Moving day into assisted living: the two weeks before, the day itself, and the first night

Two weeks out: the paperwork the community asks for

Every community has a move-in packet and it is longer than you expect. Call the move-in coordinator and ask for the complete list in writing, with a due date against each item.

What is usually in it: the signed residency agreement, the deposit and first month's fee, a personal information form, an emergency contact sheet, a photograph, copies of insurance cards, a physician's form completed and signed by your parent's doctor, and in most states a recent tuberculosis screening result. Many communities also carry out their own assessment before the room is released.

Ask three questions and write the answers down. Which forms have to be completed by a doctor, because those take longest and the appointment should be booked first. What the deadline is for each item. And whether anything expires, since a screening result and a physician's form usually have a validity window.

Then ask about the house rules while you have someone on the phone: what furniture is allowed, whether anything may be fixed to the walls and who does it, kettles and extension leads, personal fridges, pets, and whether residents may have their own lock.

Photocopy every completed form before you hand it over. You will be asked for at least one of them again.

• The full move-in list, in writing, with dates
• Which forms need a doctor's signature (book that appointment first)
• What expires, and when
• Furniture, wall fixings, appliances, pets, locks
• A copy of everything you hand over

Measure before you pack a single box

The most common moving-day problem is furniture that does not fit through a door or leaves no room to walk. It is entirely preventable with twenty minutes and a tape measure.

Get these numbers from the community: room dimensions, ceiling height, the width of the front door and the bathroom door, window sizes, how many electrical outlets there are and where, whether there is a closet and how wide, whether a bed is provided, whether wall fixings are permitted, and the size of the elevator.

Then measure the furniture at your parent's house. Draw the room on graph paper at one square to the foot and cut out paper rectangles for each piece. Move paper around, not furniture.

One rule saves the most grief: nothing goes on the truck that has not been measured against the plan.

Before you dismantle anything, photograph the current bedroom exactly as it is. Which side the bed sits against, which side the lamp is on, what is on the nightstand. Recreating that layout is the single kindest thing you can do on the day.

Ask the community about the loading dock, the service elevator, whether move-ins are restricted to certain hours, and whether they require a certificate of insurance from your mover. Many do.

The box that rides in your car

One box does not go on the truck. It goes in your car, and it contains everything needed to make the room habitable within an hour of arriving.

Pack it the night before and label it in large letters so nobody helpfully loads it.

Inside: a complete bedding set, towels, toiletries, pajamas, two days of clothes, medications in their original containers in a bag you personally carry, glasses, hearing aids and batteries, phone and charger, toilet paper, tissues, a lamp with a bulb in it, the wall clock, the television remote, one framed photograph for the nightstand, a small toolkit, tape, scissors, a marker, the care binder, water, snacks and some cash.

The binder matters more than anything else in the box. On move-in day somebody will ask you for a phone number, an insurance number or a doctor's name, and you will be standing in a corridor holding a lamp.

Keep the medication bag with you personally at all times. Not in the box, not on the truck, not in the trunk under the mattress.

Moving day, hour by hour

Write the day out as a timetable and give a copy to everyone helping. People work better from a schedule than from instructions shouted across a hallway.

A workable shape for the day, adjusted to your own start time:

You arrive first, check in at reception, confirm the room is unlocked and note who is on duty. The truck loads. Unloading starts with bed, dresser and armchair, in that order. The bed gets made completely before anything else happens, because a made bed turns a room into a bedroom. Bathroom next, then the chair and the lamp. Clothes go into the closet in the order your parent actually uses them, not in the order the boxes came off the truck. Photographs and the clock go on the wall. Then you sign the room inventory with a member of staff.

The most important line in the whole plan: your parent is not present for the unloading. Arrange for a sibling or a friend to take them out for a long lunch, and bring them in when the room already looks like a room.

End the day with a walk: dining room, nurses' station, mailboxes, laundry, elevator, exit. Write down where each one is.

• Check in, confirm the room is open, note who is on duty
• Bed, dresser, chair first; bed made completely before anything else
• Bathroom, then chair and lamp
• Clothes into the closet in order of use
• Photographs and clock on the wall
• Sign the room inventory with a staff member
• Your parent arrives after the room looks like a room
• Walk the building together and write down where things are

The inventory, and labeling everything

Photograph every item before it leaves the house and again once it is in the new room. Then write an inventory: item, short description, approximate value, and a serial number where one exists.

This is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is the document that answers a question in six months when something cannot be found, and it is what an insurer asks for.

Label everything with your parent's name. Clothes, the hearing aid case, the glasses case, the walker, the remote, chargers, the television, the lamp. Use iron-on labels or a laundry marker. Shared laundry facilities lose unlabeled clothing at a remarkable rate.

Ask the community's business office whether renters' insurance is required or recommended, and what it needs to cover. Ask your parent's existing insurer what happens to the homeowner's policy once the house is empty, and what they need from you. Both are questions for the insurer, not for the internet.

Keep the inventory in the binder, and email a copy to yourself and to one sibling on the day. A record that exists in exactly one place is not really a record.

The first night and the first week

Before you leave on the first evening, set up four things.

The phone: numbers programmed, and a large-print list taped inside the closet door. The emergency contact card, filled in and handed to the community as well as kept in the room. Your own contact card taped inside a cabinet door where staff will find it. And the new mailing address written out properly, ready to send to family.

Write down the community's main number and the direct number for your parent's floor, and put both in the binder and in your phone.

Then agree a visiting schedule with your siblings for the first two weeks and write it in a shared calendar. One visitor a day is usually better than five on Sunday and nobody until Thursday.

Book a meeting with the care coordinator for around day seven and write your questions down in advance: how settling in is being handled, what the routine looks like, who to contact about what, how billing works, and how to raise something small before it becomes something large.

The house itself is a separate job with its own checklist. Do not attempt it in the same week.

Questions