The reason I am saying to ask your aging parents to downsize is to do so while everyone still has the energy to help sort, donate, and move into something more manageable.
My parents were in their mid to late 90's and still glued to their single family house. Once Mom passed a couple of months ago and Dad decided last month it was a good time to move to Independent Living, he now wants to sell the house ASAP.
Dad only took what he needed for his new apartment.... there is still a lot of furniture left in the house, kitchen cabinets with lot of cookware and glassware, not to mention the stuff in the garage, and everything in Dad's workshop in the basement [found a very old computer down there] and more stuff. I already tossed out a lot of clothes that I couldn't donate, and have bags of clothes to donate. I do plan to call an Estate Sale person to sell the items. But I need to throw the junk out first.
Whew, after work I am tired and that only give me maybe an hour each day to tackle one corner of one room. Oh my gosh, all the dust !!! Let's not forget about all the paperwork that ones elders keep. Like warranty booklets for things they no longer have. I dragged home several dozen 3-rings binders with financial info, as I now need to do the finances as Dad doesn't want to bother with it. Oh fun.
And there are things I would like to keep so now my family room at home looks like a flea market :P And there is more to cart home when I get the energy. Oh my gosh, as here I was trying to limit the things I have as I am senior myself, and would like to downsize before too long. It's hard to part with things that were part of my growing up.
So, once your Mom and Dad start to slow down, and you start to notice that they aren't keeping the house up, try to get them to sell and move into something smaller [it can still be a single family house but half the size], that way they would need to either donate, sell or toss out "stuff". I know it won't be easy. I would try to get my Mom to donate items, and to her that was one knick knack each year.... [sigh].
When my sig other moved here, his late wife had collected some type of "collector edition" Normal Rockwell plates that he thought must be worth a ton of money. He was so disappointed when he learned that the plates maybe were worth maybe a dollar more ten years later, but the cost of having them professionally wrapped and moved across country from his former home put their value in the negative.
Just imagine the wonderful things that are buried in landfill (things we would have given our "eye teeth" for when we were just starting out with Salvation Army furniture, egg crate shelves and Mom's old pots and pans and hand me down linens!)
I remember someone saying earlier this year on this forum that the younger generation isn't interested in some items that we use to collect, like fine china and glassware, and silver sets. Yep, all that beautiful Forstoria was still looking for a new home :(
I went to the fine clothing section and saw some blazers I had donated. Saw my Mom's winter coat, but didn't see her black mink half jacket cape. I did buy myself a vest for $4 which looked like something that Sonny and Cher would have worn :P
Saw some wonderful big old antique desks at very good prices. These were heavy duty, curved leg, leather top, type desks. Some lovely sofa's, nice dining room sets, etc. A young couple could have easily furniture a new home with these bargains.... I call it "early attic" design. Nope, kids today want new.
The opposite happened with my sig other, after his parents had passed he finally went to their house to look for his high school letter jacket and other things.... boy was he surprised not to find those items in the attic where he had left them 50 some years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if years ago his parents told him to come get the items or the items would be tossed out, and sig other dragged his feet as usual... [sign].
My gosh, some of the frames used back in the 1940's the people who did the framing used these tiny thin nails which are a bear to get out of the wooden frame. And the photos are on very thick cardboard. I plan to donate those frames that are still good and more into this century.
It would be great if people would do their downsizing while they can, choose what's important to them, go ahead and gift heirlooms, etc.
I don't think most people "work this way." Not in my family they don't. I do wish they did. Maybe this will change more and more in the present and following generations, as children see the mistakes made by their parents. Once a LO has a dementia, then it's too late to have them deal with their things... and... we never know when dementia may onset. Maybe it never does. And that argument is what's kept my father from not only downsizing or facing the fact that he must move out of this house, but he won't even give POA at 78 after years of medical problems. :-/
I think I just turned this into the "Whine" thread. ;-) It's a great idea to get your logical parents involved in proactively downsizing while they can. I don't have logical parents.
Each time I do a clean out, more and more things go. Having an outside party to give input about pros & cons of keeping something is helpful. Things I linger over, he would say things like "if you don't use it, you shouldn't keep it" or "you don't need that" and then I knew it was time to let it go. It gave me a chance to bemoan that I had to let these things go - like old, classic 45s and LPs - but also know it was the right thing.
Having an outside person pushing me (gently) to let go of things helped me do my biggest clean out yet this past Sunday. I put everything on the curb the day before local trash pick-up then put a "curb alert" ad online for free stuff where I listed the major categories of what was there and a few pictures of the items. People came and took things and I'm glad I decided to handle things that way instead of trying to determine what was donation-worthy. Less work for me.
Dad's books and bookcases were like a cocoon for him.
So I am on my third move with all these books, now back to my house once I get the bookcase set up I can empty all those boxes and bags of Dad's books. If they are neatly placed in the bookcase, then I can deal with them later on. I did throw out the most current encyclopedia, it was 1960. The other set is over 100 years old, so some day I will go through the books.
I think my cats have OCD, they tend to get upset if there is something new brought into the house, or if there are bags/boxes of "stuff" on the floor.
