How to Help Aging Parents Downsize Their Home

You walk into your parents’ house, and the stacks are already bigger than the last time you’ve been. You can’t walk through the spare bedroom, let alone a car in the garage for a few years now. Something has to give, yet every time you bring it up, you get the same answer; mom says, “I’m good. I know where everything is.”

If you are wondering how to help aging parents downsize without starting a fight, you are not alone. According to the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers, the typical American household will collect over 300,000 items in their lives. It is a daunting task for parents who have lived in the same house for decades to start thinking about how they will begin to sort all that.

In this article, we are going to discuss the whole process from the first conversation until mom and dad are in their new, safe, smaller space. Whether they are making room for a move into assisted living, rightsizing to a ranch style home or just clearing things out for parents who want to age in place, these steps can help you get there while helping maintain their autonomy and relationship together.

Why It Matters for Aging Parent Downsizing

While some people might think of it as just a decluttering project for the downsizing process, the main goal of this process is safety and health.

The CDC reports that one in four elderly American falls annually. Clutter is one of the leading reasons for this; extra furniture, piles of stuff, narrow hallways can all result in a serious injury like a hip fracture or a head trauma that will end in a loss of independence.

In addition to preventing falls, downsizing has other quality of life benefits like:

• Decreased stress and anxiety. Studies published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin have demonstrated people living in cluttered spaces have higher cortisol levels (a stress-related hormone) than those who live in more organized living situations throughout the day.
• Reduced maintenance. Less square footage, less items, less cleaning. There is also less maintenance to repair and fewer utilities to keep running, leaving you free of the burden of having a big house.
• Increased economic flexibility. Selling a larger home and moving to a smaller one can unlock equity that covers years of living expenses or care needs.
• Emergency readiness. It’s easier to navigate a space, find important documents and get out.

Knowing these benefits is key to talking about the reasons why with aging parents.

How To Initiate A Downsizing Conversation

The most frequent mistake that adult kids make is trying to control the downsizing process like they are working on a task instead of a transition. They are not problems to be solved. They are human beings who are scared of losing their independence, their memory and a sense of identity.

Start by asking what’s on their mind.

Rather than asking them to give up their possessions, ask them what’s causing them the most stress in their life. “Mom, you’ve lived here for a long time. I’ve been thinking about how to make things easier for you around the house. Do you know what feels like the most stress for you right now?”

Choose your moment.

Do not broach the subject while you are all at the Thanksgiving table or after a hospital visit. You must have ample time, and it must be a private moment, not a public moment in front of the grandchildren.

Acknowledge the sentimental value of what is yours.

“I know how much that house means to you, Mom. It’s where I grew up, measured my growth on the wall, hosted 30 Christmases.” You need to be as sentimental as the person you’re helping. No amount of “I can put your junk in boxes and sell them online” will ever trump the sentimental attachment.

Make it a choice for them.

Avoid statements like “I think you should sell your home” or “You need to clean your clutter.” Instead, ask, “What feels right to you?” If your parent still won’t listen to you, learn more about what to do when elderly parents refuse help.

Work on a limited project together.

Do not ask your parent to clean the entire house, start with “Would you be up to me trying to help you with one room, or one box at a time?”

A Step-By-Step Downsizing Checklist For Seniors

Once your parent agrees that maybe they do need to downsize (even if tentatively), use this checklist from the Family Caregiver Alliance to help with their downsizing:

1. Find Out the Size of their New Space First If your parent has already agreed to move, ask them for the floor plan of their new house or apartment. Knowing what fits, and how much, takes the stress out of deciding what stays in the old space and what goes out. Don’t have a floor plan? No worries, there is a general rule that assisted living apartments are 300-600 square feet, and when downsizing a house, it is generally 40-60% of the original square footage.

2. Ask what you can’t live without Next, identify what items they cannot live without. “Mom, what are the 10 items you absolutely cannot live without? Start there. These are the things like the recliner you sit in every single evening, the family photos of your kids growing up, and your favorite pot for cooking chili. It’s items like these that immediately make a space feel like home. These items will need to stay and they can stay first.”

