Advice please! Moving an elderly parent..

[bitterandtwist]

Hit me with your advice, PLEASE!
Mother in law lives 5 hours away from both sons. Both sons have jobs/children/limited holiday but will obviously take as many days as they can to help.

The move is: large 6 bed detached plus double garage… (It’s big). She has a lot of stuff. A lot. And is emotionally attached to a lot of it. Second gen of family that have lived in it. Owned.

To: two bed flat that is rented. She may eventually buy somewhere but isn’t ready to commit.

There will need to be some stuff into storage.

So far, I’ve got: maybe get two colours of boxes: white for new house. Brown for storage. Whatever doesn’t go in a box is ‘to go’ (in a skip…?!)

Any advice so SO WELCOME! She is with it mentally, but not great physically and emotionally volatile.

Oh, dear Lord! I'll pray for you!

Having been through this with elderly DM (DF in nursing home lost to Alzheimers) you have my every sympathy. She also had a lot of stuff - all of it precious. It was a long, torturous process. There was a day when I took umpteen blankets, bedcovers, table cloths, napkins and other linens out of a huge cupboard, one by one, held them up and said, Keep or Chuck! Keep or Chuck! Keep or Chuck! Most of it she kept - I think she sleeps under about 100 blankets. But we did manage to get rid of 3 yellow blankets - she'd never liked the colour, and a table cloth she'd never liked either - but she'd kept them for 58 years!!!!!!

DSis and I live much closer than you do - both within an hour of her - and it took the best part of a year to pick through all her stuff.

With your distance - I'd get a skip if possible and start by chucking everything that's broken, faded, done, useless.

Don't take duplicates to the new place - chuck or charity shop.

I'm sorry - there is no quick solution. Make sure that stuff that's to be chucked is removed as soon as that decision is made - my DM would take stuff out of the charity boxes and put it back where it had been.

I am a now a great advocate of minimalism and Swedish Death Cleaning.

DM, now in her 2 bed flat has discovered the joys of buying stuff from charity shops! And on and on it goes.

Get a skip - a big skip.

See if any charity shops will come and collect lots of bags and boxes in one go.

Sale rooms and auction houses for any good quality stuff - although a lot of precious things have very little monetary value.

Will she have built in storage in the flat?

Is she taking "storage" furniture with her?

I'm thinking of one of the de-cluttering YouTubers - I think it's a Slob Comes Clean, but others say the same thing. Container concept - you can only keep what fits in the container. The container being the 2 bedroom flat. The container for clothes being - the wardrobe (built in or free-standing) a chest of drawers, dressing table etc. Container for books being one or two bookshelves. Container for glass ware being that one cupboard, or maybe a free-standing sideboard that she might take with her.

Maybe that would help - and if she's taking a wardrobe or a sideboard or a bookcase with her, then she can use that container space to help with the decision-making.

Is she reconciled to doing this downsize? If not you will break her heart.

Do an “easy pass” first focusing on big things, rather than trying to clear a whole room.

For my mum it was big furniture like spare beds, bedside tables, lamps, armchairs, empty chest of drawers in guest rooms, occasional tables, and the garden sheds first - my dad’s woodworkshop (which was emotional) had to wait for later.

Then sheets, duvet covers, cushions and towels were neutral too.

Next came kitchen appliances, saucepans, mugs, spare crockery and books - we got rid of over 75-% without a second thought. I would make her laugh as much as possible “mum, why do you own 14 wooden spoons?!”

It took months, it was NOT cathartic.

The whole process was devastating to be honest, chucking out decades of family history and memories associated with all the apparatus of a happy family life - not just my mum’s but also the things she had inherited from her mum and her gran, my dad’s family too.

Interestingly one of the things my mum was happy to dump was old photos! “Oh get rid of those dusty things, no one has a clue who any of those people are.” I made her keep a few albums and one day we sat down and labelled as many people as we could so I could keep a slice of our family history.

Yes, this is Dana K White from A Slob Comes Clean - who also works with Dawn Madsen, the minimal mom.

Maybe try a different approach. Rather than focusing on what she needs to get rid of, focus on what she wants to bring. So ok you can fit 3 sets of linens which ones are your favourites. Get her to select an appropriate level of stuff to bring and don’t discuss what will happen to the rest. Then put in storage for a few months once she has moved - if she asks for anything great it’s there, if not then dispose of it then.

If you have a well established local hospice with shops, contact them. Our local one came to collect some large items of furniture from us recently, and sent enough people that I didn’t have to lift anything.

I think the 'what to bring' sounds a more positive approach.

Pus take photos of the house before you start so you and she have them to look back on?

