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].
thefamilycuratordont-toss-my-memories-in-the-trash-book-review.
OTOH, you do have to toss the trash in the trash, and thank God for recycling bins. I helped clean two really filthy hoarded homes and also my moms which was chock full of stuff but only a little mildew, no rats or cockroaches; but I got an estate company for that - I stashed some cheap memorabilia that I didn't think was worth much except to me in one closet, ended up scrounging a few "memories" from the leftovers that they had bagged up to trash despite my express request not to, and donated and recycled and donated and recycled the rest. It turned out that NOTHING was really worth all that much and I could have should have taken anything I'd really wanted. I ended up actually buying similar items to a few I let go but felt obligated to leave for sale or could not fit in my car, like a cedar wardrobe and a console tv.
BRAVO, tomorrow my parent's car, which felt like I was driving the Queen Mary down the highway, is being towed away.... it's going to charity.... how I hated that car, I would get car sick just backing it out of the garage. Surprisingly my Dad was glad that car is going, today he quickly signed the Title over to the charity.... whew.
I was totally ready to part with it. That season of my life was over. I knew if I ever took up square dancing again it would be with a different style of costume. It took a few tries but I found an organization thrilled to take it all and put it up for sale for their new graduating class. It made me feel good that at least some of it would give pleasure to other people.
Now a logical person would have said, "Don't move this whole closetful of clothes you haven't worn in years. Get rid of it now." But I wasn't ready "now." I had to make peace with that season ending. When I was ready I did it tearfully and joyfully.
Logic isn't the only factor at work here.
I have a large (6' tall x 4' wide) cupboard downstairs filled with wine and drink glasses in various sizes and platter after plate after serving tray. Most items haven't been used in years. Logic tells me to donate them. But that would be admitting that the entertaining season of my life is over. I am simply not ready to let go of that yet. Maybe I'll have a big open house with all the glasses out, and tell guests to please take home the glass they are drinking from, as a memento of parties at my house! :)
When it is just "stuff" it is easy to get rid of. When it represents a season in your life you aren't ready to acknowledge is over, it is very painful to get rid of. I hope that by the time you are urging your parents to deal with stuff, it is truly stuff to them.
A good rule of thumb is that if you've managed to live without something your entire life, you can continue to live without it when you clear your parents' estates. If you see that big antique table or that big antique hutch and that big antique desk, think estate sale. If you see those smaller things, seriously think about what you could do with them... who you would leave them to. Otherwise you are just recreating the problem you are facing now.
Then she moved again into a 2 bedroom unit again and fully furnished it. So few years later when she it ended up that she needed more care and had to be moved again, and again, all of that went into storage as we were not sure right away how much she would need. I got sick a few times from the stress of it all so which meant not much of what we have here was dealt with.
Fast forward there I was with all the family silver which no one here wants, glass wear, china, linens and an assortment of chairs and an old oak dining set and coffee tables and other thing and lots of papers. old mail and photos.
About a year ago I started sending the silver and some other mementoes overseas as a nephew wants it, packing up the china plus some of mine to go to the storage room, sending the odd piece to people who want them.
I scored today. I found a Scandinavian society in another city which has a museum who are delighted to have her hand made embroidered ski suit and similar articles that hark back a lot of years. I did not feel good about trashing them.
I started going through papers recently and burned most of it. I have a trunk full of slides - they are going to be trashed. No one wants them
This whole process has been going on for 6 1/2 years and it stresses and exhausts me. In the meanwhile mother is gaining weight from the drugs so I have a couple if wardrobes worth to get rid if - I had to buy her new clothing in January having just outfitted her with larger clothing in the summer.
I am 78 and I am need to and am working on downsizing my own things but it is hard to make much progress when I have so much of mother's to deal with.
I guess this tuned into a rant! I feel better now. lol!
Get rid if IT whatever IT is sooner rather than later!
I have downsized myself to a studio apartment- it forces me not to buy.
Change of address now it seems all the places want you to do it on-line. Ok, no big deal.... well it becomes a test of patience big time. Since my parents never opened accounts on-line I had to do it from scratch. I have one ID that I use for the accounts but then there are accounts that want you to do something different.... [sigh].
Then comes the passwords.... some want 6 letters and one number... another wants 8 letters with one capitalized and to throw in a number or two.... today one wanted a letter at the beginning and a letter at the end, plus capitalizing, and three numbers.... and now I am seeing accounts that want passwords that include the stuff you find on the top row of your keyboard [can't type them here, as I found out the hard way it caused my whole post to be deleted once I hit the "post comment".
And I don't want to get into the array of security questions, good heavens. I had to write down all the ID's, passwords, and security answers down in a book as there is no way to remember all this stuff. Anyway, I think I am finally done, it only took a month of Sundays....
Until Monday when I get yet another forwarded envelope with a yellow sticker :P
If my folks would have moved years ago, back when Dad was computer savvy [he use to write code] he could have done all of this. My patience was wearing thin on those on-line accounts that kept flashing back that something wasn't correct.
That is probably why dealing with my parents house is so frustrating to me as too many things are no longer in its place. Years ago everything was in order from previously dated material neatly filed away, but that fell by the wayside during the past few years. Mom use to be so neat and orderly. Last weekend I was trying to match the china sets with each other, some were in this cabinet, some in other cabinets, some were upstairs, found one bowl in the basement.
And my Dad had his newspaper piles of unread newspapers, and I couldn't convince him to just toss it all and start from scratch as everything was now old news.... that only started a couple of years ago.... my theory was Dad would start reading the newspaper and fall asleep, thus saved it for the next day, and the day after, etc.
I have told her I will help her some day when mom no longer needs me, by then we will need dumpsters (who am I kidding, we probably do already)!
By the time they had to leave the house there was still plenty of stuff, but it wasn't quite as bad. If you can turn it into some sort of enjoyable activity, that can help.
Dozens upon dozens of contractor bags filled with things, trash cans filled with old boards and pipes, old scraps of rugs that my folks had everywhere around the house. I had to hire someone to help me sort through things, it worked great as he knew what to keep for an estate sale and what to toss. Even things I would have thrown out, he said someone would buy a box of like kind items for a few dollars.
Next will be someone to come out to see if the remaining items are good enough for an estate sale.
Came across a big old 3-ring binder which was the probate of my grandmother's estate, the probate took 10 years to complete as it was complicated as it included a business.... and 5 grown children who didn't like how the Will was written.... [sign].
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Back to square one. Now much of the stuff that I had paid someone to put like-kind items together I have been stuffing into construction trash bags and lugging out to the curb for trash day. There are still more items to bag in the basement and carry up the stairs. Not easy for two folks who will be 70 this year, meaning me and my sig other :P
Now all the china and glassware I had lugged over to my parents house has been lugged back to my house. I can store it until I figure out what to do. Past couple of weekends spent quality time boxing up a lot of knick knacks to give to Goodwill. Still have a lot more to deal with.... [sigh]
I have noticed that people will take things if placed by the curb on trash day that aren't in bags. Two wooden drying racks someone picked up before the trash service came around. YES!! Will try that next trash pick up on other items :)
What about an "indoor" yard sale, just post a sign asking for best offers and open the door!