Moving? Don't Pack What You Don't Need.

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

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What I Pick Up Before Your Move

This is the comprehensive list. Most people who are moving have items in several of these categories, and the whole point of this service is that one visit handles all of it. You do not need to call separate organizations for books, then clothing, then electronics. I take it all in a single trip.

Clothing That Will Not Fit the New Place

Clothing is one of the heaviest categories by total weight in most households, and it is the category where people most consistently overpack during a move. The winter coat collection that made sense in Albuquerque's high-desert winters is excessive if you are moving to Phoenix. The professional wardrobe you built for an office job does not need to follow you to a remote position. The clothes in the spare closet that have not been worn in two or three years are taking up box space and hanger space that you will not have at the new address. I pick up clothing of all types — casual, professional, outerwear, formal, children's clothing, vintage pieces, and everything in between. Trash bags, boxes, hanging garments still on hangers — whatever form the clothing is in when I arrive works fine.

Books, Textbooks, and Media

This is where the New Mexico Literacy Project started, and it remains the core of what I do. Books are the single heaviest common household item per box. A standard banker's box of hardcovers weighs between 40 and 60 pounds. Three bookshelves' worth of books can easily fill 15 to 20 boxes and add 500 to 1,000 pounds to a move. I take fiction, nonfiction, textbooks, children's books, coffee table books, cookbooks, reference books, encyclopedias, comic books, graphic novels, and anything else with pages and a binding. Alongside books, I pick up CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, vinyl records, VHS tapes, and audiobooks on cassette. If you have already read the dedicated pages on selling books before a move or moving season book donations, you know the drill. If not, the short version is: I take everything, assess each piece individually at the warehouse, and nothing usable goes to waste.

Outdoor Gear You Will Not Use at the New Location

Albuquerque is an outdoor city. People accumulate hiking boots, camping gear, ski equipment, climbing harnesses, backpacking packs, cycling gear, fishing equipment, and all the accessories that come with living in a place where the Sandias are 20 minutes from downtown and the Rio Grande runs through the middle of town. When you move to a city where the outdoor profile is different — or when you are honest with yourself about the fact that the camping gear has been in the garage untouched for three years — that gear has a second life waiting for it. Tents, sleeping bags, trekking poles, camp stoves, coolers, fishing rods, mountain bikes, helmets, hydration packs — I take all of it.

Shoes and Boots

Shoes are dense, awkward to pack, and remarkably heavy when you add them up. A pair of hiking boots weighs two to three pounds. Work boots weigh more. A household with four or five people can easily have 40 or 50 pairs of shoes, and the ones that do not get worn regularly are the ones that should not be packed. Running shoes, dress shoes, sandals, work boots, snow boots, athletic cleats — if they are not making the trip, they go in the pickup. Bag them, box them, or just pile them by the door. I will handle the rest.

Electronics

The drawer of old phones. The tablet from three generations ago. The laptop that runs too slowly to use but feels wrong to throw away. The cable box from a provider you no longer use. The speakers, the headphones, the charging cables, the old router. Electronics are one of those categories where people accumulate steadily over years without ever purging. A move is the natural reset point. I accept electronics that are functional and electronics that are not — working devices get sorted for reuse, and non-functional devices get routed to responsible e-waste recycling rather than the landfill.

Sporting Goods

Tennis rackets, golf clubs, baseball gloves, basketballs, soccer balls, yoga mats, free weights, resistance bands, skis, snowboards, skateboarding gear, and anything else from the sporting goods aisle that you have accumulated. Equipment for sports you no longer play is some of the most satisfying weight to remove from a move because it sits unused, takes up disproportionate space, and often ends up being the last thing loaded onto the truck because nobody thought about it until the garage was nearly empty. Get it out early. I will come get it with everything else.

Kitchen Items

The bread maker that ran twice. The fondue set from a wedding registry. The slow cooker that got replaced by the Instant Pot that got replaced by the air fryer. Kitchen items multiply across cabinets and pantry shelves, and during a move you discover that you own three can openers, enough coffee mugs for a small office, and mixing bowls in sizes you have never used. I pick up cookware, bakeware, small appliances, dishes, glassware, utensils, and serving pieces. If the new kitchen is smaller than the old one — which is common when moving from a house to an apartment or from a large home to a smaller one — this is the category where you can reclaim the most cabinet space before unpacking begins.

