the boards off a timber crate because this page is about crates. Do not photograph a wooden crate and call it plastic because both are crates.
A broken crate with a split edge can still leave if you can see the split and you have said “split edge”. Do not smash a crate to flatten it. Do not melt it, and do not cut it into strips. A whole crate you can lift is the object. An armful of sharp shards is a different object, and this page does not tell you to make one.
Wheels on a crate change the carry. If the crate is a trolley with a handle, say “crate on wheels”. Fold the handle only if it folds without a tool. If a wheel is missing, write “wheel missing”. Do not book a rolling crate that no longer rolls unless you have said so.
A crate you are keeping, including one you still use for laundry or for toys, moves out of the photograph. The leaving stack is only the crates that are going. A mixed photo of kept and leaving crates will be read as one load.
Cardboard and the things that came out
The cartons from the same unpack are not these crates. Flatten them, or leave them standing, on the packing guide’s terms. If the cartons are successive deliveries in a flat you still live in, that volume is the shipping-carton plan. If a leak soaked the board, that stack is the note on wet cardboard after a leak. If the cartons held stock for sale, they are the product-box note. If the pile is shaped foam from an appliance, it is the polystyrene note. Do not put any of those piles inside a crate and call the result one crate.
This page does not sort the cartons, and it does not tell you which bin a carton may use. The packing guide keeps that sort. Your job here is to stop the cartons being photographed as if they were the crates.
The things that came out of the crates need their own names if they are leaving. A lamp is not a crate. A small appliance is not a crate. A bag of bedding is not a crate. If those objects are part of the same visit, give each one a line, and keep the crate line to the crates. Do not write “unpacking junk” as the only description. That sentence hides whether the crates are empty.
A crate that held parts of a piece of furniture is empty only when the parts are out. Screws in a bag come out. A shelf that was stored in the crate comes out and is named as a shelf, or it goes back to the furniture it belongs to. Do not leave a loose shelf in the crate and describe the crate as empty packaging.
If the only reason the crates are in the way is that you have not finished unpacking, you are early. Finish the look inside each crate, or mark the ones you have not opened. A collection booked from a photo of closed lids cannot see the bottoms.
Where the stack is standing
Name the room. “After the unpack” is a time, not a place. The crates might be in the room you unpacked, in a hall, or in a store. The photo has to show which.
If they fill a storage room along with shelves, a rug, and furniture, the room is the storage-room clearance. Use this page for the crate group inside that job: how many, whether they nest, and whether each one was opened. Do not replace the room inventory with the word “crates”.
The path to the door is the arrival checklist. That page is the whole visit: what leaves, what stays, and a clear route. This page is only the crates. Keep the stack off the doorway you still need to walk through. Do not line the crates along a shared landing the night before to “get them out of the room”. The landing is not the place you photographed, and a stack you have not counted does not belong there.
If the crates are behind a door that does not open fully, open the door as far as it goes and photograph the gap. Do not describe a clear path you have not opened. If a crate is on a high shelf, say “on a shelf”. Do not pull a heavy crate off a shelf you cannot control. Empty it where it sits if you can, or write “not brought down”.
A second stack in another room is a second count, not a reason to change pages. Name each one: “bedroom stack” and “store stack”, with its own empty-or-not line and its own nest-or-not line. If one stack is cardboard, it does not join the crate count.
Colour is not a count. “The blue ones” fails when two people can see different blues. Count them. If a few crates are a different colour because they are staying, move those ones out of the frame before you photograph the leaving stack.
Photos of the crates, not of the cartons
The picture is boxes, a chair, a small appliance and a rolled rug by an open door. It does not show a plastic crate, a lid, or a nested stack. Use it only as a reminder that a pile of cartons beside a door is a different object from these crates. Your photos still have to show the crates and the open tops.
Send these views.
- The whole stack, in the room, with the door of that room open in the same frame or the next one.
- The inside of a crate you are calling empty, so the bottom reads as bare. If a crate still holds something, photograph that thing and do not write “empty” for it.
- Any crate you could not open, with the words “lid stuck” or “bottom not seen”.
- Lids, either on the empty crates or in a loose pile you have named.
- A nested stack and one crate that would not nest, if both exist.
- The doorway the stack has to pass, with things you are keeping moved off that path.
Add the room name and the floor. Add a lift or loading note you have already been given. If you have no lift note, write “no lift instruction yet”. Add the count of crates and the count of stacks. Add whether they nest. Add “not cardboard” only if you have looked and the pile in the photo is crates. If cartons are still in the frame, do not add that line. Move the cartons, or name them as a separate pile.
Measure only the stack as it will travel, and the clear opening of the door you will use, height and width, with that door as open as it goes. A lid standing on edge can be the tall piece. A handle left up can be the tall piece. Write the figures. Do not replace them with “they are only crates”.
Take the photos in the light the room already has. If that light does not work, say so. A flash of closed lids from the corridor does not show the bottoms.
One line in the booking
You can collect the crates with other junk when each crate is empty or honestly marked as still holding something, the count is a number, and the cartons are either out of the photo or named as a different pile. That page is a one-off load. It is not a carton sort, and it is not a visit to finish the unpack for you.
In the message, say that the load includes plastic crates, and name the room. Say how many crates, and how many stacks. Say whether they nest. Say that you opened them, or name the ones you could not open. Say what a crate still holds, if any still holds something. Say that cardboard, foam, and timber crates are not this line. Say the floor, the door, and the lift note you have, or “no lift instruction yet”. If a second stack exists, give it a second line with its own count.
Do not write “boxes” as the only word. A closed lid is not an empty crate. A carton in the hall is not this line. A timber crate with nails is not this line. A crate you smashed into pieces is not a prepared stack.
If the photo still shows closed lids and you have not looked inside, you are early. Open them, or change the note, before you ask for a collection time.
The packing guide remains the cartons, the film, the foam, and the timber. The shipping-carton page remains delivery board in a lived-in flat. The storage-room page remains the whole store. The arrival checklist remains the route for the visit. This page remains plastic crates that do not leave with their contents still hidden.
The morning the crates leave
Look in one crate from each stack before anyone lifts it. If someone put a bag back in overnight, empty it and photograph that crate again. Check the count still matches the note. A stack that was twelve and is now nine needs a new count, not a story about the missing three, unless you can point to the three and say they are staying.
Check lids you clipped on are still the lids you named. Check a loose lid is still in the pile. Move a carton you leaned against the stack. Move a chair you set on top. Point at the crates as the line this page covers. Point at cardboard only to show that it is a different line, or that it is staying.
Do not carry the stack out to the lobby to save time. The lobby is not the room in the photos. If the only place the crates can wait is the room they are already in, leave them there with the tops visible.
When they have gone, look at the patch of floor. A lid you meant to include is still a lid. A crate you could not open is still a crate if it is still there. The useful record is the sentence from the first count: plastic crates, opened or honestly not opened, nested or not, contents out or named, cartons kept off the same line, and the room named so the stack can be seen.
