Sibling dynamics

Our role helping elderly people move has put us smack dab in the middle of a LOT of family dynamics. And let me tell you: we have seen it all. We have seen families where it all works perfectly (or at least seems to in our opinion), we have seen families who stop speaking to one another during the course of taking care of their parents, and we have seen everything in between. 

I can offer a few general thoughts on some themes we have seen repeated. It’s possible you will see some similarities to your own family. If so, maybe you’ll find some comfort in the recognition that there are other families like yours.

First off, geography is often important when framing a discussion like this. For many of our clients, there is an adult child (or a niece, nephew, or cousin) who lives in New York City or nearby. Often there is one child here and the other children live elsewhere.  

Most likely, the child who lives nearby spends more time with their parents. This doesn’t mean they love them more or are better people. It just means that it’s a lot easier for them to visit than for family members who don’t live nearby. As a result, they know more about what’s actually happening on a day to day basis. For example, they know the staff in their parents’ building, they know how to arrange for small repairs,  they know how to properly dispose of things. Around the neighborhood, they likely assist with chores. They know where to pick up their parents’ prescriptions, they even know which dry cleaner they prefer.

This can be a great relationship and I really wish that every elderly person had someone nearby who could pop in like this. This relative is also, generally, our main contact when we are helping clients downsize and move. But if there are other children who do not live nearby or if there are other children who do live nearby but don’t make so much effort, this relationship can cause friction in the family.

The children who are not local may feel left out, they may feel that they aren’t as important as their sibling. This may very well play into dynamics that have existed their whole lives. It may be that one child has always spent more time with their parents and now also lives near them. This is not uncommon. 

Another dynamic we see with the local child is that they sometimes may be resentful for all the time they have put into their relationship with their parents. They may wish their siblings had a more active role in the day-to-day activities.

A major exacerbating issue sometimes occurs when the out-of-town sibling visits. They quickly make a list of all the tasks that have not been done and offer tons of suggestions about better systems. Meanwhile, they are forgetting that the local sibling is doing daily chores and has to prioritize tasks. Also, the out-of-towner arrives with the intention of dedicating full days to their parents. Meanwhile, the local one has a full life to deal with in addition to helping their parents. The criticism from the out-of-towner may leave the local sibling feeling offended and unappreciated. This anger, in turn, prevents the local sibling from recognizing that the out-of-towner offers a fresh set of eyes and can provide some good suggestions.  

I think the key here is to try to identify this resentment early on and find a way to stop it from building. There are a lot of ways a non-local sibling can be involved and help out. I have seen families where a sibling who isn’t local, for example, manages the finances. This is easy to do from afar. If the parent gives this sibling power of attorney over finances and bills, they can manage it all online. They can help with insurance issues and can take on the critical role of making sure the parent is not scammed.

The child who is not local can also plan strategic visits home to address very specific issues. For example, they can arrange a few days to tour residences with their parent, or they can arrange to come for important doctor appointments. With some advanced planning, the remote sibling can tackle home chores. A good friend of ours recently planned a visit to his mother’s house and completed a whole list of household chores, including hanging new curtains. By communicating each other’s role clearly, this resentment is less likely to develop.

Another dynamic is that sometimes one sibling just does not get involved. In some cases, they just need to be told what to do. This used to baffle me because it seems so obvious when an older adult needs help, but some siblings need to be given directions from their siblings. The siblings who are more involved can make lists and ask that very specific tasks be completed. Occasionally, there will be a sibling who simply doesn’t want to do the work. That’s harder to deal with as it may relate to long-held resentments. But often people are, frankly, a bit clueless and just need the directions.  

For example, I remember one family where a local sibling didn’t seem to know what to do, so his sister, from afar, gave him a schedule. She said: “Stop by mom’s house once a week on your way home from work. Before you get in the car, call and ask if she needs anything from the grocery store.” At first the sister was annoyed that she had to make this specific request, but after it became a routine, she loved it because she felt comfort knowing that her brother was keeping tabs on their mother. 

