Paul and Diane Baxter did not know what to do with their 1,200 pounds, nor the spare furniture and the clothes they had collected over 40 years of marriage.
The retirement couple were preparing to reduce the size of a three -bedroom house by 1,800 square feet to a town house on a floor on a 1,200 square feet in a community over 55 just just south of Portland, Oregon.
“For the past two or three years, we thought, it was like, how are we going to get rid of all this? What are we going to do?” Said Paul, 70.
Once they had bought their new house earlier this year, these questions were suddenly urgent.
The answer became clear after Diane met Sarah Gomm during a gathering of friends. GOMM is a “moving manager” – a professional organizer who specializes in the aid for the elderly to get rid of their business and to size reductions. A few days later, the holes hired him to help their transition.
The National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers has more than 1,100 member companies, including Gomm’s. Leah nash for bi
Gomm tackled a host of tasks, from organization to packaging and search for moving. She organized more than 1,000 of the books of bastards for sale to a book collector and the sale of someone else’s succession.
“I would have torn off my hair, and Paul would also have torn hers, if we hadn’t had it,” said Diane, 82.
GOMM is part of an industry growing from specialists who help the elderly to unclutter, to reduce Move to more suitable houses. They are professional organizers and de facto therapists – and their services are increasingly requested, because the oldest baby boomers are 80 years old and find themselves crushed by the value of a life of things Their children and grandchildren do not want.
Separate from property, no memories
Gomm, 59, had never heard of the senior management when she met a description of work in a book on careers for people over 50. After decades of work in the corporate non-rolls, Gomm said that it was immediately attracted by the idea of helping the elderly organize themselves while organizing its own business.
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“I was like, that’s it, Eureka! That’s all I like to do and I’m excellent,” said Gomm, who says that she, like many others in her work, has an obsessive light compulsory disorder.
After taking courses in the senior move and the professional organization, GOMM launched its own store of a woman, new chapter transitions, in May 2020. She saw her business develop regularly since then and has been able to support revenues. Last year, the profit of the company exceeded its advanced income from previous jobs. These days, it mainly helps the elderly to eliminate their property, to design their space, to pack their belongings and to unpack in their new place.
The “brand brand” of the management of senior moves helps the elderly “to separate from goods without separating from memories,” said Jennifer Pickett, who heads the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers, which has more than 1,100 member companies.
This can mean taking pictures of things that someone gives and create a photo book or a photo collage. “If Mrs. Jones has 25 teapots, is it the 25 teaters she is attached to? No, these are the memories from where she obtained the teapots,” said Pickett.
Have you reduced the size or do you plan to move into a smaller or more accessible house? Share your story with this journalist to erelman@businessinsider.com.
Senior moving specialists tend to charge between $ 40 and $ 80 an hour for their services, said Pickett. Customers generally spend $ 1,000 to $ 3,200 on their moving manager. Gomm said that she was working with customers for an average of around 36 hours in total, but that it goes from one afternoon to months of work.
She compared her work to that of the queen of storage, Marie Kondoand the famous Netflix Home publishing teamAlthough she said that their Instagram color and user-friendly systems are not durable for most of its customers, who often have health problems or simply cannot maintain hyper-organized space.
Gomm said she liked to establish relationships with her customers. “You just want to do anything you can get them in a better place,” she said. Leah nash for bi
Gomm said that she had many customers who lost an adult child or suffered another traumatic event that has made their life even more difficult.
“There is a lot of psychology that goes there,” says Gomm. “Once you have met these people and you understand their pain and what they go through, you just want to do everything you can to get them in a better place.”
Sometimes she gets cases that she does not feel equipped to manage, including people with severe hoard trends. Although she will work with serious congestion, she will not work in houses without navigable waterways through size, nor with structural damage or broken devices. In these cases, she refers the person to a specialist in hoarding.
Reduction of the workforce in place
Anyone who has already moved includes the Herculean nature of packaging and declining. Eraser the cupboards, separate from collector’s objects and move houses is even more difficult when you get older. And baby boomers often have several generations of things, such as the rankings filled with queues and trinkets of their own parents.
Meanwhile, the young generations grew up in a target, Ikea and Amazon World, where furniture – and everything else – are inexpensive and disposable. They do not wait for their parents to decrease to get their own dining room or cutlery.
“In the past, there have been a lot of generational drops in articles, and we don’t see that anymore,” said Pickett.
An increasing part of older Americans does not move as they age. Instead, they “age in place” in their homes until they die or need a nursing home. Some just don’t want to move, and many cannot afford it.
Increasingly, moving managers help people Reduction of the size in place. They improve the functionality and safety of a house by moving a room on the first floor, installing better lighting or removing carpets that could be a risk of trigger.
But if moving is in the cards, Diane said she told all her friends to do it as soon as they can.
“Even with all the help we had, moving to this time of life is a horrible proposal,” she said. “If you even think remotely that you will have to move, do not wait, because the more you wait, the more difficult it will be.”