Elderly parents require kid gloves when they’re on the move to a new home. It’s perhaps a bigger wrench than you could be expected to imagine, having to or even willingly leaving the house to which you’re so attached.
A new chapter can be difficult at any age, let alone one you perhaps haven’t been instrumental in creating or one you have feared. It might be that your parents are on the way to a care home, or assisted living, an annex in your home, or to live with other relatives.
The likelihood is, they’ll need some help decluttering and whittling down a lifetime to half a dozen boxes or so bits and bobs from the house, attic, shed, cupboards, and all those other places that can hold a remarkable amount of stuff.
Planning and patience are your watchwords, and here are a few tips on us…
Memory home
A home is not only filled with memories but emotions, and it’s important that your parents don’t feel rushed or like things are being thrown away wholesale with no proper care and attention. They may hold little or no sentimental value to you, or be something that you can’t see on your own mantlepiece, but to them, they hold an incredible amount of value.
You probably don’t have the luxury of being able to take everything to the new place all at once anyway.
That’s where Dumfries Self Storage comes in.
Rather than issuing ultimatums or going round in circles with no decision made about the fate of that old dinner service or bureau, you can safely store their belongings with us until they have a clearer perspective down the line.
Once settled, they can make a more considered and measured decision on which items they might be able to bring out of storage and which they perhaps could afford to let go of gently.
Pots and plans
A degree of planning is essential when helping any elderly relative move home. Moving days come with their own stresses and tight timescales, and things that go bump in the day. That’s why, if you can, move your parents out a few days earlier, so they don’t get caught up in any of it.
It can also be upsetting to see their home completely stripped of all their possessions.
You might wish to create an inventory once you can and you have had these discussions. Go from room to room, marking what is going, what’s being sent to charity, what is going into storage, and that which you might be able to sell online or give away to friends or other relatives.
Booking removals early is a huge weight off your mind, and this is particularly important if you are moving, as many people do, at the end of or beginning of the month.
Measure the new place rather than guestimating which furniture will fit where.
Get with it
Digitising boxes of old photos could be one way to save on space or to go paperless.
Many older people do like hard copies of bills to file away, but it’s perhaps not going to be practical going forward.
As for a lifetime’s worth of other documents that are important, like funeral plans, insurance documents, birth, death, and marriage certificates, keeping them under lock and key with us, during the move and afterwards, is an excellent idea.
Relative chaos
One of the toughest aspects of all this is managing stressful situations without adding to them and navigating tough conversations. Emotions are bound to run high – in fact, it’s kind of a given, really, in most family dynamics.
If a family heirloom just isn’t your taste, and yet the sensitive thing to do is to hold onto it, even for now, self storage is a godsend. It might be that in time, you or someone else in the family finds room for it, or has a change of heart.
Everything is cyclical, and if you hang on long enough, it comes back around again, or maybe a piece of furniture could be future upcycling fodder should someone in the family wish to turn their hand to this type of caper.
Rather than make rash decisions and throw stuff away. It might be that certain things are valuable, but you don’t really have the time to investigate this fully with the moving date looming etc.
We offer flexible terms on our storage deals, so you are under no obligation to store for any set length of time.
That shrinking feeling
In time, it’s doubtless a blessing, fewer rooms to heat, fill and clean, but the transition to this can be a bit too much for elderly people. Familiar touches can help, and recreating the space they had before in terms of the look and feel. Sounds obvious, but new starts can often be accompanied by a new broom sweeps clean mindset, whose casualties might be that old cushion or throw that was the homely essence of the old place.
Shed happens
If they’re off to assisted living, you might use our storage facility for gardening and other tools, or it could be that you don’t have room for them but would like to keep them, and that’s another reason to give us a call.
Store it and restore it
Moves can happen out of the blue, like following an illness or prolonged stay in hospital, and this can sometimes mean a mobility shift. They could be getting back on their feet or regaining strength and mobility, and need a bit more room to manoeuvre, at least to begin with.
Storing furniture temporarily with us while this is underway means that you can gradually restore it once mobility improves for a return to normalcy.
In the loop and in the light
Failing eyesight, the fact they can’t drive, etc, can all stifle choice, and that feeling that decisions are being taken out of their hands is not a pleasant one. That’s why it’s so important to keep them informed as active participants all along the way. Showing your parents pictures of their new place and floor plans and taking them, wherever practical, with you more than just once, helps them feel included.
The gift ye gide us
Recycling is also a great idea, and repurposing stuff for regifting. There could be some unopened Christmas gifts lurking in those drawers and cupboards that other people would greatly appreciate. If it’s nowhere near Christmas, store them with us too!
Dumfrie Self Storage is your friend during what can feel like a rather thankless task at times, as the relative who has to manage all of this and your parents’ emotions. Perhaps it was once your home, too?
We’re the extra room you wish you had, so make it easier on yourself, too.