Such good advice here re. focusing on the keeping than the chucking. I am storing this nugget of gold away for the future.

I downsized dramatically some years ago and there were some things I seriously regret giving away. If I was doing it now, I'd be tempted to pack all the things I didn't really need into boxes and put them in storage. Then, once I was settled, I'd have time to get one box at a time and open it, and then decide if I had somewhere for the contents to go in the new house, or if it should go to charity etc.

I wouldnt put into storage. More cost and fussing around. I found the local charity shops and organisations were very strict on what they will take (BHF et al). They wont take anything that others wont want even if free so big pieces of furniture, stained/chipped stuff definitely not!

I had an old friend who ran a charity shop for a while. She said it was shocking what people thought they would take - stained and unwashed underwear. One bag had saintary towels still attached to some of the pants. Truly disgusting and who would do that? She felt that people just wanted stuff gone and didnt really search through to see what was suitable.

If you move the contents to storage I can almost guarantee that no one will end up doing very much with it.

When we cleared my late Father's house he was going into a home but the clearance company did ask whether he could stay in a hotel for a few days which he did. They said having the elderly person there massively slows down the process. I was there for the rest of the time - more annual leave to take, siblings abroad etc. It took 8 working days to get the clobber removed.

A friend of mine moved out of her house after 20 years in residence. She had boxes of stuff she had moved in with and had never even opened. In the end she took the whole lot to the tip without opening them for fear that once she looked inside she would want to keep stuff, that she hadn't even noticed was missing for two decades.

Sorry to derail the thread a bit but it just shows how wedded people can become to stuff even when it is clearly neither needed nor loved.

What is the driver for her moving? It's going to be difficult to make new friends at this point, so will she be relying on her sons for all interaction? I would think that's would make it even harder for her to let go of stuff. Not trying to be a downer! Can she move with the things she needs and keep the house unsold for now, so there is plenty of time to go through things? If not, is there a long enough timescale for the move? The last thing anyone wants is spending tons on storage every month.

My nana moved from 2 large houses (terraced) into a 2 bedroom flat many years ago. Her DH and close friend helped get rid of the lot (dump and rag and bone man) and she bought new furniture once in flat, she had a freestanding bar and everything! She took trinkets and photos and china with her and brought her double bed and bedside tables with her, flat had built in wardrobes. She had loads of photo albums though, all labelled and with names on backs. Filing cabinets (downstairs was office in one house) were given to family and other office items sold.

You have to be ruthless. Not emotional.

Thanks for the helpful advice about the practicalities, everyone.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I think it is unlikely now that I’ll be doing it when my parents are able to be involved. My ‘plan’ is to choose what they would want to take. Get paperwork, valuables and things I know I might want packed and moved to me and the rest into storage to worry about later. In a way it is was as I am an only child so no one to fight over memories with.

Storage is expensive but not as expensive as not selling or renting a property.

In my case as an only DC, both DPs were going into a care home near me and DH got a clearance guy in within the week once we had removed paperwork and photos, but I am conscious that we can’t retrieve anything needed. Thankfully DF has only mentioned his raincoat which we could easily purchase a replacement for.

If after a couple of months nothing is needed the get rid of it then.

It took several months of weekends helping my PILs to do this. Four-bed detached with garage, downsized to tiny two-bed retirement bungalow. We used some software (sorry can't remember what it was called) to model the new space and show PILs which furniture would fit (measured everything they wanted to keep), eg piano or large bookcase, but not both. Made lists of furniture to buy (eg sofa and desk were too big).

Took photos of kitchen cabinet contents, so we could recreate in the new place (helpful for MIL with dementia). Explained how many cabinets, helped them sort what they had room for. Constantly reminding them about storage space was helpful - although they didn't want to get rid of stuff, they knew they preferred an organised living space, so we kept saying stuff like 'you have room for three coats each, which do you want?'

Offered leftover furniture/appliances to family members, then hospice shop collected some, then booked house clearers for the rest. PILs were comforted by seeing stuff donated to charity shop for the charity they supported. Took photos of sentimental stuff that they had to get rid of.

PILs stayed in a retirement home for three days on moving day, while we supervised the move and set the new place up.

We didn't put anything in storage as this was a final move.

What’s the plan for the stuff that goes into storage?

ime once it goes in it rarely comes out.

Take what she needs, and what she wants within reason (only needs 4 sets of bedding and towels, a few tablecloths etc) then get house clearance in to deal with the rest otherwise you’re just delaying the inevitable.

Can I recommend Freecycle? When I moved house they took so much of the stuff that might otherwise have gone to the tip and the people who finished up with the items were really delighted with them. It felt good.