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].
For myself, I printed out Salvation Army logos onto sheets of paper, and taped the paper onto the items I wanted the guys to take. It made their job easier.
What was hard was trying to keep track of what organization took what as I had to empty a whole houseful of "stuff". I was trying to write down as fast as I could the items that were going into the truck. Whew. Now I scribbled sheets of paper that I am trying to translate :P
Like why do I need 10 pairs of pantyhose and knee highs when I no longer wear heels... out they went. Out went my Cub Scout and Girl Scout badges, I am a bit too old to start showing those off.... cooking badge, that's a laugh... maybe I did well doing marshmallows over a camp fire.
Gathered up clothes that no longer fit. Jewelry I no longer wear. Belts that had fit a couple years ago, but not any longer.... as my late Dad would say "a good rope works every time" :) Maybe I can start a new fad.
Couple weeks ago I donated some very old tools that were my Dad's to the local historical farm museum... I had other items that the museum took pictures of and will get back to me if they can use those items or not.
If I could only get hubby to do something with all the junk in the downstairs rec room (never used in 25 years) including the various pieces of wood, old pictures, old books and magazines, etc. I wonder - do you think more men are pack rats than women?? The older I get, the more I hate clutter!
I wish the internet had never been invented, he spends hours and hours every day looking for this and that to buy - a screw, a piece of plastic something, a can of this or that - the UPS guy thinks we are running a business. Its just too easy to buy and buy when its at your fingertips! Drives me nuts because I can't seem to enforce the rule - "if you buy something - something has to go OUT the door (like 25 year old flannel shirts with holes in the elbows and 12 pairs of slacks and jean that haven't fit for 10 years and never will) Sigh..........
BIL has car magazines, hundreds of T-shirts he can wear while working on his cars, as well as the tools (new, used and awaiting repair), parts, and sports equipment.
It is amazing how quickly furniture and "stuff" are either sold or given away. It pops up in one's email daily. Guess it is like the old saying, one man's trash is another man's treasure.
amy - on the whole I find I don't get much for used furniture etc, but my main thing is just to get rid of it. I agree that every time something goes out of the house it is cause to celebrate.
The "next door" websites sounds like the face book pages that have popped up here since the fire. I find then very helpful. I have given and sold stuff and also got good recommendations re tradesmen, and services. What a blessing!
But sometimes we have no choice because things need to be donated, or trashed due to deadlines. I would have loved to have kept my parents 1940's bedroom dresser and high-boy, it was in beautiful condition. If only I had the time and energy to have thought everything through. I was just so overwhelmed.
It's sad, that our parents whole life time of saving and buying furniture can now only be found in old photos. I was lucky to bring home my childhood dresser even if the drawers are now a bear to open and close [I have rubbed soap on the sliders], and a few bookcases and benches that my Dad hand made.
If only my parents would have started to downsize back when life was pain free for them and for me. Age had caught up with us.
Isn't it always after you've given somethings up that you wish you had them back
After mom's first set of bad falls and rehab stay, she bought herself a treat - a stickley bookcase - of course she never got around to anchoring it - earthquake country - and so here it sits empty
Last year I gave my 40+ year old guitar to a teen in my boss's church - I felt good about it at the time and the boy wrote me a note saying what good care he'd take of it - but dang if I don't miss it
And now every newspaper and magazine I pick up has articles about "it's never too late to learn an instrument!"... "from zero to Bach in eighteen weeks - woman fulfils lifelong dream"...
When we went through my mother's house after she died, the saddest thing for me was how many photos and cards she kept that NO ONE had any idea about. She had lots of paperwork that she kept for years and we alternated the shred party. When my son moved out to college, my husband completely emptied his room and took possession of it. We have a futon he can sleep on, but it's been completely gutted. Only benefit is that now I have example of why his parents cannot move in with us since he was discouraging son's return from college:)) jk
guest - I am sure that no one in my family wants any of my jewelry and that's OK. I have already disposed of much paper work of mother's. Again, though it is about family, my kids don't want it. I have had to be very practical. Once she passes, I will offer it to extended family, and get rid of most, if not all, of the rest with few regrets.
Then I found photos of my Mom's brother when he was in his late teens and early twenties. My gosh, he could have been a poster boy for Hollywood, a combination of Troy Donahue and Robert Redford.
And, of course, photos of people I have zero idea who they are.... [sigh].
This was how she explained it, anyway, as I turned to her with a thunderstruck expression on my face holding the deeds out to her. My head swam. I had to sit down and take deep breaths.
If your mother is obviously beginning to struggle with paperwork, tackle it from the other end by selecting what does need to be kept. Get a good, stout strong box or similar, and hunt down everything important to put in it. Passport, birth certificates, deeds, share certificates, insurance policies, her will, POA documents. This isn't for sentimental reasons, it's so that you know for sure that you can lay your hands on the crucial legal and financial stuff if necessary.
My Mom would give me her magazines, but first she would need to take a heavy black marker to ink out her address... like I was going to sell her address to some marketing service???
Churchmouse, ah those industrial size filing cabinets. My parents had things misfiled in those, too. It made for some interesting sorting. Had a lot of paper cuts going through those file drawers.... [sigh].