Your Guide to Successful Senior Moving

Moving is often a monumental moment in a person's life. But, like any important event or transition in someone’s life such as a wedding or the birth of a new child, moving can be a taxing, tiresome, and stressful experience. The same is true when it comes time for seniors to move, but even more so.

Seniors can find themselves in a position where moving to a new home is necessary for a number of reasons, including a changing health situation, financial necessity, reduced mobility or difficulty adequately taking care of their current living space. Reduced ability and mobility can not only necessitate a move, but make the moving process even more taxing than it usually is. Working with a professional moving company experienced in meeting the unique needs of seniors during the moving process can make a stressful move more manageable for seniors. For decades, countless seniors and families have turned to All Jersey Moving & Storage to ensure a successful, stress-free move.

We know that making the decision to move can be a strenuous one, as moving involves leaving behind the comfort and security of home for something new and unfamiliar. Even after the decision to move has been made, there are countless questions that need to be answered and further decisions that need to be made. Seniors worry about everything from whether they’ll have adequate space for their possessions to how they’ll organize the move itself. Working with professional movers experienced in seniors moving is the best step seniors and their families can take to alleviate unnecessary moving stress.

Having moved seniors for over 50 years, All Jersey Moving & Storage has created a guide to ensure a successful senior moving experience:

Hire Expert Help to Overcome the Physical Challenges

Moving an entire household of furniture, electronics, clothing, decor and memories can be a laborious experience for anyone — an experience likely tinged with the stress of change and difficult decision-making. This is why many people opt to execute their move with the help of professional movers. In addition to ensuring belongings reach their new home safely and unscathed, professional movers save individuals and families time, energy, and stress. If many families opt for a professional move, why shouldn’t seniors? Whether to simply save time or to help those who cannot otherwise make the move, All Jersey Moving & Storage can make the senior moving experience much more manageable. All Jersey Moving & Storage can take care of all aspects of moving from packing and unpacking process to ensuring moving day goes smoothly and on schedule.

Provide Ample Emotional Support

The reasons for a senior’s move can sometimes, unfortunately, be less than ideal, such as health issues that cause physical limitations, safety issues and limited independence. Coupled with the stress of the move itself, moving can be an emotionally taxing transition for seniors. Leaving behind a comfortable, familiar home filled years of memories isn’t easy, and adjusting to a new environment can be nerve-wracking. This coupled with the stress of sorting through and packing up a household of belongings can understandably be a lot to bear for many seniors.

At All Jersey Moving & Storage, we understand that change is never easy and that a major transition like moving can be especially challenging for seniors, whether they are moving to a senior’s community or are simply downsizing to a smaller home or apartment. We always strive to be especially patient with and kind to seniors throughout the moving process, and encourage anyone assisting a senior with their move to do the same. If you’re helping a senior navigate their move, do your best to show empathy, avoid criticism and pressure, listen and be understanding. When seniors feel emotionally supported, it can reduce the stress of the moving process and help ease their transition to a new home.

Create a Familiar Environment

It can be hard to move to a new home for a number of reasons. Leaving a familiar, comfortable home and stable, predictable routine is challenging, especially for seniors who dislike change. As seasoned professional movers with decades of experience helping seniors move, we recommend reviewing the layout of the senior’s old living space and considering how the new living space can be arranged in a similar, familiar way. Doing small things like placing photos in a familiar arrangement, setting the recliner at the same angle to the TV and arranging clothing in the same drawers in the dresser will make the senior’s new living quarters feel more like home. All Jersey Moving & Storage uses the same moving team to pack and unpack allowing seniors to maintain the highest level of comfort, ease, and reassurance possible during their move.

Encourage Moving Seniors to Become Familiar in their New Location

For many seniors, moving is not their first choice. As we’ve already mentioned, difficult circumstances can necessitate a senior’s move. This can understandably leave an individual feeling like they have lost their valued independence or worse — as if they are a burden to those around them. It can be helpful to encourage a moving senior to get to know their new surroundings. Encourage them to join you in exploring their new neighborhood so they can become more familiar with the stores, parks, pharmacies, doctor’s offices, cafes, grocery stores, banks, parks and other locations that they will be visiting regularly as they adjust to their new routine. Of equal importance, accompany a senior to social groups and activities in their new neighborhood so they can meet people with whom they share interests and can build friendships. This will help make the move less overwhelming and unwelcome.