The families that seem to work best are the ones who are not afraid to have honest conversations with one another. Taking care of your parents can be complicated and frustrating, and there aren’t good guidebooks out there. There’s no What to Expect When Your Mother Is 80.

If you are lucky enough to have siblings, you may want to take this opportunity to try to communicate with one another and form a team. You might find that just being honest and telling your siblings how you feel about your aging parents can open up lines of communication.

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Paper and data security for professionals who handle sensitive client information

If you are in a profession in which you collect paperwork on your clients – for example, an accountant, attorney, financial advisor, or psychotherapist -- you may have paperwork in your home that could cause a lot of trouble if it fell into the wrong hands. 

At this point, we all know someone who has been a victim of identity theft. One friend of mine found that his tax refund had been directed to someone else’s account. It took him several years to collect the funds. Another friend’s email account was broken into. Posing as her, the hacker sent an email to her financial advisor and directed that a large sum of money be transferred to a new account.

It is hard to believe now, but our social security numbers used to appear on all kinds of paperwork. We have come across countless boxes of old pay stubs collected by our clients, with their social security number displayed right at the top of each stub. Some bank statements and medical records used to include them too.

I wish the IRS would find a way to encrypt our social security numbers on their documents, but they still appear on W-2s and on forms that need to be signed and submitted each year to process taxes.

The only solution is to stay on top of papers as we collect them, and not let the stacks of paper ever get so large that we lose control over them. 

Debby and Stan’s son, Mark, hired us to clear out a lot of the stuff that had accumulated in their Brooklyn home because he planned to renovate it for them. He intended to convert part of the ground floor into a large bedroom with a bathroom so they could eventually live entirely on this floor and not have to worry about stairs. This would allow Debby and Stan to age in place and avoid having to move in the future.

It was a great idea and we were happy to work with them. They were attached to their things, but they were not hoarders. Just heavy collectors. The main problem was that they ran their joint accounting practice out of the house and the business files had taken over a lot of space.

Stan was using what was once a beautiful formal dining room as his office, and Debby was using an enclosed porch that must have once been a lovely place to have breakfast, as hers. Both workspaces were packed with files, but the files in these workspaces were no match for the files in the basement. There, they had stored more than forty years of files from former and present clients. 

As we toured the basement the first time, I could see, without opening a single box or file, the names and social security numbers for many of their clients. They were scattered all over the place, in random piles.

I quickly realized how easy it would be for anyone entering the house to collect -- without much trouble at all-- enough private information on these clients to get away with some lucrative identity theft. 

As we worked with them, both Debby and Stan could see the need to shred all past client files and to secure the current files. We wound up bringing our on-site shredder to the house four or five times. This company has a shredder on their truck and you can watch your papers get pulverized right there on the street. It’s an activity I find oddly comforting. 

If you are in the position of keeping financial or tax records for your clients, you have a responsibility to protect this information. You are a steward of your client’s paperwork and, as such, you should stay on top of technology and find ways to handle their data and information with discretion and security.

The solution might be that you should not be keeping paper files on anyone. Or you keep just what you need and store them in locked cabinets. In this case, you should prepare a calendar of how long you will hold onto each client’s information, and you should have a clear policy for destroying your copies of their files after a stated period of time.

At the very least, you do not want to leave boxes of this sensitive information in your home to be dealt with haphazardly after you die. You should have a clear plan for them which has been expressly stated to your heirs. This will prevent them from suddenly finding themselves the caretaker of strangers’ sensitive information.

If you are keeping digital files with client information, you have the same responsibility – to protect the data you have. Please don’t think that because something is on your laptop it is safe from prying eyes. There are apps, services, and backup drives that you can use to manage data securely. And password managers are a hugely important tool. This article from the Wirecutter gives a great overview of some of the options available: Back up and secure your digital life.

It's a chore to keep on top of this data. But setting clear guidelines makes it a lot easier than finding yourself having to deal with it all at once. Or, worse, cleaning up a data breach.

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What to do with collections?

