Downsizing - not excitement, just sheer hell

Having taken the trip to downsize to a smaller residence, let me tell you, it is not for the faint-hearted, elderly or frail.

Take a four bedroom house and try to put it in three bedrooms, and try to find something that is cheaper while every other buyer wants it.

Agents tell you one thing and, if you don't comply, they turn their backs on you.

Removalists who won't treat your belongings the way they told you they would and whose main aim in life is to get to the pub with their mates.

A government who will hit you with a bill for stamp duty equivalent to 12 months' pension.

And then there is the hassle of relocating your phone and internet.

Oh, what a nightmare that is.

Everyone has their hand out for some payment.

Our politicians say we should downsize, us poor vulnerable oldies who have lived for years in our comfortable homes.

They don't know the half of it, plus they don't realise that to change from a house worth in the $800,000 mark to one in the $700,000 price range will cost approximately $600,000.

New neighbours; try to find a doctor, dentist, and chemist as good as you had previously.

It might have been a voyage of excitement when you were younger but in your 70s or 80s, it is just a sheer hell.

How do I know?

My wife and I have just done it in our early 80s

Email, 18 Mar 2017

Rod Fountain, Booker Bay