Kirtland AFB PCS Moves

PCS orders create one of the most compressed moving timelines that exists. Orders drop, and within weeks — sometimes days — you are packing out a household, clearing housing or breaking a lease, handling vehicle logistics, enrolling kids at the next duty station, and managing the administrative load that the military generates during a permanent change of station. Books, clothing, outdoor gear, and household items are rarely the first things on the list. But they become a problem fast when weight allowances enter the picture.

The Joint Travel Regulations set household goods weight allowances based on rank and dependency status. For an E-5 with dependents, the allowance is roughly 9,000 pounds. An O-3, around 13,000 to 14,000. Those numbers sound generous until you total the furniture, appliances, and essentials. Every pound of old books, clothing that has not been worn in two duty stations, outdoor gear from a hobby that did not survive the last PCS, and shoes that have been sitting in the back of the closet — all of that eats into the weight allowance. And exceeding the allowance means paying the overage out of pocket.

I have worked with military families from Kirtland enough times to understand the rhythm. The TMO briefing happens. The pack-out date gets set. The pre-inspection scheduling starts. And somewhere in the final seven to ten days, someone in the family looks at the bookshelves, the closets, the garage, and realizes that hundreds of pounds of items need to leave the house before the movers arrive. That is when the text comes in: "PCS, pack-out is Thursday, can you come get all of this?"

Yes. I can come get all of it. I pick up from the neighborhoods surrounding Kirtland regularly — Four Hills, the Southeast Heights, Mesa del Sol, base housing areas, and the apartment complexes along Gibson and Central that house a significant number of military families and Sandia Labs employees. A text to 702-496-4214 with your pack-out date and a rough description of what needs to go is all I need. Books, clothing, camping gear, kids' outgrown stuff, kitchen overflow, sporting equipment — one trip handles everything. I bring the truck, I load it, and the items are out of the house before TMO shows up.

For families with operational security considerations, I do not need to enter the home. Items can be boxed and staged in the garage, on the porch, or at the curb. I load from wherever is comfortable for your family. The goal is to reduce your shipment weight and clear the house, and that happens whether I am inside or outside.

One pattern I see repeatedly with PCS families: the spouse who has been stationed in Albuquerque for three years has accumulated Southwest-specific items that do not translate to the next posting. Hiking gear purchased for the Sandias. Ski equipment bought when Sandia Peak or Taos was a weekend trip. Cold-weather gear that does not make sense if you are headed to a southern base. Desert hiking boots. Southwest cookbooks. Local interest books about New Mexico history and culture. All of that can stay here where it belongs, in the hands of the next family or the next reader, rather than riding across the country to sit in a box in another garage.

Apartment Lease Turnovers

This section is for landlords, property managers, and management companies as much as it is for tenants. When a tenant moves out and leaves items behind, those items become your problem on a timeline dictated by your next lease start date. The cleaning crew handles the surfaces. The maintenance team handles the repairs. But the boxes of books in the closet, the clothing left in the bedroom, the kitchen items that were not worth packing — those need to be removed before the next tenant can move in, and most cleaning and maintenance crews are not set up to haul that volume.

I work with property managers across Albuquerque on exactly this situation. The call usually comes after a walkthrough reveals more left-behind items than expected. A few boxes of books. A closet with hanging clothes. Kitchen cabinets with dishes and pans. A shelf of electronics. Sometimes it is a full apartment's worth of belongings from a tenant who left in a hurry — eviction, sudden job relocation, personal emergency. Whatever the volume, I can typically schedule a pickup within a few days, often the same week.

For property managers handling multiple units in the same complex, I can do a sweep of several units in a single visit. If you manage a 50-unit building and three tenants moved out this month leaving items behind in each unit, one call schedules all three pickups. I bring the truck, hit each unit in sequence, and the building is clear. Your turnover timeline stays on track, and the items go to responsible sorting rather than a dumpster.

The large apartment complexes along the I-40 corridor, in the UNM area, and in the Northeast Heights see this pattern most frequently. May through August is peak turnover season when leases expire, students leave for summer, and the annual Albuquerque shuffle of renters moving between complexes creates a steady flow of abandoned items. If you are a property manager who deals with this every summer, save my number. One contact handles the recurring problem across your entire portfolio.

For tenants reading this: if you are the one moving out and you know you are going to leave items behind, call me before your lease ends rather than after. A scheduled pickup while you still have access to the unit is faster and easier than trying to coordinate with your former landlord after you have already turned in the keys. It also saves your landlord the headache of dealing with it and protects your deposit — items left behind can be grounds for deductions from the security deposit in most New Mexico lease agreements.