We are often asked to handle large collections of things. We have seen all kinds of collections – whimsical, spiritual, very expensive collections, and very modest ones. We have handled herds of decorative elephants, delicate teapots, campaign buttons, Coke bottles, freebies given away by airlines, you name it. 

We all know how this happens. You express your love for something to a few friends or relatives and, suddenly, you find that you are the recipient of those cute little collectibles for the rest of your life. Every birthday and gift-giving occasion is another chance for them to present you with yet another item in your ever-growing collection.

These collections can be fun for the collector, but they can, sadly, cause some issues for family and heirs. The vast number of items in each collection can be difficult and expensive to manage. Where once the collector looked around and admired each item in the collection as a unique entity with a story about how it was acquired, now the heir just sees a large amount of things that need to be handled, and the collection has an emotional hold on everyone because it represented the deceased so strongly.

We have worked with a number of clients who believe that because they have worked so long to create their collection, the collection must have some re-sale value. They seem to believe that the sheer number of items should make the whole lot more valuable. Sadly, this is rarely the case. Once in a while a tchotchke has re-sale value, if it was created by someone whose work is in demand, but in general these kinds of collections have very little re-sale value.

Years ago, we managed the estate of Lorraine, a woman who had amassed a tremendous collection of owls. Lorraine had ceramic owls, glass owls, paper owls, and stone owls. She had mugs, pillowcases, and t-shirts covered in owls. She had paintings of owls, stuffed owls, and owls stitched by needlepoint. 

Her executor was her niece, Janet, who lived in Florida. Janet was really stressed out about all these owls. She had no room for this huge collection and she knew they had no re-sale value. But she had loved Lorraine dearly and the owls had been really important to Lorraine.

Janet agonized over this. The collection almost seemed to hold a power over her. We identified a reputable charitable organization that would take them all as a donation, and we even found someone willing to try to sell them on Etsy for Janet, but neither idea felt right to her.

Finally, we came up with a solution. We decided that everyone in Lorraine’s life should have one owl. So Janet gave one to every member of the family and one to every friend and neighbor Lorraine had liked. She gave one to the super in Lorraine’s apartment building, another to her hair stylist, and even one to her dentist.

It took a lot of time and effort on Janet’s part, but it was worth it in the end. Each owl gift was another chance for Janet to share a memory of Lorraine with someone else who had loved her. None of these people would have wanted the whole parliament, but everyone was touched to receive one owl to remember Lorraine by.

If you have a large collection of things yourself, please keep in mind how your heirs will manage the collection. You may want to make a list of the items in the collection – or at least the key items – and designate them as gifts to be given to friends or family after you die.

Or you may want to consider giving them away to people now. You can offer that everyone who comes over can look over the collection and pick their favorite piece to take home with them. This is truly, always, the best way to give things away – one at a time, with each piece going to someone who appreciates it. And one of the great advantages to doing this while you are alive is that you can go visit your collections wherever they have wound up. Imagine sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at your cousin’s place and being served with your own owl napkin – which you gave to them to cherish on your behalf!

Floorplan Design Part II – measuring furniture and designing a floorplan

Once we have a good model of a client’s new apartment (and lots of photos to show them) we measure their furniture and help them design their new space. We use MagicPlan for floorplan designs. There are other apps and tools available but this is the one we find most useful.

Here are the tips and steps we take to design a floorplan with a client:

  • If possible, do this with a partner. This way one of you can do the measuring and one can enter the furniture into your app.

  • Take lots of photos and make sure you have a good photo of each piece of furniture. These can be useful later when you are making changes to the floorplan.

  • If possible, have the client present for this part of the floorplan design. They will be telling you which pieces of furniture they love and which ones they don’t want to move to their new place.

  • Measure all the furniture the client owns – even things like small side tables and magazine racks.

    • Make a list of all the furniture with dimensions (width x depth x height). Height is not often a factor but it should be noted anyway, and it should definitely be noted if a particular item is tall or likely to be placed underneath a window.

    • Make sure you label your photos so it is obvious later which furniture is which.