3. Work in 2-hour blocks The AARP recommends downsizing in 2-hour blocks followed by breaks. If they do much more than that, it can be emotionally draining, and it can create conflict among the family as a result. Set a timer, and when the timer goes off, stop what you’re doing.

4. Use a Simple Sorting System 4 categories work best:

   • Keep, items that will make the new place, and stay in the new place
   • Share, items that have meaning to the family as a whole, and other family members would love to have the items
   • Donate, Good condition items that deserve a second home.
   • Trash, if it’s damaged, has expired, or is otherwise no longer useful.

   Avoid creating a “maybe” category. Leaving it for later will only delay the sorting. If your parents have yet to make a call on an item of clothing or other possession, store it in a labeled bag and set a date of discard six months out. If they don’t open the bag then, it’s gone.

5. Get Through Paperwork and Documents First You need to make decisions about financial statements, insurance paperwork, wills, and medical documents before you start packing everything into boxes on moving day. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), you should keep all tax returns for seven years. You can shred anything that’s older than that in most cases.

6. Digitize What You Can Photo albums, letters, school artwork, and old home videos take up a lot of space but can be incredibly meaningful for your parents. Scan all photos at 300 DPI, or have something like ScanCafe or Legacybox handle it for you. These scans can also be shared with other family members online (and even printed in a monthly family newsletter your parents can physically hold).

7. Get a Moving Company Book a moving service at least four to six weeks in advance. Overlap your moving date with a time when you have multiple people helping you. A senior move manager (learn more below) can also help with packing and unpacking the move.

Room-by-Room Decluttering Advice for Your Parents

Not sure where to start? Start in the least sentimental areas to get the momentum building, like these rooms:

Kitchen: Discard any food that’s expired and utensils that don’t need to be replaced. Get rid of appliances you haven’t used in over a year. Get rid of broken, chipped, or mismatched plates and bowls. Keep the things you use on a daily basis within easy reach. Before you throw out your parents’ recipe book, read our article on how to preserve family recipes from aging parents — those handwritten notes are priceless and can’t be replicated.

Bathroom: Any expired medications (you can return them to a pharmacy to properly dispose of them), old towels, products you no longer use, and broken hair dryers.

Bedroom closets: The rule of “keep it if it fits and you’ve worn it in the last year” works for most pieces of clothing. You can save a wedding dress or other important keepsakes for your parents by placing them in an archival storage box.

Garage and basement: The tools, the seasonal decorations, the old furniture. These are likely the areas of the house with the most stuff and the most difficult sorting job to complete. If needed, consider paying an extra helping hand to deal with the two rooms specifically.

Spare bedrooms: Often, this is where the accumulation from the last several decades has ended up. Look for toys from long ago, old school work, or old boxes that haven’t been opened since the last time you packed the house up.

What to Do with Sentimental Keepsakes Nobody Wants

This is the part of the downsizing process most guides neglect, and it’s the part of the process that causes the most contention among your family.

The china set that your mom inherited but your siblings don’t want? Your dad’s model train collection that took up the entire basement? These items, steeped in memories going back decades, are tough to let go of. Telling a parent that “no one wants it” is heartbreaking for both of them.

Talk about “honoring” items, rather than “keeping” them. You don’t have to actually keep those items to “honor” them. Photograph the set of China and make a photo page with the story behind it. Record your dad telling you the story of how he built each model train. Take one quilt square from each quilt and frame them up.

Offer items to other people in the family before getting rid of them. A niece or a grandchild’s boyfriend or a family friend might actually want that.

Give items to a cause that needs it. A veteran’s organization would love military items. Local theater companies would love the period costume you’ve held onto for 30 years. Local historical societies always want old documents, photos and ephemera. Giving away your belongings, rather than donating them to get rid of clutter, makes this process less stressful.

