5 tips for decluttering before moving into residential aged care

If you or your loved one is planning to move into a residential aged care home anytime soon, you’re probably starting to think about how to downsize and declutter and downsize. 

We know it can feel a little daunting as you decide how to take on this task, which is especially overwhelming if you or your loved one has been living in their current home for a long period of time and accumulated a lot of things. 

To help you, here are 5 decluttering tips you can use when downsizing before the move into residential aged care. 

Tip 1: Remove any rubbish

Make sure you have a few rubbish bags handy for this first step in decluttering. Before you start going through household items it helps to get rid of any rubbish lying around the house. 

This could include old magazines, old pill boxes, broken items, empty beauty products etc. You’ll probably be surprised how much rubbish is laying around the home. 

Tip 2: Declutter by category

This tip comes straight from the tidying expert, Marie Kondo. When decluttering a house many people automatically work from room to room, however Marie Kondo recommends tidying by category, not location. 

In your home there’s a big chance you have the same type of item in more than one room in your house, so if you work room to room you’ll be repeating the same thing in each room. You’ll probably be shocked about how many of one item you have in your home. 

Sorting by clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous items and sentimental items can help you and your loved one decide what should be moved to the aged care home and what should be discarded. 

Tip 3: If it doesn’t spark joy, discard it

Another Marie Kondo tip we love is to only keep things that spark joy! There will be plenty of items around the home you’ll come across, such as ornaments, art etc. that may be hard to let go of. 

Marie says items that don’t inspire, give you pleasure or are useful should be discarded. Identify what you or your loved one connects with and don’t let go of these things. It’s nice to keep these items when moving into an aged care home as it will help your new home feel like ‘home’. 

Tip 4: Categorise unwanted items

Sorting through unwanted items can feel a little overwhelming, especially if you or your loved one has a lot of things to discard. We recommend having boxes or bags on hand and breaking the discarded into four categories: 

Recycle – There are many items in the home that many people don’t realise they can recycle including computers, keyboards, printers, TVs, batteries, mobile phones and printer cartridges. 

Donate – While an item may not have any usefulness or importance to you or your loved one, there are people in your community who could really benefit from these donated goods. Clothes, furniture and other household items can be donated to local charities and opportunity shops instead of being taken to landfill. 

Bin – Of course, there will be items that can’t be donated or recycled, so having a designated box or bag for rubbish is a necessity. 

Tip 5: Organise before the move

Even though you or your loved one may not be ready to move just yet, as you declutter the home you can pack and organise along the way. If there are items that won’t be used in the next couple of months they can be organised together and labelled appropriately. This will make it so much easier when it’s time to move to the residential aged care home. 

When it comes to decluttering, whether you’re doing it for yourself, or a loved one, we encourage you to take it slow, it can be an emotional experience and it’s not always easy to let go of items that bring back memories and hold a special place in your heart. 

Moving into an aged care home – HillView Care 

At HillView Care we know it’s not always an easy transition moving into a new home, that’s why we’ve ensured all rooms at our Merrimac and Ashmore aged care homes are spacious and have plenty of space to bring favourite items. We want all our residents to feel comfortable and at home at HillView Care. 

If you or your loved one would like to take a look at the comfortable rooms at HillView Care Merrimac or Ashmore, you can request a callback and one of our friendly team members will be in touch with you as soon as possible.