  • When measuring, take a moment to examine the piece. Be sure you are measuring in the widest space. Sometimes legs at the bottom are wider than the top. Sometimes furniture has lips at the top. Rushing this step can lead to items not fitting in the new apartment.

  • Try to name each piece of furniture the same way the Client describes it (if they call a hutch a china cabinet, label it as a china cabinet on the floorplan and in your notes).

  • Make a note of any items the Client stays focused on: these key items need to be a priority on the floorplan.

  • Pay attention to comments the Client makes about their present apartment set up; if they love having the sofa next to the bookcase, try to give them the option of arranging it the same way in the new place.

  • Talk about TV viewing and computer use in the new place. Where will they do both?

  • Think about the functionality of the layout, particularly based on the Client’s current routine. Where will they pay their bills and write notes? Do they love to read and gaze out the window? Then maybe their favorite chair should be next to a window in their new place.

  • If you are designing a floorplan for an apartment that you have not seen in person and are using someone else’s measurements of the new space, always remember that it may not be 100% accurate. For example, radiators and deep windowsills that take up permanent room space are often not depicted. Keep this in mind if you find that the Client wants to bring a lot of furniture and it seems the new apartment will be cramped.  

Once we’re done, we like to save the floorplan as a pdf. This way the floorplan can be shared with all the stake holders in the move – most often the client and their family. For moves out of New York City, we share it with the move managers who will be meeting the movers at the new apartment and directing the furniture placement. A well designed floorplan allows anyone to step in and smoothly manage the move day. 

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Floorplan Design Part I – measuring a new apartment

One of the first steps we take when helping a client move is designing a floorplan. This involves helping them decide which furniture they will move into their new apartment. After we know the furniture that will be moved, it becomes easier to decide how much “stuff” to bring to fill this furniture.

For example, if a client currently has four bookcases but – after completing a floorplan – we realize they can only move one bookcase to the new apartment, we now know how many books they can bring and how many they should give away or donate. Once we know which bookcase is being moved, we will often empty it and help the client fill it with only the books they will be bringing.

This process helps make it clear how many books will fit. Suddenly the thought “I need to downsize my book collection” stops being theoretical and the downsizing goals become clear because we now know exactly how many books we are able bring.

The first step in designing a floorplan is measuring the future apartment and building a model of the empty apartment. We use an iPad app called MagicPlan. There are other floorplan apps available but this is the one we find most useful. Many apps have 3-D options and other high end features, but we’ve always found those to be bells and whistles which look flashy but do not really make any difference in your decision making. Our method is simpler and gets you the same results.

Here is our checklist for measuring a new apartment:

  • Take your time when measuring a new apartment. Make sure you are getting accurate measurements, checking twice if necessary. If you are sloppy at this point, it will become an issue on move-in day.

  • Ideally, bring a partner with you. Your partner can do the actual measuring, leaving you time to enter the space accurately into your app, floorplan tool, or notebook.

  • Take a lot of photos. I can’t tell you how often we have referred back to photos when talking about and planning a move for a client.

  • Note windows, electrical, and cable outlets and make sure you have photos that include these.

  • Measure the ceiling height and take photos of the ceiling so you can remember what overhead lighting (if any) is in place. Also, sometimes a section of a room will have a lower ceiling than the rest. This matters if you’re thinking of putting a bookcase or high cabinet there. So be sure to note it.

  • Measure and take photos of the insides of closets; specifically, measure how long rods are for hanging clothes.

  • Make notes of any areas that block space for placing furniture. For example: a radiator that sits against a wall, or a bump-out in a wall that is hiding electrical equipment.

  • Make notes about the windows: do they have curtains or another type of treatment? Are they floor to ceiling or can you place a piece of furniture under them?

In the bathroom, answer a small checklist:

  • Is the shower/tub accessible?

  • Are there grab bars next to the toilet and shower/tub?

  • What kind of storage is available in the bathroom? Measure cabinets and take photos.

  • Is there a shower curtain?

  • Will the bathroom need bathmats?

