Elderly parents and downsizing

[labradoodles]

How have you bridged the topic?

DM and DF live in our family home which they were bought new in 1968. It’s a nice 5 bed detached with about 1/4 of an acre of gardens, in the suburbs. They enjoy having my brother and family from abroad to stay with them.

They are both 82, in good health but have aged a lot over the last year or so. They enjoy hosting dinner parties and love their grandchildren to bits, and are active within community groups such as WI and Probus.

I think they need to make the move now whilst they have time, rather than rush the move if one falls ill etc. They both still drive but DF should probably stop soon.

They seem to be struggling more with the garden, they’ve had it re jigged to be more manageable and have a gardener to cut the grass etc. My df inherited a full size pool table which he has a games room for. He doesn’t use it much anymore but is tied to it.

I’ve looked at bungalows around here but they are very expensive for what they are. There are some lovely flats here with lift and village access but seem to all be built for childless couples rather than the aged.

DF can’t think of anything worse than being couped up in a retirement village with other older people. He is ferociously independent.

Any advice?

My advice would be to leave the discussion for now. I can understand why you think they need to downsize, but they’re not at that point yet.

We are having almost identical issues right now with both my parents and in laws, so I agree it’s tricky. No real advice but watching with interest. My DM has unrealistic expectations, for example, they have agreed to downsize to a 2 bedroom property but she wants the same size reception space as she has currently with her large 4 bed, it’s difficult.

Similar issues with my parents. They are 78 and 81. I wish they'd move now but they probably won't until they need to, which is a shame as it'll be more urgent and stressed.

Maybe your parents will take your advice - mine definitely won't!

Why do you think they have to move some time? My parents bought a similar sized house at roughly the same time as yours. They are roughly the same age as yours too. My mother Is in a care home now but my father is still in the house he has lived in for 50 years. He doesn't want to move because it is his home. It is convenient for town and he has a gardener and cleaner. He is very fit and healthy. I don't think it is essential that all elderly people should downsize if they have the money, will and capacity to stay put.

If they can afford a gardener and perhaps a weekly cleaner, they may be fine. If they become more infirm, is there scope for a stairlift or downstairs bathroom and bedroom?
If they are happy and healthy there and enjoying a social life, I wouldn’t encourage a move. If they develop memory problems, the familiarity of their home could be a real help to them.
I think it becomes a lot more problematic if they can’t afford the help that would make the house manageable, or if access is irreversibly dangerous.

I wouldn’t say anything. It’s amazing they’re still so with it and able given their age. With the help of a gardener and a cleaner they may be absolutely fine where they are - they may wish to see their days out there.

Don't waste your breath in my experience. Sorry prob not what you want to hear but they need to come to the decision themselves.once they decide you can crack on.

So they want to downsize or you would like them to downsize?

Can they build in the garden? I am dreading this with my mum. Entertaining space is also her main criteria.

My parents admit that the house and garden is getting too much for them and would like something easier, but can’t decide on what that would be and I worry for them and don’t like to think of them struggling as they are too stubborn to get any outside help, although we have suggested this, maybe this will change as time goes on.

If they're still compos mentis the decision has to come from them - and it sounds as if they're coping fine, for now. If there comes a time when they're not, that's another matter..

From experience, people either downsize when they're still perfectly fit and not really old - say mid-late 60s - or else when considerably older, becoming frail, and perhaps one of them has died. By then it's an even greater upheaval for the mover(s), and will need a lot more input from relatives, since typically the parent(s) will be unable to cope with all the stress and hassle (bad enough when you're young and fit) - estate agents, viewings, solicitors, packing up - not to mention having to get rid of so many well-loved things, because there simply won't be room.

So it can seem entirely sensible to make the move sooner rather than later. But OTOH I know of one or two of elderly people who were strongly 'encouraged' by their children to move, and did so even though they really didn't want to, subsequently hated it and were miserable.

So it's a hard call, whether to sensibly encourage or not. My mother was strongly encouraged by a sibling, and in theory said she'd like to move to a 'little flat' , but in practice she hated all the retirement properties we took her to see, and nothing ever came of it. With help she stayed where she was until the age of 89, when dementia finally forced a move to a care home.

My advice would be leave them to it BUT kindly suggest you rootle through the loft for anything old from when you were a child (make the excuse to go up there) check the quantity of 'stuff being kept for a rainy day' and offer to take any excess to the tip.

Then when they DO make the decision, it's easier for them to consider a smaller place with less 'stuff' . I did this with my father many years prior to his moving to the coast and it was a LOT more manageable when he did decide to 'retire' to the coast ( 15 years after he retired from work)

Frankly, at 82 the downsizing time has gone.
Its great that they are buying in gardening services, and it is pretty easy to get cleaners and handyman services too which will support them going forward.

How far are they from the shops/doctors? My dad uses a mobility scooter for the 4 mile round trip to the GP and to go to the supermarket etc (he's 80) and that works really well. He's using a postal prescription service now which has cut down pharmacy visits. I buy things online as needed.