Moving Within ABQ

Not every move involves leaving town. Albuquerque residents move within the metro constantly — from the Northeast Heights to Nob Hill, from Rio Rancho to the North Valley, from a house in the South Valley to an apartment near Uptown. The distance is short, but the same weight problem applies. Every box you move is a box you have to carry, load, drive, unload, carry again, and find a place for at the new address. A local move is a chance to reset.

Downsizing is the most common local move scenario I encounter. A family that raised kids in a four-bedroom house moves to a two-bedroom condo after the last child leaves. A couple in a large home in the foothills moves to a casita near Old Town. A retiree moves from a standalone house to an apartment in a community like La Vida Llena or one of the independent living centers along the Rio Grande corridor. In every case, the move involves going from more space to less space, which means possessions that fit in the old home will not fit in the new one. The shelves, closets, and garage storage that absorbed decades of accumulation simply do not exist at the smaller address.

But local moves also include the opposite scenario: upsizing. A young family moves from a starter home to a larger house and uses the move as an excuse to purge the things they have been meaning to get rid of for years. The logic is sound — why unpack items at the new house that you already know you do not want? The move is the forcing function. Use it. Get the old stuff out before you carry it to a new address where it will sit for another five years.

Neighborhood transitions within Albuquerque also change what you need. Moving from a house with a large yard in the South Valley to an apartment near UNM means the lawn equipment, outdoor furniture, gardening tools, and yard maintenance supplies no longer have a purpose. Moving from the Westside to a walkable neighborhood like Nob Hill or Downtown might mean you no longer need the car-dependent lifestyle gear — the extra cooler, the road trip supplies, the camping equipment that went to the Jemez Mountains every other weekend. The new lifestyle does not require the old equipment.

For local moves, I can often schedule the pickup to happen on the same day you are moving out of the old address. I come first, load the donation items, and then the movers (or your friends with a truck) arrive to handle the rest. By the time the real moving starts, the volume is already reduced and the truck has more room for the things you are keeping. Alternatively, if you are doing the move over several days — which is common with local moves since you still have access to both locations — I can pick up from the old address after you have pulled everything you want and before you turn in the keys.

Divorce, roommate changes, and household restructuring are other common drivers of local moves that produce donation volume. One household becomes two, and neither new space has room for the combined library, the duplicate kitchen equipment, or the wardrobe built for a shared closet. These situations often have emotional weight alongside the physical weight, and I approach them with discretion and efficiency. Tell me what goes, I take it, and you can focus on the next chapter.

What Happens to Your Stuff

This is the question I get most often, and it deserves a thorough answer. People who are donating items during a move want to know that their things are going somewhere meaningful — not into a dumpster, not into a warehouse to sit indefinitely, and not into a system where usable items get destroyed because it is easier than sorting. Here is exactly what happens.

Everything that comes off the truck goes through a three-track sorting process at the warehouse on Edith Boulevard.

Track one: resale. Items with meaningful resale value — collectible books, first editions, vintage clothing, quality outdoor gear, working electronics, sporting equipment in good condition — are identified, cleaned or assessed, and listed on platforms where buyers and collectors will find them. For books, that means researching actual sold-price data and listing on antiquarian and used book marketplaces. For clothing and gear, that means evaluating condition, brand, and market demand. This track keeps high-value items in circulation and generates the revenue that funds the free pickup service.

Track two: community reuse. Items that are in good, usable condition but do not have significant individual resale value go to community distribution channels. Books go to literacy programs, school classroom libraries, Little Free Libraries, and families across New Mexico. Clothing goes to community organizations and individuals who need it. Shoes, kitchen items, and household goods are routed to reuse networks. This track is the heart of the landfill diversion mission — keeping functional items in the hands of people who will use them rather than sending them to the Cerro Colorado landfill.

Track three: responsible recycling. Items that are too damaged, too worn, or too outdated to serve any user are recycled through appropriate channels. Textiles go to material recycling. Paper and cardboard go to paper recycling. Electronics go to certified e-waste recyclers. This is a small percentage of most pickups — the vast majority of what people donate during a move is usable in some form. But I want to be transparent about the fact that not everything can be rehomed. A water-damaged book with mold is a health hazard. A stained, torn garment with no fabric value left is waste. Those items get recycled responsibly rather than dumped.

The net result: your items continue to serve people after they leave your home. The valuable pieces find collectors and buyers. The everyday items find families, students, and community members who need them. The unusable items become recycled material rather than landfill mass. It is a responsible end-to-end system, and it applies identically whether you hand me two bags from a studio apartment or fill the truck from a four-bedroom house.

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