In the kitchen, answer a similar checklist:

  • What appliances are available? Do they appear to be working?

  • How much storage is available? Measure and take photos of the insides of cabinets and the pantry (if there is one).

  • Are the cabinets all easy to reach or are some going to be too high for our client to access easily?

Once we’ve completed the above, we can prepare an accurate model of the apartment for our client. Then we bring this to our client’s current home to measure their furniture and prepare a floorplan. In our next blog post, we will cover this part of the process.

floorplan design measuring a new apartment

How to value your belongings

When we started Paper Moon Moves, we were hopeful about helping our clients sell things they no longer needed. We saw fine furniture, attractive art, and cool collectibles, and we thought: somebody will want to buy this.

But we learned, one client at a time, that there are few things in people’s houses that can be sold for a significant amount of money. There are, generally, only a handful of categories of things with strong re-sale value: silver, gold, jewelry, select art, modern Danish furniture, and couture handbags. This is not to say you can’t sell anything else, but the values of other things will often not be high enough to warrant the time and effort to sell them.

Unfortunately, we find many people believe that they own valuable things. They remember what they paid for something years ago and assume it must be worth the same amount, or more, now. Or they inherited things that there were told had a lot value. Now they’re ready to sell and, sadly, it’s often up to us to tell them the bad news.

If you believe you have things of value, please give your family and heirs the tools to be successful in realizing this value. Don’t just tell them that they will be able to sell your belongings; do some work for them now so they know which things are actually valuable.

One thing you can do is hire an appraiser to assess the value of everything you own. There are general appraisers all over the country who are members of the American Appraisal’s Association, and they are listed on the website. If you describe your belongings to an appraiser, they will give you a quote for the cost to complete an appraisal.

If you hire an appraiser, they will come see everything in person, take photos and notes, and then present you with a written assessment of what they think your things are worth. They will most likely list items with notable value and give an estimate for each item’s value. For things with little-to-no re-sale value, they will include generic notes, like “Household goods in kitchen: no re-sale value.”

The problem with appraisals is that they are based on the market at the point in time of the appraisal. An appraiser is telling you what you could probably sell your things for, if you sold them right then and there. Because markets change so much year to year, you should arrange to have the same appraiser re-assess your belongings every five or ten years.

If you believe you have something of value but do not want to pay for an appraisal, you can, instead, try calling auction houses to discuss your items. If the auctioneers agree there is value, they will give you a rough estimate for how much your things could sell for at auction. Get this in writing and keep it with your will.

There are many auction houses all over the world. Some specialize in particular kinds of things – like books or cars, for example. But many of them are interested in wide ranges of things. Some are very well known, such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

Many of our clients expect they can place their things with these well-known houses, but these houses are only an option for a small fraction of sales. They will likely only sell things of quite high value. If you think you have things worth a lot of money, you can start by sending photos to them. If they don’t respond, that is a good indication that your things are not valued high enough to meet their thresholds.

Next, reach out to some of the less well known auction houses in the country and see if they have interest. You will find many listed on the website for the National Auctioneers Association. Even though you aren’t selling your things right now, you are collecting valuable information for your heirs

If you do this research and find that your things are not as valuable as you had hoped or assumed they would be, please don’t take it personally. The value of your furniture and décor is dependent on the whims of the market. If the items are of value, leave the information for your heirs. Do not make them have to do the work once they have inherited the items. And make it clear that items valuable at one moment in time are not necessarily valuable later on.

Most importantly, remember that the sentimental value and joy an item gives you  is more important than what it can sell for. Buy things you will love and use, not things that you think will make you rich. It will never show up on an appraisers report, but, then again, sentimental value rarely depreciates.

Photos and memorabilia

Before digital cameras, we used to take rolls and rolls of photos at a single event. Then we would have it all developed, often ordering duplicates (the photo shops all offered cheap deals to get doubles, after all). After the photos were developed, we would pick them up and rip open the envelope only to realize that… the lighting was bad that day… or we were using the wrong setting… or didn’t have it on autofocus.  And we’d end up with two sets of dark, blurry photos. But, more often than not, we kept them.

