Many students along with myself have recently moved into a student house for the start of the new academic year. Whether this is your first student house or your final student house of your university experience, every time moving in always feels like a hassle; and sorting out WiFi, bills, electricity etc can all seem daunting. Because of this I’ve compiled a list of important things to get sorted as soon as you move into your accommodation because it’s so easy to forget them.

A quick house clean

Firstly, before unpacking any of your items it’s best to clean the house first because even though student houses are meant to be clean, the majority of the time they need to be re-cleaned! Just a simple hoover of your bedroom floor and the kitchen followed by wiping down all of the cabinets, drawers, desks and wardrobes will make a huge difference. Sometimes students haven’t been living in the house for a few weeks and so dust will have collected around the house, especially in the kitchen and you don’t want to be packing away all of your new kitchenware into dusty cabinets.

Step one: clean and disinfect!

Record the condition of the property

After this, again before unpacking, make sure to complete your inventory. Many landlords or accommodation companies will send over a form to complete and it is best to do this along with photos. This should record the condition of the property. It's worth checking everything works properly as it’s used to judge whether you'll get your full deposit back when you move out.

Make sure you note everything that isn’t working or is broken because then the landlord can fix it and won’t charge you at the end of your tenancy. You want to get as much of your deposit back as possible so make sure to get photos of even the hallways, bathrooms and stairs because most of the time students only remember to take photos of their room.

Safety checklist

Alongside your inventory check, you should also complete a safety checklist. This is mostly simple and easy and is just a brief check that all of the windows close and the locks work well. This is important to make sure that you feel safe and that your belongings will be okay. Although Belfast is a safe city, it is always important to make sure that your front door locks properly. Make sure to let your landlord or agency know if any of these don’t work so that they can come to fix them. 

Belfast is in the safest region in the UK (UK Crime Surveys 2022/23)

Unpacking and storage

The most obvious part of the process on your move in day is to unpack. I always like to unpack my kitchen items first just so that if I get hungry in the middle of the process I can use plates for a snack and cups for a drink but that’s just a personal preference. 

If you arrive at a house and find that you need some more storage items I would advise emailing your landlord or agency first to see if they have anything spare that they would be willing to put in. My student house this year didn’t have a wardrobe and all it took was a simple email to the agency to see if they could possibly add one into the room and within 2 days they had one sorted and installed, so it is always worth asking. If they cannot provide you with one then Facebook Marketplace is great and will become your new best friend for finding cheap second hand items for the house.

Utilities and WiFi

Following the unpacking process either on the same day or following days it is important to sort out your utilities.  Most will email a document containing details about gas and electricity with how it works and if it is fixed to a certain company. It is always useful to shop around online for cheaper energy deals and to sort out with your house how you will all pay for these.

Combined with checking your utilities it is important to check your gas certificate. Landlords are legally required to have a Gas Safety Certificate (CP12) for all the gas appliances in a property, and it should be renewed every 12 months. A lot of students forget to check things like this however it is more important to make sure than people realise. Similarly to this, you should check any alarms such as smoke alarms. It’s the landlord’s responsibility to make sure there’s at least one smoke alarm installed on every floor; and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a fire or wood burning stove.

Check out Fannya's tips for finding off-campus accommodation!

Second to last, you should sort out your WiFi for the house. Most houses do not include broadband in your rent (however some do, so check first) so it is required to shop around for a deal. Most broadband contracts last longer than 12 months so make sure to search for 12 month only deals. There are many WiFi comparison sites online where you can type in your address and can filter to the WiFi speed and budget you have and they will show you offers.

My house is currently on the Virgin student deal for £42 a month (£10.50 each) which is great for 500mb. Every part of Belfast has a different company who can provide better WiFi so you need to do research specifically to your postal code and not rely on deals you find through friends (unless they live on your street too).

Group bills account

Finally, it is useful to create a group bills account. We use Revolut and have a house group and it is so simple to set up, I would highly recommend it to every house. All you have to do is type in everyone’s phone numbers into the create a group button and all download the app. Then you can start by clicking split bill and choosing who the payment is paid to and how much everyone owes that person.

Set up group payments via Revolut

You then will click the settle up button and can use Apple Pay to pay your share of the bill. This is great because you can set up monthly bills in the group too so we have a monthly bill paid to one housemate for the WiFi, another monthly bill paid to a different housemate of all of our rent and a different one for our monthly electricity bills.

You can also put in one off payments into the group which is perfect for paying for your gas top up if the price is different each time. It is so quick and easy to use it has been life changing for our house. There are other brands which also do a similar thing such as SplitBill and Monzo.

After all of this, you will now be set in your new house for the year and can finally decorate together to make the place more homely. Hopefully all of this helps and don’t forget you can always email or call your landlord/agency for any information or help!

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Charlotte Jennings Politics and International Relations | Undergraduate Student | London, England I'm a Politics and International Relations student in my third year at Queen's. I am from London and currently live in student housing but lived in Elms BT9 in my first year. I love to be a busy person and am a member of multiple societies and teams at Queen's. I am also undertaking a charitable project at Queen's called the Zambia project where we host fundraisers in order to collect money and aid for our missionary trip to Zambia. In my spare time I teach water sports in Bangor and so far I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Belfast even though it is very different to London. I would highly recommend the university to anyone as I have had the best experience here so far and have fallen in love with this country.