What NOT to Share on Social Media about Your Move

Posted on 12/09/2016

Let’s say you are planning a move. House relocation is quite stressful and hard, and you might find some difficulties along the way. And you can find even more difficulties when you tell everybody every little piece of information about the move. Recently there have been many thieving scams targeting families who are moving house. And what makes those thieves’ lives incredibly easy is you Tweeting your location and what you are doing every few minutes. That is the sort of actions that make the classic thief and spy’s surveillance entirely moot. After all, why bother when the victim is using the movers’ worst enemy: social media.

Here are things you should NOT be sharing on social media when planning your house removals:

Your Address

Both old and new. These are private things which you should not be sharing even if you are not moving house. A Facebook post the likes of “Moving party at my new home in Kensington after I move from Chelsea!” is not exactly something you want to write. This is an invitation to disaster, and you give any thief tools to work with – and sometimes you do it even when you are not a target, because if your account is public, everybody sees it!

Details about Your Home

The price of your home should be information concerning only you and your estate agent. And things you own should also be kept on the down-low. Nobody beside you and close friends, and the man and van company, should be aware of what you own and how nice it can look on some foreign surface.

Pictures of Your Home

Again, old or new. If you are in the middle of relocation, the last thing you want is strangers looking at convenient ways to observe your house from and where the windows are and how to get them. Or, relating to the last point, how many nice things one can find there and how big they are and how easy they can be taken out. Do exercise some caution and restrain yourself from posting photos until you have actually finished with the house removal.

Complaints about Your Neighbourhood

If you are not friends with all your neighbours, do keep quiet about them until you are gone from the neighbourhood. There is always the possibility that a neighbour could be harbouring malicious feelings towards you, or spends his or her free time as a burglar. Maybe complaining about Mr Wilkins’s loud dog and the horrible waste management of your across-the-street neighbour should wait until you – and your belongings – are out of reach. Otherwise you are only giving them more stimuli.

Details about the Move

Some people have never moved house and it might be exciting for them. And some of those people are too connected to their Facebook or Twitter account and might feel compelled to share their achievements in the sphere of moving. Show restraint and comment on that in retrospective and not while actually doing it, while providing people with your location and activities.

The Moving Day

And, of course, it all starts with the moving day. “Hey, guys, the man and van come on May 2nd!” is something that should never ever appear on any of your profiles. This is only too inviting and it sets up a variety of options for burglars to either enter your old home and scavenge whatever you have left, or visit your new home before you go there.

Be mindful of what you do when moving home. There are many things that you might think innocuous, but they can prove to be either a reason or a method used by somebody to take advantage of you. So when you are moving, focus on your move and dealing with the man with a van, instead of Tweeting about it.