How a Senior Move Manager Can Help Your Parents Relocate
Your folks may be more willing to take a pro’s advice than yours.
When Pat Curry of Augusta, Ga., helped her parents move from Florida to Georgia five years ago, she faced a daunting task. “They had lived in the same house since 1964,” says Curry, now 55. Her father has since died, but Curry’s mother recently broke her hip, has had mini strokes and is showing signs of dementia. Curry anticipates having to move her to an assisted living facility and this time she’s planning to hire a senior move manager.
If you’ll need to help your elderly parents move soon, bringing on this kind of a pro can be a huge time saver and stress reliever. “Think of a senior move manager like a project manager or a general contractor,” says Mary Kay Buysse, executive director of the National Association of Senior Move Managers (NASMM) in Hinsdale, Ill. “If you were putting an addition on your house, you would hire a general contractor to oversee the project. He might be a carpenter himself, but he’s the guy who gets and oversees the electrician, the plumber, and others.”
What a Senior Move Manager Can Do
While not all senior move managers are moving companies, they may recommend and then oversee them, plus help with the packing, unpacking and furnishing of your parents’ new home. Some companies employing senior move managers specialize in estate sales; others might be professional organizers. And these pros can handle everything from decluttering to taking detritus to the trash to donating unwanted goods to your parents’ favorite charity. Senior move companies often work primarily on relocations within a four-hour radius. If a client is moving long distance, they will partner with another senior move manager on the other end.
It’s a common dynamic that independent adults want to push back when their children are trying to parent them.
— Margit Novack, Moving Solutions
Another benefit of using a senior move manager: You’ll get a buffer who’ll persuade your parents to do what’s necessary to downsize — the same advice they might not take from you.
Doing What You Can’t
“We can step in and the parents know we’re there to help them make decisions. It’s not the child bossing them around,” says Jacquie Denny, founder of Everything But the House, based in Cincinnati.
“It’s a common dynamic that independent adults want to push back when their children are trying to parent them,” adds Margit Novack, president of Moving Solutions in Havertown, Pa. “When I walk in the door, I speak 100 percent to the parent. Move managers give control back to the clients, even if the adult child is paying for it.”
Continue Reading on Next Avenue:
By Leah Ingram.
Enjoy reading? Recommend :) ♡
This article was originally posted by Leah Ingram on Next Avenue. Margit, a leader and pioneer in Senior Move Management since 1996, is the President & Founder of Moving Solutions. Creator of eSMMART. Founding President of NASMM. Breast Cancer SURVIVOR and 7 x Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walker/Volunteer. (Grand)Mother. Wife.
😀 Let’s talk! Connect with me online:
Twitter: @MargitNovack
Facebook: Margit Novack
Instagram: Margit.Novack
