hi welcome to only seniors the show where we talk about senior living in elder care issues and we try to find their answers i'm your host tom callahan the word downsizing came into the american lexicon in the early one nine hundred seventy s to describe the phenomenon of going from the large car to the small car during the gas crisis my guest today is and like rocca owner of home to home new jersey and welcome to all the seniors thank you so much for me time up once you get started what is downsizing downsizing is basically when a family or an individual decides that they need to move from their current home which is typically a larger house into a smaller home that could mean in two and fifty five plus community it could mean into assisted living it could mean into a nursing home it all depends on each individual situation every all of us are different so where they are in their lives their age what their situation is but that's basically what downsizing is moving from a larger home to a smaller home ok when should downsizing be good i would say in the situation of someone who has grown children the children have left their living their own lives and the husband and wife are now in this big four bedroom house depending upon their physical capabilities at that point that may be if they're at a point where they see you know they have aches and pains in their knees or whatever they may say well we need to think about moving from this two story home maybe move into a ranch or maybe we want to move into a community where there are people are all of our own age so we can have more activity than projects with like minded people so there's a lot of factors that go into how do they decide that it's time to downsize it could also be a situation where a single person maybe they were married their spouses passed away and and or again their children have have grown and left and they're in this big house by themselves that happens to a lot of women in this country and then it's it's their decision they need to decide do i want to grow old in this home can i grow old in this home and will i be physically able to so that's also another situation where somebody would decide it's time to downsize i think it's all part of the the making a plan to age as opposed to just letting it happen exactly because a friend of mine who has a show on the station has a saying it's a a plan a failure to plan is a plan to fail and i think that's what a lot of what happens with a lot of people when they downsize is forced upon them right  what's the first step that someone should take in downsizing the very first step i believe is they need to decide what they want to or what they have to get into pen's on the situation in the case of what they want to where they're still physically very active there they'd they're able to take care of themselves yes at that point they may say now i want to move into a fifty five plus community so the first step would be a identifying the community that they want to move into because only with that can they then decide and process what has to be downsized from their current home so that really is the first step same thing if they're going into an assisted living facility obviously most assisted living facilities are apartment size one or two bedroom apartments so there are limitations some of them even have their own furniture so that needs to be identified first before the downsizing of their current home can actually begin ok and has the process go along what's the next step after a week that we've identified that mom's moving to a fifty five plus community ok ok ok she's got the big four bedroom house what should be our next step after we call you of course i believe the most important step is a floor plan measuring out the apartment that her home that they're moving to or getting a floor layout from the community and then literally measuring and talking to them about the furniture they would like to take with them and how it's going to fit in their new home so that really is the first step that i believe everybody should take ok and i having worked with a number of families of the year i know that that's one of the hardest parts of it the hardest part is making the decision to downsize but the second hardest thing i think is making to decision of what to keep what not to keep away i would say one of the hardest things that some people had to get rid of was the dining room table you know because  that's a lot of memories of course that table oh yeah i've definitely i remind them that memories are in table they're in the head yes so how do you take somebody through this process of deciding what furniture to keep and what to do you a session shall we say well i feel that my role is to lay the facts out to them and the facts are that this is the size of your home that you're moving to not all of these pieces are going to fit in there so we need to decide for your sake and in some cases for safety sake what pieces can go with you if the dining room set that they really would like to take with them is too big then we need to have a bit of a discussion about getting a new dining room set if if that is a piece of furniture that would move into the new home with them so it can be a  not that can be a definitely as an emotional process letting go of like you say the dining room table and the memories that go with it but when they're faced with the realisation that it's not going to fit and that there could be a safety hazard in them walking around their new home that's when i feel they realize i really can't take that with me so what do i have to do next and i think with cared some people in this case was i'm thinking there's a dining table going to the curb yes what if you know with furniture that's not going with them what do we do what how do we once we've decided that the dining tables not going up or diner table what we do where choices well you have three choices number one is there a family member and or a friend a close friend of the family who may want that piece of furniture and will will gladly take it or has expressed an interest in wanting it already that's the ideal situation and that definitely would make the client feel really good  if that's not an option then the next best choice i believe is donating it my goal in assisting my clients is to never