Packing Services in Lake Oswego, Booked Around the Sale
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Before a house can be packed, somebody has to settle what is not going. In Lake Oswego, the City Code sets the clock on that. Article 20.02 defines a garage sale as no more than two sales per residence in a calendar year, each lasting three consecutive days, and Lake Oswego Code 47.08.300 allows a portable sign in the residential right-of-way on Sundays only, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. So the window a sale can run inside that definition is short: three days, and only a Sunday among them can carry the corner sign that brings strangers up the street. Whatever is unsold when that window shuts is still in the house and still has to be boxed, so the box count worth quoting from is the one taken after it.
Our packers can take a whole house or two rooms, and they can come back for the rooms the sale left empty.
What the Code Fixes About a Moving Sale
Two articles are at work. Article 20.02, the licensing article, defines a garage sale, and that definition carries its own limits. Lake Oswego Code 47.08.300 governs temporary signs, and it applies to a garage-sale sign the same way it applies to a real-estate or remodeling one: residential signage "shall not be restricted by content," and a garage sale is among the uses the code names.
The sale: three days, twice a year
Article 20.02 defines a garage sale as a commercial activity open to the public at a private residence, "provided that the number of sales at a particular residence does not exceed two sales during a calendar year, and provided that the duration of each sale does not exceed three consecutive days." Garage sales inside that definition need no business license, so the definition is the boundary of that exemption. Three consecutive days is the ceiling on one sale, and a fourth day, or a third sale in the same year, is something else in the City's eyes.
The sign on your own lot
A residential lot is allowed "one temporary sign not exceeding four square feet in area which is erected for a maximum of eight days in any calendar month and is removed by sunset on any day it is erected." Eight days is the whole month, not the whole week before the sale: spend six of them two weeks early and two are left for the days that matter.
The sign at the corner
The right-of-way is a separate rule. The code's general position is that "no temporary sign shall extend into or over the public right-of-way of any street," and the exception is narrow: a residential zone, Sundays, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. It has to be a small A-frame carrying your name, address, and a phone number, standing clear of the roadway with five feet of walking path left open and anchored to nothing, and you have to make a good-faith effort to ask whoever owns the frontage. A sign the City collects from the right-of-way has to be claimed in person for a fee the Council sets. That Sunday window opens one day in seven, so whichever days the sale runs, only a Sunday among them gets a sign at the corner.
Sale First, Boxes After
A packing estimate is a count of what is going, and a sale changes that count. The Code's definition sets how long a sale has to do that: three consecutive days, with the corner sign legal only on a Sunday among them. A window that short cannot be stretched to empty a garage, so the order of the whole job follows from it.
| Step | When it can happen | What it settles |
|---|---|---|
| Sale goods into one marked corner | Before the sale opens | What the packers leave alone |
| Sign on the lot | Up to eight days in the calendar month, down by sunset | How long you can advertise |
| The sale itself | Three consecutive days per sale, two sales per calendar year | How much can clear |
| A-frame at the corner | Sundays, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. | The day strangers hear about it |
| Charity pickup | Booked ahead for the day after the sale ends | What is left in the garage |
| Pack day | After the sale | The real box count |
Which rooms the packers can start on
Bedrooms, closets, the linen shelves, the bathroom cabinets, and the study hold almost nothing anyone puts on a table in a driveway, so they can be boxed before the sale. The garage, the dining room, the basement shelving and the spare bedroom hold the sale inventory, so our packers walk past them and work around the gap.
Draw the line on the floor
Put everything for sale in one corner of the garage and run a length of masking tape across the floor in front of it. Our packers box what is outside the tape and touch nothing inside it.
Book the charity pickup before the sale
Whatever is unsold by the end of the third day is still in the garage the next morning, and packers cannot work around a pile nobody has decided on. A donation collection booked ahead for the day after clears it while the decision is fresh. Arranging that pickup is yours; the boxing of everything that stays is ours.
