How to Help Your Senior Clients Prepare for the Challenges of Moving

How to Help Your Senior Clients Prepare for the Challenges of Moving

Housing needs change throughout our lives. From apartments to starter houses to dream homes, we look for a home that meets our needs throughout the stages of our lives. For seniors, health and safety needs become primary concerns. When that happens, housing often needs to change.

If you work with senior adults, you know that many of your clients struggle with the decision to move. Yet, every year over 3 million seniors in the U.S. make that decision.

After the hard work of finding housing is complete, it’s time to face the next step: moving. 

As certified senior move managers, we know the challenges seniors encounter when it’s’ time to move. We’ll share the strategies we know are effective in helping and let you know when your clients may need more help. Below we’ll look at the most common hurdles we’ve seen—getting started, dealing with emotions and loss of independence, family dynamics, and hoarding. 

Getting Started with a Senior Move: Our Top Three Strategies

Once a client is ready to move, their first thought is often, “Where do I start?” 

Sometimes facing all the things that need to be accomplished is so overwhelming people shut down and avoid even starting the process. This frustrates everyone involved—realtors, interested buyers, family members, and most importantly themselves.

We have found three things that help tremendously—checklists, breaking large tasks down into smaller chunks, and delegating or getting help. Easier said than done, right? 

Let’s start with checklists. Checklists are a great tool to keep you organized and make sure you don’t forget anything important. The good news is that your clients don’t need to start from scratch. There are many places online to find moving checklists. 

This eight-week comprehensive checklist includes timelines for selling a home, tips for keeping important documents safe, and packing tips. This checklist is targeted specifically to seniors and includes tips for downsizing and decluttering in preparation for a move. 

Checklists are great, but once you see it all on paper, it can reinforce why you don’t want to get started—there’s a lot to do. One reason is that, even though moving checklists are great for giving you a framework, many of the tasks are too complex. Organization experts recommend breaking large tasks down into smaller steps. 

Most things that we do in life are more complicated than we realize. They are made up of small steps. Things like making a sandwich, driving to the grocery store, and cleaning a bathroom are made up of a series of smaller tasks. We name them as one thing, but if you listed out every step it took to do each of those everyday tasks, the list would be quite long. 

Let’s look at a typical moving task—donating unwanted items.

Donating unwanted items seems like it’s one task, but it’s actually several. 

• Look up 1 or 2 area donation centers.
• Write down items they accept and phone number to schedule donation pick-up OR address and drop-off hours.
• Gather items that can be donated to each center.
• Call to arrange donation pick up OR schedule time to bring donations to centers.
• Look up 1 or two more donation centers if needed.

It almost seems silly to list them this way, but that’s why it works. The tasks are now so small, that it’s hard to argue you couldn’t check off at least a few. It makes the work much less overwhelming and it’s easier to get started. Plus, you get the satisfaction of checking items off your to-do list and which can encourage you to keep going.

It’s virtually impossible for one person to move all on their own. Most people need help with at least some parts of their move—packing, cleaning, handling trash and donations, decluttering, arranging storage, etc. That’s why delegating is so important. 

We’ve found moves go more smoothly if everyone is clear about who is responsible for which tasks. One person should be in charge of the move (the person moving, a family member, a move coordinator.) That person should work with the resources available. Family, friends, and professionals can all play a role. 

Four Challenges and Why Your Client Needs a Senior Move Manager

Beyond getting started, we have found four things that commonly get in the way of a move progressing smoothly. None of them have easy answers and not everyone is equipped to manage them. Senior move managers are especially skilled at handling these issues in a constructive way. So, if your client’s move has stalled, it’s time to call in more help. 

Loss of Independence and Health Concerns

So often when an older person is moving it’s because they’ve had a change in their health. They can experience any number of health conditions—

• Cardiovascular disease
• Loss of strength and mobility
• Cognitive decline
• Increased risk of falling

Any of these can mean living independently is no longer an option.

It’s not easy to experience the loss of independence these conditions represent. Not being able to climb stairs safely, drive a car or complete daily tasks are things that nobody wants to face.

Additionally, these health concerns make moving difficult. Many seniors can’t do many of the typical things involved in a move on their own. That’s why senior moves work best when there’s plenty of time to work through the initial decluttering. Be prepared for things to move more slowly than they would for a younger adult.

Emotions 

Moving is always an emotional experience. No matter where you’re moving to, you’re always leaving something behind—a home, a neighborhood, people, a phase of life. 

Simply going through stuff is emotional. Our belongings reflect our experiences. Photos, gifts, heirlooms, and souvenirs are all reminders of people and places. Feelings are bound to surface. 

Seniors are often moving to a smaller space, which means they have they also have to say good-bye to many things they love. It’s not easy.

The longer someone has lived in their home, the harder it can be. There’s more stuff and more experiences to process. 

Our best advice is to put yourself in your clients’ shoes. Even as a younger adult, having to give up more than half of your belongings all at once would be pretty traumatic. 

Family Dynamics

There are likely family members or other loved ones involved in a senior move. This can be extremely helpful in terms of having people to help with the move. It can also be an added layer of difficulty. 

Family members bring their own struggles onto the scene. Family members can:

• Be processing their own grief about the move.
• Be stressed from helping the senior move while performing caregiving duties.
• Be struggling with the changing roles of parent and adult child.
• Be worried about their loved one’s health. 
• Be stressed about the financial aspects of the move and care going forward.

As care needs for seniors increase, family disagreements can erupt. All of this can make family less patient than they want to be. 

Hoarding

Hoarding is an increasingly common problem. People aged fifty-five and older have a higher incidence of hoarding. Hoarding disorder (HD) is a recognized mental health condition, one that increases in severity with age. 

People with hoarding disorder collect and hold onto things that most people wouldn’t. In more severe forms HD can create safety concerns and strain family relationships. Moderate or severe hoarding behavior should be brought to a doctor’s attention. Treatments for HD include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and/or medication.

It’s important to know that you can’t reason someone out of their hoarding behavior. Similar to the way you can’t talk someone out of a phobia, don’t expect someone suffering from hoarding disorder to simply stop their behavior. 

Someone who hoards will find moving especially challenging for a number of reasons:

• They simply have more things to move.
• Those things are often disorganized.
• When they agree to let go of items, they quickly replace them which limits progress.
• Their space may be difficult or dangerous to maneuver.
• They can experience distress when others pressure them to “throw out their junk.”
• They make little progress because they organize and reorganize their stuff over and over again. 

Knowing about hoarding behavior doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. Families know the pain and frustration of navigating hoarding behavior in someone they love. You may find yourself getting frustrated with your clients. As we said above, not everyone is adept at that managing behavior. 

Senior move managers aren’t mental counselors by any stretch. However, most of us have experience helping seniors who display hoarding behaviors. We’re patient. We listen. We’re good at breaking tasks down into smaller chunks. We know how to honor what’s important to our clients and still make progress. We can show our clients how to display their favorite things in ways they love—which makes letting go a little easier. 

If you’re working with a client in need of our services please reach out. We make sure “no matter where your feet land, that the heart of your home arrives with you.”