Store Belongings that May Need a Temporary Home

Oftentimes, seniors move to smaller, more affordable and manageable living spaces and must decide which items they can and cannot bring to their new home. If you’re sorting through your belongings, determine which items you want to sell, give away, take with your or place in storage. Moving is a good time to get rid of items that no longer serve you or add value to your life. Belongings you decide are of importance to you but you don’t have room for must be stored elsewhere.

Sometimes, friends or family members will be willing to store a particularly cherished piece of furniture or artwork. However, if you have many items to store, you may want to consider containerized storage. Containerized storage is a convenient, safe, and stress-free way to store furniture, artwork, important documents, or anything else you would like to keep but don’t need access to on a regular basis. At All Jersey Moving & Storage’s containerized storage facility, your items are given the care they deserve as they are blanket wrapped, secured and sealed in protective containers.

Start Preparing Early for a Senior Move

It is never too soon to prepare for your move. Remember, the more you do the month before your move, the less you will have to prepare a week before moving day! The last days before your move are crucial to finishing up the packing process and cleaning your living space. Plan, prepare, and pace yourself to the best of your ability to make the week before moving day and moving day itself less stressful.

Before you even begin packing, ensure you have all the tools you need, from duct tape, permanent markers and moving boxes to bubble wrap, packing tape and box cutters. This way, you won’t have to interrupt an effective sorting or packing session to run to the store.

A key step of moving preparation is learning the dimensions of each room in your new living space, especially if you are downsizing! Knowing how much space you will have enables you to determine how many of your possessions to sell, give away, discard or put into storage.

Another essential stage of moving preparation is creating a clear labeling system. Be sure to clearly identify the intended destination of each box and briefly mark its contents. This will enable your movers to ensure that each box is packed in the moving truck in an organized fashion and is unpacked into the appropriate room. It goes without saying that this will make unpacking your home much less overwhelming. All Jersey Moving & Storage also offers partial and complete packing and unpacking services for those who wish to make moving completely effortless.

When it comes time to pack, start in a room where you have fewer sentimental attachments, like travel keepsake and family heirlooms. Instead, start somewhere simple and uncomplicated like the bathroom or laundry room. Once these rooms are complete, you’ll feel empowered to tackle more difficult rooms.

Because the packing process is so labor-intensive, don’t be afraid to ask friends and family for help. You likely don’t want to inconvenience anyone, but the people who care about you will be more hurt to know you needed help and didn’t ask. Moving can be an overwhelming process. Delegating tasks to friends and family who are willing to help will make your move more seamless.

At All Jersey Moving & Storage, we are there to accommodate the specific needs of our senior customers. We do everything within our power to ensure that our clients’ belongings are taken care of and the entire moving process is carried out with the utmost respect and dignity.

Why All Jersey Moving and Storage?

Speak with any of the adult living communities, senior citizen complexes, or assisted living facilities in New Jersey and surrounding areas and you will be sure to hear All Jersey Moving & Storage is highly recommended. We often work with a number of senior facility moving managers, enabling senior moving to be a point of expertise for us.

Seniors face unique challenges and needs when it comes time to move. We have been relocating seniors for over 50 years and understand their unique needs and concerns. We have an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau as well as Super Service Awards from Angie’s List. All Jersey Moving & Storage is dedicated to making every senior’s move as seamless as possible. By hiring professionals experienced with helping seniors move, the moving process can be streamlined into a painless and pleasant experience — one you will likely recommend to friends and family when the opportunity arises.

Moving, especially for seniors, can be a trying time. Thankfully, All Jersey Moving & Storage are experts in all aspects of moving within the New Jersey area and across the country. Custom crating can be provided for marble and large glass tops, ornate mirrors, chandeliers and other expensive or sentimentally significant items. Our direct and expedited moves make sure that all of your belongings arrive in the same condition they were in when they left your old home.

Contact us today for a complimentary moving estimate.