Exactly.

My parents found one familiar, in particular, that wanted a huge (and extremely nice) china cabinet. After moving that, they put claim on more and more things. Great! Some neighbors also helped take things off their hands -- it would be great if they had a use for it, but I half think they were just taking things to be nice and help my parents; either to sell or dispose of later, which is also kind.

I'm so thankful that, in addition to making the smart move to move to a retirement home before it's too late, they also did the hard work of downsizing rather than leaving my sister and I with this chore a dozen years in the future. None of us have ever had a storage unit, although my parents just took on a "temporary"; I think 8x10ft unit. I know 2 things in there are for me, I just couldn't haul them in the one car trip I had time for. (and, unrelated, I'm living in a small apartment during construction on my house, so I don't have the space for a few more months).

I _do_ suspect that temporary storage unit will become relatively permanent, which is honestly probably the least-bad solution here. On the other hand, my parents are frugal and have lots of time on their hands, and probably opposed to storage units on principle, so we'll see :)