throw anything out that has value for anyone anyone in the world actually i am a big proponent of donating to charities so that's always my goal is identifying a charity that they may want that furniture to go to and if they don't have one i'm a big advocate of habitat for humanity they have restored where they will clad we take furniture and it then becomes a tax deduction for the individual  when somebody is going through that process would or some of the big roebuck's that you see coming up letting go of that only furniture but other possessions i have had clients who have had collections so to speak of various items and they want all of them they don't want to let go of all hope so that becomes difficult for may be could i'm a vendor to them and though i may be in the process of developing a close relationship with them i'm still not a relative so i do walk a bit of a fine line i believe and how i try to explain to the client mary you really can't take all of these items and that's what it comes down to time that those are the words that i end up saying to my client  and fortunately once they start to hear that you really can't take everything so let's adana fi what you can't take again like with the furniture i think it's always starts to stink sink into them  i need to really pick and choose which items i want to keep i think i think it was bill cosby who used to have the comedy routine about how you get stuff and you get a place you put your stuff in a place  you get more stuff you need a bigger place and because you got a bigger fish to get more stuff and i think that's what happens a lot in our lives as we go along we keep collecting and collecting and just accumulating all this stuff i know personally that i look around my house sometimes and think i don't want to move all the stuff right here right do you do you work with like say it or call it a yard sale but do you work with you know if somebody wants to come in and just get rid of stuff do you work with like sales agents estate agents or anything like that again d s eschewing yes i do yes i do or let me say that i am a brand new company so i have resources out there i have not yet had a client who has needed that type of service but i have reached out to companies that i know do that because i myself do not conduct estate sales but i know there are companies out there that would do that so if the situation called for that as definitely something that i would arrange for my clients so there's always options for as always options for moving things out for moving for me the best thing that i can do at that point is to just stop what i'm doing and hold that person's hand or put my arm around them and just let them let it out i just feel that that's as a human being that something that i want to do for them because i would want someone to do that for me so that's where my compassion comes out and that's one of the reasons why i chose to enter into this business so that's how i would deal with that i would just let them take a breath take let's take a step back let them gather their thoughts and then we move on from there to continue taking us through the downsizing process we've identified the place we've identified the stuff what happens next then moving companies are contacted to come in and do a proper estimate i usually get several estimates from my clients because it is their choice as to which moving company they want and so the moving company needs to know what is going to actually be moving to the new home so they can prepare a proper estimate all of the items that are remaining that are not going i then make arrangements to either have them donated have charities come in and pick the items up  my team and myself we will go in and pack those items up for our client so they really don't have to do anything except direct the show yes so we make arrangements for donations and most certainly there are going to be some items that will just be tossed those items are just disposed of in the proper way you know we've talked about when somebody should start downsizing we've talked about how they should downsizing we've even talked about who dealt sizes what else do we need to know about downsizing downsizing i believe is something that we each should approach before it becomes a necessity to downsize like we've you were saying we all tend to accumulate items throughout our life and therefore that's why we have so many of these storage facilities in our country who had them thirty years there was no such thing as a storage facility now there are rogers and garages so it's always a good idea i think a couple of times a year to go through your house go through your closets pick out the things that you don't use you know that old saying if you haven't touched an item or if you haven't use it enough and basically i mean kitchen items excluded that's a little bit different because we don't use all of our kitchen items every day but like clothing books papers magazines those types of things those are the things that some can be trashed you really don't need to keep all of them or keep those that are just may have some special meaning for you and then donate those that you are no longer using so i think it should be hopefully an ongoing process so it's kind of brings back that old saying you know a good spring cleaning maybe exactly and maybe even a fall cleaning as well twice a year it's ali you know you look at that sometimes i try and every spring i become a hoarding situation and hoarding is basically an anxiety disorder that's the clinical definition of what hoarding is and then it can become either a safety issue especially for elderly people or big can become a sanitation issue so when someone has a problem letting go of items the house tends to become very cluttered and it can then lead into a true hoarding situation you know when you're working with a senior who's been hoarding and i've seen this on the number of occasions it takes it to much different approach than just downsizing doesn't it it certainly does and i believe that the age factor has a lot to do with that because here is an elderly person who is going through some difficult changes in their life already i have a strong belief and i'm sure most people do l people as they grow older our personalities can change our beliefs can change