DPs in denial about decluttering before moving (or downsizing)

[IlovethedramaMick]

They asked me and Dsis to help and we have been, but they don’t actually want to get rid of anything. They’ve lived there at least 30 years and while they’re not hoarders they do hold on to a lot of stuff. Even if they moved to a similar sized house there’s just loads of stuff eg things from our childhood that it would be pointless to take with them. I do understand how difficult it is and don’t want to push them, but they also keep saying they don’t want to wait too long to move. Is there anything that helped you when clearing out for a move? Or helped your parents part with things they no longer need?

Tell them you’re going to put everything in a chuck it pile (in the garage or driveway) and once that’s done they can retrieve anything they want to keep. Sometimes the inertia is caused by not wanting to move the stuff rather than any sentimental attachment.

Get a removal company round to give a quote as that might shock them into decluttering. My dh was the same & he got the fright of his life when removals quoted £3.5k. Most of it is his shite from childhood onwards so he spent last summer decluttering. Three skip loads of shit and 30 bin bags went to the charity shop; for that we nearly spent £3.5k to move to another house.

This is a genius idea! My DPs will absolutely not want to pay lots for that.

Good luck!

We’ve just done this with my Ilaws. It was an absolute nightmare initially as they are moving from a 5 bed with barns(full of junk!) to a two bed bungalow and MIL is a bit of a border.
In the end dh had to be quite brutal, he ordered a skip and bought boxes and bags into the house for charity and having these really helped as they had somewhere to put things and they did then do a lot of it themselves.

Good luck!