At some point, your older clients may have to downsize. It may mean leaving a home of many years for smaller, more manageable accommodation or being obliged, because of physical or mental disabilities, to enter a retirement or nursing home.

Whatever the reason, such a move can be traumatic. Seniors may feel alone and overwhelmed. Families may not live in the same city or may be busy with jobs and children. Inevitably, seniors have to decide what to take along — and what to leave behind.

But your senior clients need not do this alone. There are a growing number of services that address this problem, and you can help out by bringing them to your clients’ attention.

“Seniors usually know when it’s time to leave their homes,” says Berna Ho, who, with her sister, Sheila Hogan, runs With Care, a Vancouver company that helps seniors move. “They may have become isolated and lonely in the home, or they’re afraid for their safety. They often look forward to moving to a place that can provide what they’re missing.”

Jeannette Zeller, who operates the Ultimate Valet, a Vancouver packing and unpacking service, notes many families bring in a social worker to ease a relative through this transition. “They often find moving Mom or Dad out of the home too emotional to deal with themselves,” she says.

The services Ho and Zeller provide can involve as little as packing up the fine china or as much as taking the key to the home after the senior has moved or died and disposing of everything. Neither firm physically moves its clients but they will find moving companies to tackle that task. They also work with real estate agents if selling the home is necessary. And they arrange to have the premises cleaned. The advantage to seniors and their families: dealing with one company rather than with several businesses.

“Families often ask us to dispose of clothes and other stuff, and send them the valuables,” says Zeller. “One woman who was downsizing had 250 pairs of shoes, 80 pairs of leather gloves and 14 leather coats, as well as her other coats. She wanted to take them all with her. She even wanted to keep the high-heeled shoes — and she was using a walker. So we put them in wardrobe boxes, itemized everything and they went with her.

“We usually take clothes to thrift shops,” she add. “We get receipts for everything, which we give to the families.”

Ho helps seniors sell valuable furniture, china and art through a network of antique dealers and auction houses. Occasionally, she makes private sales on Web sites such as e-Bay. “But arranging viewings takes a lot of manpower,” she says. “We favour antique stores that buy items outright rather than on consignment because seniors tend to worry when matters are outstanding. We’ll remind them that they didn’t buy a piece as an investment, so it is not worth the stress to get another $100 for it.”

Seniors are often more concerned about their belongings finding good homes than they are about getting good prices for them, says Ho, a recycling advocate. “I take things to thrift shops, archives and service clubs. Seniors like to know where their belongings have gone. Most of them grew up in the Depression and remember how difficult it was to acquire things.”

Ho, whose firm charges $28 an hour for each employee on a job, says getting seniors ready to move involves sorting, packing and listening — all at the same time. “Seniors love to tell their stories, and I love to hear them,” she says.

Zeller gets a great deal of satisfaction from organizing a senior’s move. “We’ve taken what was often a mess and created order from it; we’ve helped a person through a difficult time,” she says.

Ho often works with a real estate agent. “If a person has lived in a house for 60 years and it has gone downhill, it is better to get the house ready for sale after the senior has moved,” she says. “We’ll bring in a realtor who determines what repairs or renovations are needed. Or the realtor may know that a house of its kind in its neighbourhood will probably be torn down by a developer — so renovations are pointless.”

@page_break@But most homes that have been lived in a long time need to be spruced up for sale, says Celeste Lee, who, with partner Paula Schulz, runs Design SOS, a Vancouver firm that specializes in “decluttering” and reorganizing homes. “Many buyers today are looking for houses in move-in condition,” she adds. “With the high housing prices in some Canadian cities, young people have to borrow to make down payments and can’t afford to renovate for a few years. You don’t have to put in a $50,000 new kitchen, but investing $2,000 or $3,000 in new flooring and counters may mean the new owners can live in the house a while.”

Lee has some suggestions for “staging” a house for sale:

> Curb appeal. Make sure the exterior is presentable so potential buyers will be enticed inside.

> Kitchens and bathrooms. These are important rooms, Lee says: “Sometimes all it takes is a lick of paint, a new shower enclosure or new counters.”

> Paint. Walls throughout the house may need fresh paint.

> Return rooms to original purpose. A senior may have turned a dining room into a bedroom to avoid stairs.

> Get rid of old-style carpets. They make rooms look frumpy, and there may be beautiful hardwood floors under them.

> Banish bad odours. These can emanate from drains, old carpets or boxes of old clothing or papers.

> Get rid of dated items. Take items such as old-style lamps and Elvis clocks to a thrift shop.

> Keep furniture. “You don’t want potential buyers to think the owner has moved out and wants to sell quickly, or they’ll lowball you,” Lee says. “Have fresh towels in the bathroom and some clothes in closets.”

> Arrange furniture to maximize architectural potential. “If you have a fabulous view from the living-room window, move the sofa so it faces the window instead of the television set,” Lee says.

> Depersonalize. Take away family photos; remove slippers from beside the bed and toothbrushes from the bathroom.

> Maintenance. Make small repairs such as replacing missing grout between tiles.

Lee recommends doing a home inspection before the house is listed: “You should know what to expect before potential buyers go ahead with their own inspections.” IE