especially if you're alone you know if the children  another state or if you have new children your spouse has passed away we become more wary of of the world at large so to speak so they tend to want to hold on to what is familiar to them what has been used by them or maybe their spouse has now passed away they want to hold on to it because those are memories for them they don't want to let them go  so yes that can be a difficult situation with the elderly people when you're working when you're brought on to work with a couple or even a single person who's moving you know which the first thing that you do the very first thing that i do is sit down for an hour hour and a half and sit and talk with them and find out what their goals are why did they call me into their home what is it that they're looking to accomplish so that's very important for me to know number one what are their goals number two what is their timeframe when do they want to have this accomplished by and then from there if they do decide to hire me and my services in order for me to prepare a proper estimate i do go through the home with my i pad and i take pictures of all of the areas and then with that i can decide how many hours approximately it's going to take work up and proper estimate to do what it is that they're asking me to do whether that's declaring what's in their home or it's a de cluttering and moving process ok what is the hardest thing that you find that you have to do when you're working with apply it and i ask this because sometimes clients make things more difficult than they have to and maybe they think these things beforehand so what is the most difficult thing that you face when going into work with a family i would say when family members are in the mix ok and that struck many cooks in the kitchen too many cooks in the kitchen and i can certainly relate to that i mean that's their flesh and blood and the family member should be in the mix but it became become difficult for me and my crew because i had a situation where i was moving an elderly client and her daughter didn't want her mother to let go of any of her hundreds of pocket books that she had amassed over a number of years and that became very difficult for me because i knew in the end those pocket books were not going to all be used by the daughter and that we were just moving them from moving sake so that can be a difficult situation and in the end all i can really do is say ok we're going to pack up these items and we're going to move them again that's where the floor plan comes into play sometimes we end up moving boxes into the person's new home that then are never on packed or they may call me back and say can you now help me unpack these boxes because i realize i really don't want these anymore so it sounds like that when your parents are downsizing you know there's a lot that goes into play not only with the person who's moving but with the family as well definitely and people think again they think that they have to let go of memories and they're not letting go memories or letting go of stuff stuff do you when you working with some with a situation like that  guess you find yourself counseling now really the person who's moving but the family as well absolutely that can definitely occur and then i i have to sit down with the daughter or the son whatever the case may be and talk to them just as i'm talking to the client we have a situation here your mom or your dad is moving to a smaller home to moving into an assisted living facility we need to figure out what do we want to do i think if you put it in that way we need to figure out not you need to figure out because i am there to help them so i want to help them figure out what is the best solution for all of the items that need to be packed up and moved or donated or disposed of moving isn't just taking stuff from one place to another there's a whole more to mental process that goes into this as well yes it's good to know that there's somebody out there who can guide people through this i know a friend of mine right now is moving and he's having a very emotional time doing it because he just did a big move about a year ago just got himself know we're moving get the moving truck we're going from point a to point b definitely not you know there's a lot of emotion that goes into this and what is the name of your company the name of my company is home to home n j say the home but once you've got the moved into their new residence then what typically especially in the case of an elderly person and again depending upon whether there's family members that are available to help then they may have hired me to unpack them and then i will go in and literally unpack typically my service does automatically include on moving day making their bed and unpacking all of the essentials that they need so that they can comfortably begin living that very day they're toiletry items there are some of their kitchen items depending upon what the case may be you know it's little things like that that make people comfortable right when they move in i used to be on the facility side and i know one of the things that we used to tell families was you know get the pictures out as quickly as possible right try and get them up on the wall to keep things the same you know the lamp was always on the right side of the sofa trying to keep it on the right side of the sofa that we're not we're minimizing the trauma of a little thanks act like people don't realize you know it's like no we're moving and you know they don't realize everything that goes into it and as we age all the more motions to get piled on top of it and plus the family of motion sick a piling top of it right so you're not just moving stuff know you're moving a whole life we really are and once again the name of your company home to home and jay website home to home n j dot com and a phone number zero nine six zero five four two six six i think and i'd like to thank you for being here on only seniors to talk us through the downsizing and moving process my pleasure tom we're actually going to have you back to talk about hoarding ok because we touched on it but that's a very big topic that really needs a half hour to discuss how because it's known really dangerous not healthy either right tom callahan thank you for joining