A second sale is allowed, and it is the last one that year
Article 20.02's definition covers two sales at one address in a calendar year, so a household that sells the garage in June can sell the basement in September. A third in the same year falls outside it; ask the City what applies then. If the move lands after the second sale, everything still unsold travels or goes, and the packing estimate must cover it. Better to settle that before the first sale than the week the truck is booked.
Packing Around the Sale, and When to Book the Day
A sale changes the box count, so it decides when the pack day is worth booking.
A small sale: pack after it
For a house where the sale is a few pieces of furniture and a table of household goods, one visit after the last sale day is simplest, and nothing gets packed twice.
A big sale: split it into two visits
Split the job. The packers box the bedrooms, closets, linen shelves, and study before the sale, then come back the day after the last sale day for the rooms the sale emptied.
Lake Oswego Packing Rates
Get a packing estimate for the week after your salePacking labor: dedicated pack day
- 1 packer: $56.40 per hour
- 2 packers: $112.80 per hour
- 3 packers: $169.20 per hour
- 4 packers: $225.60 per hour
Boxes and supplies
- Small $6.30 · Medium $7.45 · Large $9.45 · Wardrobe $31.55
- TV box $55.85 per use, or $199.65 to buy
Moving crew and truck, if you book the move too: Monday–Saturday, 7 AM–7 PM
- 2 movers + truck: $150.35 per hour · 3 movers + truck: $206.75 per hour · 4 movers + truck: $263.15 per hour
- 3-hour minimum · $56.40 per hour for each additional mover or packer
- Evenings after 7 PM Mon–Sat, and Sundays (3-hour minimum): $195.20 / $273.40 / $351.60 per hour
- Holiday rate (3-hour minimum): $230.50 / $325.50 / $420.50 per hour
Butterfield Moving is a licensed family company based in Hillsboro, and the supply list is the last part of the quote we build: it follows the rooms that are left to pack, so it waits until the sale is over. A house that has just sold its shelving needs more small boxes and fewer large ones.
The drive from our Hillsboro yard is part of the hours, billed at the same hourly rate as the crew.
Unpacking at the other end
Unpacking bills on the same packer card as packing. Boxes arrive labeled by room, so they can be opened where they land and the cabinets filled in the order you name.
Released Value, Replacement Cost and Claims
Released value at $0.60 per pound is the legal floor, not a plan. Replacement-cost protection is available if you choose to purchase it. We will submit a claim upon request.
Lake Oswego Packing and Moving-Sale Questions
Can the corner sign go up on Saturday?
On your own lot, it can, inside the four square feet and the eight days a month the code allows, and it comes down by sunset. In the public right-of-way it cannot: there the code allows a portable sign on Sundays only, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Our HOA has its own sign rules. Which set wins?
The stricter one. The city sign code sets the floor, and a homeowners association or a set of recorded CC&Rs can be tighter on size, placement, and days, including a ban on signs anywhere on common property. The Sunday window in the city code does not override an association that says no. Read the association rules before you fix the sale dates, because the pack day is built on them.
Can you pack the morning after the sale ends?
Yes, and it is the cleanest way to run it. Book the crew for the day after the last sale day; we size it from the rooms that were never in the sale and settle the box count when we walk in.
How long can a Lake Oswego garage sale run?
Three consecutive days, and no more than two sales at one address in a calendar year. That is how Article 20.02 of the Lake Oswego Code defines a garage sale. Fix those days first, because the pack day and the box count are both built on the day after the last one.
What Our Customers Say
After the Third Day, the House Is the Estimate
Article 20.02 gives one sale three consecutive days and no more, so there is a morning when the selling is over, and the house is finally a fixed quantity. That morning is what a packing estimate is for. Call (503) 506-4149 any day between 7 AM and 10 PM; if the sale dates are still open, that is the first thing we will ask about.
Call (503) 506-4149 → Free Lake Oswego Packing Estimate, 7 AM–10 PM Every Day
Hours
Monday–Sunday, 7 AM–10 PM. Messages left outside those hours get returned.
Butterfield Moving LLC · 2092 NE Aloclek Dr, Suite 516, Hillsboro, OR 97124 · Moving…Like Butter™