Do you have parents, grandparents, or other seniors in your life who are moving house soon? Give your loved ones a hand – hire Melbourne movers for them and find out how you can help seniors pack for a move. Unfortunately, moving house gets more and more difficult as we age. As young people, we can easily get mates around and lift a couch onto a trailer. For older people, it’s not as simple. Perhaps you can’t lift as much as you once did, or you get tired faster. Hiring movers is a given, but there’s still a lot of packing and sorting to be done.
Why Seniors Might Move
Downsizing
As people get older, they will have children move away from home and perhaps need less space than they once did. If the housework is becoming too much effort, that’s a sure sign that it’s time to downsize. Look for a smaller place that’s close to all amenities they might need and is nearby to family as well in case they require support from time to time.
It’s also a good idea to find a space that doesn’t have stairs so they can easily access the home.
Move Into A Retirement Home
If living in their own home is no longer an option, you may be looking at assisted living facilities for your older family members. Moving into a retirement home slightly before you have to is a good idea because once you are no longer coping, you’ll already be under a lot of stress without adding moving on top of that.
3 Ways To Help Seniors Pack For A Move
1. Declutter
No matter why or where the seniors in your life are moving to, it’s likely that you’ll need to help them declutter. The number of possessions we own add up as time goes on. By the time we are seniors, most people own hundreds upon hundreds of belongings.
It’s likely that whether your family is downsizing or moving into a retirement home, they won’t be able to bring everything they own with them. Before you hire Melbourne movers, you’ll need to do some decluttering.
Get rid of as much stuff as they will let you as they will probably have very little extra room where they are going. Consider sorting all items into 3 piles: sentimental, necessary, and ornamental. Tackle the sentimental pile last as getting lost in memories can derail the day you planned to spend on decluttering.
- Sentimental – To save space but ensure that your loved ones can keep all of the items that remind them of important memories, consider what you can digitise. If they have lots of old photos, consider getting these scanned and stored online somewhere they can access any time. The same goes for their kids’ old drawings, school reports, and other sentimental paper items.
- Necessary – Not all things that were necessary in your family’s old home will be required in the new one. Remember that if they are moving into assisted living, they likely won’t need any kitchen items anymore and may not even need their own sheets and other things provided by the facility.
- Ornamental – Remember that just because something is decorative doesn’t make it unnecessary or not sentimental. Your family will want to decorate their new space to make it feel like home, so it is important to keep some ornamental objects. Your job is to help them figure out which ones are important and which they can leave behind.
2. Consider Storage
No one should be made to feel like they have to throw out items that they love or larger things that hold a great deal of sentimental value. If you are helping seniors pack for a move and they just can’t seem to part with some of their stuff, storage can be an excellent compromise.
Organise a long or short term storage facility, and this can help to keep disputes from occurring. Your family will be grateful for your understanding that they simply can’t throw out everything that’s important to them.
If they never visit the storage unit to look at or use these items, you can have that conversation a few years down the road. Remember that a lot will be changing for them right now, so minimising their stress levels is the most important thing.
3. Hire Melbourne Movers
The kind and friendly team at EasyMove are happy to help seniors pack for a move. If you live far away, don’t have the time, or are unable to help your family pack for their upcoming move, let us take care of it.
We can complete all of the packing, arrange a storage facility and drop items there on the way to shifting things to their new home. It could all be done in one easy step – all it takes is a phone call. Get in touch with us today to hire Melbourne movers to help out the older people in your life.
