CAREGIVER • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2019 • 7
THEDOWNSIZING DILEMMA
her, that could mean working
with people in their 70s up into
their 90s or even older.
Paul Regan of Paul the Organizer
in Aspinwall has been assisting
with senior moves full time for
the past 14 years and said most
of his clients are between 70 and
101.
“Some people are 101 and doing
very well,” he said. “Some are
in their 70s and having difficulty
with memory or physical issues.
If you have a big house, if you
haven’t used some of that stuff
in a long time, it’s not a bad idea
to get started sooner rather than
later.
“You don’t have to move, but
you’ll have the time to start going
through things. It doesn’t have to
be a race.”
Letting go
The challenge in downsizing for
most people is letting go of some
of the things they love.
While some might feel little
attachment to pieces of furniture
and household items and find it
easy to say goodbye, others can
take longer to make decisions.
Often, seniors or their caregivers
hope to sell their nice dining
room sets or other large pieces for
which they paid a handsome sum.
Most will be disappointed, said
Ron Shuma of A+ Transitions,
based in Squirrel Hill.
“Your best path is to find a
needy relative or just someone
who can appreciate it and use it
and you can feel like you’re paying
it forward because the market
is glutted with baby boomers’
stuff,” said Shuma, who’s been
a professional organizer for 14
years.
“They’re retiring at a rapid pace,
and more and more stuff is hitting
the market, so there’s less and less
demand. If you can get it out of
the house, it’s a win.
Unfortunately, the boomers
were consumers to the nth degree.”
Some collections can be researched
online via groups for
antique trains, spoons or other
collectors items that often have
mechanisms for buying and selling.
Ebay is a useful tool for gauging
an item’s value, Yesko said, but
only if you look up what similar
items have actually sold for and
not the asking prices others are
hoping to get.
Sterling silver flatware is still
easy to sell, Shuma said, because
it’s valuable when melted down.
Good art collections also hold
value, he said, but that applies
only to very specific clients.
“Other than that, it’s heartbreaking
but that oak dining set is not
going to bring you any money,”
he said.
“I’ve seen gorgeous antiques
go for pennies on the dollar just
because nobody wanted it.”
Yesko said the auctioneer she
works with will say to her, “Please
don’t tell me you have a dining
room hutch,” when she calls.
“If it’s mid-century modern,
he’ll take it,” she said. “Otherwise,
you can’t sell them.”
It’s “big, brown furniture” that
no one seems to want, Regan said,
unless it’s very high-end.
“Oftentimes, people just aren’t
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interested in that, which is a terrible
blow to people,” he said.
“They can’t get over the fact that
people don’t want it. But people
today are often living freer. They
don’t have so much stuff.”
One thing Regan cautions
against is encouraging loved ones
to put things in storage, or caregivers
putting things in storage
because they think they might
have room for pieces in the future,
or hope that the items become
more valuable down the road.
“It’s like kicking the can down
the road,” said Regan, who once
had a client who spent $30,000 to
maintain a storage locker for 18
years.
“You can’t make a decision now,
so you put it in storage to deal
with it later. But there’s never a
time when you want to do that.”