Good point about the neighbors. When her new neighbors started to invite her to their condos, she compared her place to theirs and says they're full of things and big pieces of furniture and her place looks too bare. I told her that's because they kept their things from their houses and she didn't. She said again: "Well, it's too late now!"
I've never heard of an elderly parent doing what she did. The more I think about the situation, the more I wonder about problems with her judgement.
I am afraid that there never was a time for me to have done this. Until June Mom was the care giver. dad was already dealing with dementia by then, so he was not much aware of how the place was getting.
After Moms stroke, it was necessary to move them. Wow...I couldn't be everywhere at once...I just hired mowers that came in, packed everything and moved it...then unpacked at the other end. They did a great job...but there is a mountain of unpacked stuff stacked everywhere. Wow. Wish I had realized what was going to happen
Since Mom couldn't come home from rehab without a handicap place to come to, and since Dad was completely unable to be alone at all....the move had to happen like that
Now... We have to sort this place out. We have to get rid of the mountain of tools and books, and hobby stuff, and computers (5 of them..I think). Cables like you would not believe. Quilts. By the hundreds. Fabric in piles to the ceiling. I don't think a towel or pillow case was ever worn out or donated in 40 years!
Stuff.....everywhere. Stuff
The job to sort it out. Donate..give away. Sell. And down size into a 1 bedroom place is daunting. Now add to this all of my Dads stuff too. His stuff fills a large walkin closet all by itself! Just Wow!
How sad that your Mom got rid of sentimental family heirlooms, it like she wanted to erase her history for some reason. Or was she trying to impress neighbors by having new things?
When my Dad moved from his house, he took as much stuff as he could over to Independent Living, he didn't need to buy a thing. But I bought him new bedding and new towels as what he had my Mom had bought probably 25 years ago... good grief, the pillows were so flat it was like sleeping on a Kleenex.
The good thing my mother did was have us help her downsize her stuff for years before she was ready to sell her house and move to a community. We did this for about 10 yrs., one small item at a time.
She offered things to the children and grandchildren, but she handled it in her usual way -- offering everything to my sister first. The rest of us got offered sis' rejects, which were often garbage-worthy. There was some resentment and hard feelings. Sis got a lot of our late father's things.
I've seen a lot of posts about parents' hoarding problems. It's almost like my mother had the flip side of hoarding -- she got rid of too much, things that she really needed. She was 84 when she decided to sell her house, and I thought it was already pared down enough. But she said she was going to get rid of most of what was left and buy all new things when she moved to her new place. That would've made sense if she was moving to AL or living with a family member and only had a bedroom and bathroom. But she moved to 2 bedroom condo and decided she was going to go shopping to furnish and decorate it and restock her linens and wardrobe. How did she think she was going to do all of that shopping, for all of those things -- at her age, her health problems, falls, surgeries, mobility problems, and barely drives? I told her she should keep what she thought she'd need in her new place. She didn't. She got rid of most of her furniture, all the pictures on the walls, the tvs and cabinets (so when she moved in, it was a scramble to replace them), all her winter coats (she told me this in the fall after she moved, so it was a scramble taking her shopping for a new coat), etc. She got rid of her living room furniture. Her condo has a living room, didn't she think she needed her furniture for that?
Since she moved, she's expected it to be one long shopping spree, with no end in sight. I spent the first 6 months after she moved running myself ragged taking shopping all over the area. She didn't buy much because she's insanely picky, like OCD-level pickiness. I took her to stores as much as an hour away because she rejected the things I showed her at stores nearby. She says: "Well, I want what I want!" I stopped doing that kind of shopping for her, I can't stand it. (she won't buy furnishings or decorations from a catalog or online, she needs to see it in person)
It's been over 2.5 yrs since she moved and she still complains that her place is too empty, her walls are empty, she needs to go shopping. (she had plenty of pictures on the walls of her house, she got rid of them). I told her she should've kept some of the things she had at her house, she says: "Well, it's too late now!"
There were pieces of furniture at her house that she insisted she was keeping, right up until a few days before she moved. After she moved in, I didn't see those things and asked her where they were. She had the junk guys take them, along with everything else. There were sentimental family items and things our family had given to her as gifts that I haven't seen since she moved and don't know what happened to them. Did they go out with the junk guys too? If she didn't want them, I would've taken them. There were some sentimental items from her parents/my grandparents that she insisted she was keeping. Since she moved, she hasn't been able to find them. Maybe they got swept away in her frenzy of getting rid of so much so quickly. So now some sentimental things from my grandparents are gone.
Love the comment a few months back about the royal doulton with the periwinkles
I loved that show along with its mate - every Saturday night so many years ago
I have a stockpile of unused contact paper - I can't even get up the motivation to go to the grocery store let alone clean a cupboard and lay down new shelf paper - lol
I know my mom never threw anything away from being raised during the depression - but isn't always after you get rid of something you haven't used in years you suddenly want it and think why did I get rid of it?
Jessie - you can't clean when there are piles of hoarded stuff. I am so glad I have hardwood floors as they are easier than carpet, but you still can't clean them when they are covered with stuff. The flooded basement has been a blessing in a disguise. Lots of stuff was tossed. Yay!!!
I have given myself a break for a while from tossing stuff and need to clean out the vanities under the sinks next. It will feel good when it is finished,