Moving On Down

"We couldn't have done it," said Julie Snider, the Staceys' only daughter, who lives in Vienna. "There is just so much emotion involved in the move and leaving the house. One of my brothers lives in the area, too, but is really busy, and the other one is in North Carolina."

Downsizing is even harder on those making the move, said Erin Martinko, admissions director for Ring House (independent living) and Landow House (assisted living) in Rockville.

"For someone who has a lifetime's worth of accumulation, think of the volume and physical task of doing it. There are the emotions of our things: a woman giving up dining room furniture that she has served holidays meals on, her china closet with all her pretty things," said Martinko. "A lot of the losses are revisited. Often they have lost a spouse, they have lost their mobility. Maybe they are giving up driving, losing their vision, their hearing, their home."

Sometimes it is easier to let a stranger take charge, said Sue Ronnenkamp, a veteran health care administrator who founded Living Transitions in Austin in 1998.

"We are objective, we're not family. It's not my mom and dad or stuff we grew up with," she said. "The parents are more honest with me than with their own kids. They will say they're tired. And the emotional issues don't pop up with an outsider."

Ronnenkamp said she asks each client such common-sense questions as "Where do you spend your time? What chair do you sit in? Where do you work? It could be a desk, a dining room table. I moved a baby grand piano for one man. That was his priority."

Danick said the work is done in phases; an initial visit determines how much stuff is in the old house and how large the new place will be. She works with the family to decide what gets moved, donated, tossed or sold at an auction or estate sale. Several days before the move, she and the clients go through the house affixing blue tape to everything going into the van.

On moving day, with the house soon to be stripped or left with minimal furnishings, Danick urges the occupants to spend the night with family or friends. The Staceys opted to splurge on a hotel. The next day, their daughter took them out to lunch before they headed to the new apartment.

Danick and her husband, Joel, who is also her business partner, already had spent six hours working with a handyman and several unpackers to stock the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, accessorize the bathrooms, hang clothes in closets. Armed with digital photos of the old house, they knew where every painting and throw pillow should go.

The arrival of the Staceys and Snider resembled the "reveal" on a home makeover television show, with the occupants returning to find a completely changed interior. However, the point of this exercise was to make the new digs look a lot like the old.

For information on senior moving services:

· National Association of Senior Move Managers , http://www.nasmm.org/ .

· Guide to Retirement Living , a free local publication, can be ordered at 800-394-9990 or http://www.retirement-living.com/ .