NJ Couple Moved In With Each Other After Meeting In Their 90s

FREEHOLD, NJ — Shortly after Bill Biega and Iris Ivers started seeing each other in March 2020, a strict lockdown went into effect at the Applewood retirement community where they both live in Freehold, New Jersey. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, all residents were required to remain in their own rooms at all times.

The new couple — Biega, 98 and Ivers, 91 — broke the rules.

“They caught me leaving Iris’s apartment one evening,” Biega told The Washington Post. “The security guard told me, ‘You can either live apart or live together, but you have to make your mind up right now.’”

So, the new couple in their 90s took a leap of faith, and Ivers packed a bag and moved into Biega's apartment the next day, she told the Post.

Susan Winter, a New York City-based relationship expert, told Patch Biega and Ivers' relationship is one of the many that sped up intensely after the start of the pandemic and when lockdowns were in place at retirement communities across the country.

"Many couples that 'liked' each other before COVID made a move to formalize their relationship by living together," Winter said. "This gave birth to the term 'turbo relationships'—where the partnership process moved at mach speed."

Related On Patch: 'Turbo Relationships' Get In High Get Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

More than a year later, Biega and Ivers are still together, seen walking together at Applewood nearly every day.

“Their story is the rose that grew through the pavement during a difficult time,” Keith Grady, Applewood’s executive director, told the Post. “They act like teenagers — they have no inhibitions, and they’re always up for fun.”

Winter said the trend, so far, is that couples who got together just before the pandemic, or during it, are indeed staying together.

"The pandemic forced everyone to slow down and reevaluate their lives," she told Patch. "And along with that, their romantic priorities."

For Biega, it's about it never being too late to find love.

"Even in your 90s," he told the Post.