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LEONORA LaPETERSmaller spaces can create difficult choices when seniors pare down their possessions.
PINELLAS PARK - Her legs were shaky as she stood in front of the closet she has used for 17 years, but Ruth Hardenburg was determined to do this.
One by one, Beth Warren held up blouses, skirts, slacks in front of Mrs. Hardenburg, 86. One by one, Mrs. Hardenburg decided whether she would take them with her or set them aside for an estate sale.
Her 3-inch heel sandals and pumps, six pairs in all, would go. She hadn't worn them in years. The china red blouse, the terry cloth blue outfit, the oversized robe - they would go, too. No use for the skirts; she stopped showing her legs long ago.
It all seemed to be going so easily until Warren turned Mrs. Hardenburg's attention to the triple-section hutch with the carefully placed porcelain ballerina and the Noritake china and the Hummel figurines and the tiny silver spoons and scissors.
"So tell me, what things off here would you like to take?" Warren asked.
Mrs. Hardenburg's resolve crumbled.
"Oh ... oh," she said, looking distressed. She looked at her husband, James, 91, for help.
"Maybe it's too much for today," he said gently.
Everyone quickly nodded and turned away from the hutch. Too many decisions for one day. They'd deal with it another day. Warren would make sure of it.
Warren, 45, calls herself a concierge for seniors. Not quite a house mover, though she moves you; but an arranger, a sorter, a planner, a decorator.
It's a niche business - moving seniors with a lifetime of belongings to smaller homes, assisted living facilities, nursing homes - that is starting to grow around the country. Senior move managers, as they call themselves, recently formed a national association. It now has 35 members in the United States and launched a Web site a few weeks ago.
"There are tons of cities right now where no one is doing this," said Margit Novack, president of the National Association of Senior Move Managers and owner of a senior move business in Philadelphia. "Five years from now, that will be very different."
Florida has about half a dozen such businesses, but Warren, who performs about two to four senior moves a week, is the only Tampa Bay area member of the national association. Others, she said, have begun to offer specialized moving services in conjunction with other businesses, such as a home sale.
This has sparked some controversy in the fledgling industry because senior move managers fear Realtors and estate sale managers will try to call themselves senior move managers just to get a house sale or a senior's discarded belongings.
There is even talk in the industry of requiring group members to obtain criminal background checks.
"This is very deeply emotional territory, and it needs someone interested in spending time and helping, seeing to it that things get to the new home," said Paul Kleyman, editor of Aging Today, the publication of the American Society of Aging. "We're going way beyond van lines here. These people have degrees in gerontology."
For many seniors, a move can be so daunting, they stay put even if a move would make their lives easier. Some can rely on an adult child or friends to help with the move. But for those who have no one or don't want to rely on their children, senior move managers take the stress out of moving.
They handle Realtors and movers, measure and inventory furniture, create a floor plan for the new living quarters, make arrangements with an estate planner to sell discarded furniture and household items, and ultimately go through the senior's house picture by picture and pot by pan to determine what stays and what goes.
They even take photos of items on dressers and wall groupings so they can replicate the configurations in the new home.
"When my mom walked in to her new home, everything was exactly the same way as when she left it," said Diane Anda of Ridgefield, Conn., who had Warren move her mother, Lydia Jerger, 86, into a Pinellas Park assisted living facility. "It was very comforting and reassuring to her. Nothing was messed up. It was all transposed to her new apartment and that was really critical."
Last Christmas Eve, James and Ruth Hardenburg visited friends. But as she was entering the house, Ruth fell and broke one of her wrists.
"Ever since, my wife hasn't been the same," says James Hardenburg. "She's been depending on me more and more."
She stopped cooking and making the beds. She forgot to take her pills. He no longer trusted her around the stove.
The Hardenburgs had been an active couple, moving to a home on the 14th hole of the golf course at the Mainlands community in Pinellas Park 17 years earlier. They had come from Holland, Mich., where he worked 46 years for Mead Johnson & Co. and she spent 19 years at General Electric. They have two children who live in other states. "We're Dutch," he says proudly.
As they grew older, James turned to a senior bowling league. He still bowls three times a week. He bowled a 244 when he was 88; his high score since he turned 90 is 210.
Now he's squeezing in bowling between making Jello and biscuits and mashed potatoes and TV dinners for him and his wife of 68 years.
"I'm not crying, don't get me wrong," he said. "But it's hard to teach an old man new tricks."
He found an apartment in the independent living section of The Palms of Largo. It has an assisted living facility and a nursing home if anything else happens. As part of the deal to draw the Hardenburgs in, the Palms offered Warren's services.
Sometimes retirement communities offer it as an incentive; sometimes they don't, Warren said. Sometimes she's hired by children in distant states to help their parents move locally.
Sometimes someone is moving to the Tampa Bay area and needs her help. Like the Orlando woman who didn't want to part with any of 500 elephants in her collection. Warren figured out a floor plan for her new home and told the woman she would have room for only two of the four curio cabinets she used for elephants - unless she got rid of her couch, bought two recliners instead and fit another cabinet between the seats. I'll do it, the woman said.
Using a senior move manager can cost anywhere from $800 to $3,000, including the movers. Most average between $1,900 and $2,600. Customers can pick from a menu of Warren's services. For example, she might help one client sort through property and arrange for a mover, but not do a floor plan.
The Hardenburgs moved 8 miles - from a 1,700 square foot home in the Mainlands to an 800-square foot condo.
Warren went through their home and tagged each piece they wanted to take with blue tape. Then she created a floor plan of their new condominium showing where beds and dressers, chairs and side tables would go. The entertainment center was moved three times to make it fit.
"So everything you wanted fits except for this table," she said, pointing to a fancy maple side table with carved balls around its middle that had been with them for decades.
"That's okay where we're going, we won't be there ..." Mr. Hardenburg trailed off.
Warren frowned.
"Well, it gets boring after a while," Mr. Hardenburg said.
"You're moving to the Palms where there are so many activities," she told him. And free ice cream and popcorn all day long.
"I know what they're trying to do, and it's good," Mr. Hardenburg reasoned, "but it's amazing how things change in your life."
- Leonora LaPeter can be reached at (727) 893-8640.