We at Paper Moon Moves are giving you permission to toss all of these in the trash. And I will tell you why. Every photo is not a memory. In fact, sometimes having too many photos of the same event muddles the memory. One perfect picture goes a lot further than ten mediocre ones. And, somewhere, deep in those piles of too-dark, out-of-focus photos is the one really great photo. If you keep all of them, you may never be able to find it.

But if you discard all the bad ones, and save the good one, then you can enjoy it. You can put it in a special album full of great photos that make you happy; you can have it digitized and share it electronically with anyone you like, anytime; or you can save it on your phone or computer and look at it daily.

A lot of people worry about throwing photos away. It feels wrong to do so, somehow. But what we always try to remind people is that, when it comes to photos, less is better.

Elsie

Elsie was a lovely woman with a fascinating family history. She came from a prominent New England family that included some early American political leaders and people you learned about in elementary school, including a president.

This provided her a great sense of pride, but it also presented a problem. Because of her family roots, Elsie felt like she had to hold onto everything related to her family. And she had a tremendous amount of family photos and memorabilia. She had so much, in fact, that she had to rent a two-bedroom apartment so that one entire room could store the boxes and boxes of photos. 

Elsie had us meet with her sister and a cousin, and we worked closely with Elsie’s sons. All four of them assured us that everything she was holding onto was a duplicate and that none of her photos and mementos were of any interest to any archives.

But Elsie never believed this. She always held out a fear that she would get rid of something that somebody, somewhere, would need in order to properly document the family history.

We moved her three times over the course of ten years and we emptied her final apartment after she died. So we got to know her quite well. With each move, we tried sorting with her to help her downsize some of the many photos and mementos, but she remained steadfast in holding onto it all.

In fact, she had us digitize a lot of photos – but she refused to discard the paper copies after spending money on digitizing services. And now, years later, all of this sits in a storage unit because her sons cannot bear to go against her wishes and dispose of any of it.

Denise

We helped Denise move to Boston to be near her kids and grandchildren. Like. Elsie, she also had boxes and boxes of photos. She had lost her husband when he was young. He had been a larger than life character, and there were a lot of family stories that revolved around him.

But Denise was much more realistic about her photos. She wanted to keep only a few – enough to fill one small album that she could keep handy and look at without hassle. She had us digitize a couple hundred photos – mostly photos of her kids and grandkids, and the family house that they all loved to visit on Shelter Island. She sent these photos to her kids so they could have fun looking through them.

The rest she tossed right into the trash. She could flip through twenty photos quickly and snatch only one or two to save or digitize. And I could see she was saving only really good photos. If there were fifteen shots from the same birthday party in 1985, she would quickly focus in on the one shot that told a good story.

So now, if Elsie’s kids want to see family photos, they have to look through many memory sticks and wade through all the photos she had digitized. Or visit the storage unit and start opening boxes. Just the thought of trying to sort through it all probably prevents them from even considering it.

Meanwhile, if Denise’s kids want to see family photos, they just pick up the album she keeps near her sofa, and within seconds they are happily seeing the memories that she wanted to preserve for them.

Sorting photos takes time, so you need to commit to the project. Put a two or three hour photo sorting appointment in your calendar. When the time comes, take out a portion of your collection – maybe one album or one small box of loose photos. Now search for good photos. Make it a hunting expedition. Tell yourself you only want to find the best ones. As you search, put just the photos that have meaning in one pile. This is your keep pile.

Put the rest into a big pile which we’ll call purgatory. The purgatory pile is the pile you plan to discard, but I recommend keeping it for another few days before you do so.

At the end of the session, make another appointment to sort again a few days later. At that point, take a quick look at the purgatory pile and then toss it in the trash (or shred the photos, if you are worried about neighbors coming across anything private). Then take out the next box of photos and repeat the whole process: look for the really good photos and save those; discard the rest. It’ll probably take some time but the process can be fun and even moving. Plus, you’ll be so happy when you have an organized photo collection. 

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