Moving Mom and Dad Part II
2008/07/27 Originally published in the Vernon Morning Star.
In my previous column I said I'd be making some suggestions on how to ease the process of "wrapping up" our parents' homes. In a perfect world this process should start years ahead of time. Taking a more minimalistic approach right after the kids grow up and find homes of their own would be the ideal scenario. I know most of us go through a phase where we store our children's belongings as they go through those years of moving about, attending college, traveling or taking jobs away from their home towns.
We can be of great help to our kids if we sort through our papers and discard everything we can and put the remainder in good order while we are still relatively young and active. Another helpful thing we can do is decide which possessions we will ultimately give to certain relatives or friends. It's a good idea to clear all or most of those decisions with the intended recipient, to be sure they want them. If those recipients could use the items right away without waiting for the year that Mom and Dad move into an assisted living facility, then it makes things just that much easier. Provided of course, Mom and Dad are no longer using the items to be given away.
When it is the time for our parents to go to assisted living or a care facility, the most difficult items to deal with are their personal treasures, collectibles and those items with sentimental value. In certain instances, photographing items and putting them in an album or on a disc will help preserve the memories in a smaller, easy to keep manner. Remember grandchildren and great grandchildren will appreciate a keepsake or two. Those which can be absorbed by family and friends is fine, but for the remainder, avoid putting it into storage. Deal with those items one final way or another, including disposal, recycling, thrift shops and auctions. The weekend want ads can be very productive too. Prices on used goods are very, very low so one needs to accept that and just be happy the items are sold and dealt with.
What I'm trying to point out here is that leaving all these tasks to a time when our parents are not well and trying to make tough decisions is a less than ideal way to tackle the problem. Deal with whatever we can well ahead of time.
A side benefit of having these surplus items dealt with early, is that their home will show much better with the storage areas cleaned out and the living areas decluttered.
Jane Field works with RE/MAX Vernon. Jane has over 30 years experience in the Real Estate business. To suggest topics for future articles or to ask Jane questions, email her or call 503-3755.
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