Hmm, my Mum and dad lived in a huge house with a huge garden. Neither would consider moving and dad said he would only leave in a box. So he did 5 years into dementia with mum nursing him aged 92.

She very shortly after had a huge mental breakdown and has now moved to a home aged 90.

The house is still where it always was, falling down and filled with stuff.

Mum now says they should have down sized, but try telling them that while they were still there!

Your parents have to make their own decision. Whatever that may be.

I think downsizing needs to be their own choice and done in people's 60s. Any older than that is too late imo. It's extremely stressful and very hard work, and takes a year or 2 for the new place to feel like home.

My inlaws are the same: they are in their 80s and in the family home they bought before their children were born, so large house, large garden, and stuffed to the gills with shit. I've never seen so much shit stuffed in every shelf, cupboard, drawer, under beds, garage ...

Downsizing would be out of the questions, and it will be a nightmare for their children when they do eventually pass. Massively unfair to leave so much crap for everyone else to sort out and deal with imo ... we all have jobs, children and lives of our own to sort.

AT least my mum has been downsizing and getting rid of things over the past 10 years ... she realised that it wasn't fair to dump all of it on me and my sibling.

If they don't want to move you can't force them. Presumably there's enough room for them to live downstairs if they need to.

Do they want do downsize?
Why would they ever have to?

Why would they need to move house if one of them fell ill?

Their current house could be adapted if/as and when they need it to be.

Which they might not.

It seems a shame to make them miserable in a bungalow for their remaining years 'just in case'.

They can get a gardener, a cleaner, online grocery deliveries, and everything else they need. Why on Earth would they need to make themselves miserable by downsizing? Will the Queen downsize just because she's 90+?

My parents were in a 3 story Victorian terrace, so high ceilings big rooms lots off stairs as the bedrooms and bathroom were all on different levels, they area 72 & 78, suffering with increasingly bad health and had to have a commode in the bedroom because my mum has such a bad back she could not get up and down all the different levels in time to get to the loo. Dad wanted to downsize years ago but my mum didn't want to get rid of any of her stuff.
My dad was admitted to hospital at Easter and my sister and I sat mum down and told her it was time to move, and if she wouldn't agree to that she needs to pay for help from external agencies to have the house cleaned, get the garden done and help with dad. She screamed and shouted and threw a right strop, but something we said must have got thru. By May they had found and offered on a bungalow, by september they had moved in.
It is the best thing they have done in a long time, they have found a new lease of life, day to day living is sooo much easier for them, it's only a few steps from bedroom to bathroom, kitchen to living room. Mum finally realised that all her stuff was just that (why does an elderly couple need 24 dinner plates?) She kept a few choice pieces, they have a spare room for kids/grand kids.
Best of all they don't have to worry about whether or not they can make it to the bathroom in time, dignity and a quality of life has been restored. They both of them wish they had done it a long time ago.

It does have to come from them.

I wanted my parents to downsize and move closer to me but they were adamant they wanted to stay in their home of over 50 years.

They were independent until very recently despite my mum having had alzheimers for more than 10 years. She would not have coped with the change of moving. Familiarity kept her independence for a long time.

Dad is now 91 and their health has failed rapidly over this last year. But because they stayed in their family sized house, they have room for live-in carers. It means they are still at home and we visit them in the house we grew up in.

I've had to admit that I was wrong ...

My mother did it a year ago. Same age, 50 years in the house and whilst very healthy, unwilling or unable to do the maintenance of the house and large garden herself. She got into debt partly through having unnecessary work done out of boredom and has cleared that plus given herself spending money.

She says she doesn't miss the house at all but found the whole process of viewings etc very traumatic.

Personally I don't think she downsized enough but I'm relieved she's done it and started decluttering.

It’s hard, isn’t it? I had a relative in an awful position. A widow with no children and living hundreds of miles away from closest family. Her health deteriorated to the point where her bed was moved downstairs and she went to the toilet in a commode in the kitchen and had a wash in the sink.

She was housebound but compos mentis and I guess was very very lonely, with only a carer going in once a day to give her her evening meal.

We woukd have loved her to move closer to us so we could have had more regular involvement in her life and she did dither over it for a couple of years but always came up with an excuse. I think it was a cross between not wanting to leave the home she’d been in for over 40 years to not wanting to face the upheaval of moving.

The end happened as I thought it would. She deteriorated after an illness, couldn’t physically move so went to hospital by ambulance and died there a week or ten days later. Really sad. The last 5 years of her life must have been miserable.

However at least she lived out her days in her own home.

My own parents are a similar age to yours and not too bad at all with a gardener, cleaner, car valet etc although one has a serious illness at the moment. That has highlighted things in terms of what happens to the one left when the other one dies first. It’s a big worry. I also think they are starting to get to the stage where they are seeing sorting out “stuff” in the house as too much hassle and it’s building up. It’s their home though, I totally understand them not wanting to downsize while they are managing at present. They have the biggest house of all of us so family tends to congregate there.

I think you can ask the question “do you think you’ll ever downsize/get a retirement flat”? But it has to be their decision and while you can point out the advantages you’ve can’t push it.