Start a memory project. Take this as an opportunity to actually talk to your parents about their belongings: Ask them about the things and possessions that are most important to them and listen, and then write it down or record it. This is the real “keepsake”: the story. And if you wait, when your parents are gone, those stories are gone, too. Hug Letters can even convert these restored photos and stories into a beautifully printed family newspaper sent every month, delivered to your parent’s home.

What if you aren’t local?

Not everyone is lucky enough to live near their parents. If you’re a distant caregiver, there are plenty of ways to help, too:

• Be the project manager. Find senior move managers in your parents’ hometown, get estimates, and set up appointments. This takes a ton of time away from the caregiver that’s actually on-site.
• Do the digital work. Photographing, scanning and digitizing photos, arranging the storage of your parent’s digital files, contacting charity pick up services, looking up and contacting estate sale companies, this is all something you can do remotely.
• Join them over video chat. FaceTime or Zoom them while they’re going through their stuff. They show you, you help them make a decision, and you get to be part of the process.
• Make a trip just to help them. If you’re able to, carve out a long weekend specifically to help your parents get decluttered. Go with an attitude, bring treats, and help make it fun.
• Make sure it’s fairly split. Often, the bulk of the work is on the shoulders of one or the few children who live closest to your parents. If that’s not you, you need to step up in some other way: financially or logistically. Read our guide on how to split caregiving responsibilities equally with siblings to find out how to have the conversation.

When should you hire a senior move manager?

A senior move manager is a professional who is specifically trained to assist families and older adults in downsizing or relocating a parent. Services range from decluttering, packing and unpacking to organizing their new home. A directory of move management services can be found at National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers.

You may want to consider hiring one if:

• Your aging parent owns a large home with many years of things
• There is hoarding or extreme clutter
• Adult children live too far away to assist regularly
• Your parent has mobility or dementia problems
• Adult children have difficulty working together

Cost: Move managers charge $50–150 per hour, or $1,500–5,000 for a move service; some long-term care insurance covers the service.

Having a professional to handle downsizing can take away emotion that may not be possible for family members. The best ones can see past years of stuff, don’t take no as a personal attack and pace the work in a way that is do-able for your parent.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Soon Should You Start Helping Parents Downsize?

The ideal time to start is six to 12 months before a move. If your parent hasn’t expressed intentions to move, but you’re seeing some signs of safety problems in their house, it may be time to bring up the topic. The sooner you get started, the longer you give them to emotionally absorb your suggestions. The harder you push them the more likely they will feel regret later about items they did keep as well as those they got rid of.

What If My Older Parent Won’t Downsize?

It’s normal for your parent to feel resistance. Often, their reluctance is more about fear than anything else. Begin by clearing something unthreatening, such as expired items in the pantry or old magazines. Once they see how nice it feels to have a countertop completely free of clutter or a cabinet where they know exactly where things are stored, you may have their buy in. If this issue is beyond a simple clutter issue, then you may need the help of a geriatric care manager.

What Do I Do With My Aging Parent If They Are Hoarding?

It is estimated that 2-6% of the population suffer from a hoarding disorder, and that number is higher among seniors. If your parents have items piled up all throughout their house or yard and there are clear signs their health or safety are being affected, you need to address this issue sooner rather than later. It is important to recognize that hoarding is a mental health issue and not just stubbornness. You can contact the International OCD Foundation for hoarding resources or call your parent’s doctor and ask for a referral to a therapist who specializes in hoarding.

Moving Forward, Together

Helping an aging parent downsize is one of the hardest things an adult child has to deal with. It can be a process of grief and thankfulness all at once as you let go of memories from the house you grew up in and help your parent move into something they can handle in the future.

So take your time when you help downsize your parent. Listen more as they are sorting items. And always remember the objective is to not make an empty house, but a house that can meet their needs.

Keep in mind your parent isn’t letting go of stuff; they are letting go of memories. So help them document and capture them before they go into the storage space.