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Also activated charcoal really does absorb odors. They have odor machines with charcoal filters but I'm sure Mom would just unplug them. At my Moms house I put small plastic totes full in the top of her closets and fancy ceramic pots full on top of her kitchen cupboards.
Oh wow - THANK YOU for this information!!!!
I am going to try these out. This is one thing I love about this forum - I learn something new every day!
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I really hope they work. I remembered reading about your Moms Coconut oil obsession. I also remember you saying how suspicious she is of your motives. Shes taking her medication so things may be fine. Fingers crossed.
My Mom and her house smelled too so I know just how you feel. When I would take her places I sometimes felt like people were judging me. Like it was my fault she looked like a bag lady with a shopping cart with three wheels.
I really hope they work. I remembered reading about your Moms Coconut oil obsession. I also remember you saying how suspicious she is of your motives. Shes taking her medication so things may be fine. Fingers crossed.
My Mom and her house smelled too so I know just how you feel. When I would take her places I sometimes felt like people were judging me. Like it was my fault she looked like a bag lady with a shopping cart with three wheels.
I know that feeling. My mom does have a peculiar and strong odor with some sort of vinegary smell to it. I know other people smell it and think "what the HECK?" Also, because of her vision issues, she doesn't seem to have any idea how her makeup looks - lately she has been wearing more makeup (good - she's thinking more about maintaining her looks) but she puts it on really, really dark and splotchy and I think that's her vision issues. But if anyone tries to help her (or God forbid, tries to get her to let them blend in the color a bit), she becomes very defensive and angry.
Also, she has decided that she is not going to do a thing to her hair but let it grow. It's very thick and very white and VERY unkempt. She combs it constantly (everywhere - in church, at restaurants, in my car, you name it - dropping hairs everywhere) but since it has no style and she puts no products on it, it just doesn't look good. But if I try to encourage her to go get it styled, she snaps at me and says, "It's my hair and I will do with it what I like," which is true so have at it - I don't even mention it anymore.
Throw in the dressing in Mardi Gras beads and Christmas sweaters in July and overall, the effect is unsettling. Definitely "eccentric." I know people are looking at her because sometimes they catch my eye and give me a very sympathetic smile. But I wonder if people are ever judging me. "How can she let her mother go out of the house like that? What sort of daughter lets her mother smell like that?" Well, I just need to start wearing a T-shirt with writing on the back so that I can just turn around and show them this statement:
"Why don't YOU try to tell her she looks and smells strange? Let's see how that works out for you!"
Location: When things get hot they expand. Im not fat. Im hot.
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LOL at the T-shirt. Except for the smell thing I think our Moms are total opposites. Yours seems like she was always a lot more together. She seems like shes trying to be stylish even now. Mine never cared how she looked but at least in her younger days things matched and weren't stained and full of holes. Since this is anonymous Ill be honest Mom was incontinent and she didn't like to bathe or change her clothes. And she had 47 cats. As for her house she could care less. I could clean it all I wanted but it was hard to keep the smell down when people pee in their shoes.
Ill stop now. Reading your thread has brought back memories and I don't want to sound like a total jerk. Mom loved me she just didn't love herself if that makes sense. My Mom had a rough childhood. I don't think she ever recovered.
LOL at the T-shirt. Except for the smell thing I think our Moms are total opposites. Yours seems like she was always a lot more together. She seems like shes trying to be stylish even now. Mine never cared how she looked but at least in her younger days things matched and weren't stained and full of holes. Since this is anonymous Ill be honest Mom was incontinent and she didn't like to bathe or change her clothes. And she had 47 cats. As for her house she could care less. I could clean it all I wanted but it was hard to keep the smell down when people pee in their shoes.
Ill stop now. Reading your thread has brought back memories and I don't want to sound like a total jerk. Mom loved me she just didn't love herself if that makes sense. My Mom had a rough childhood. I don't think she ever recovered.
Wow, thanks for sharing that perspective. Amazingly, our moms sound very similar in many ways, though I can see how they also differ.
My mom was always movie star beautiful. I mean, she really was, and my dad was movie star handsome. So they made a striking couple. My dad's career was successful and he came from a wealthy family too, so they always had beautiful homes and my mother and father were both always dressed to the nines. Even now, my mother always wears belted pants, tucks in her shirt (yes, even her Christmas sweaters and other shirts that aren't supposed to be tucked in), and wears a scarf and a necklace and sometimes big, dangly earrings! My dad always looked spiffy and he loved wearing cute Fedoras and expensive shoes - and his socks always matched whatever he was wearing - he was very particular about socks - LOL.
But my mom came from abject poverty. I think she knew she was beautiful very early on and she determined to better herself - and she did so. She worked hard at articulation and poise - she even modeled for a time in college, and she took "finishing courses." I mean, she did this entirely on her own, and because of all that effort, she projected a very polished, very sophisticated, and frankly a very haughty persona. But deep down inside, she was a lonely, frustrated, hungry, dirty little girl who wanted desperately to be someone else.
My mom had a very sad childhood too - and like yours, I don't think she ever recovered. I think she became very adept at masking it, denying it, trying to forget about it, but she never dealt with the emotional burden of it, and that denial has come back to bite her - hard.
The really sad thing is this - as she becomes less able to do things for herself, she is reverting to the dysfunctional behaviors of her childhood and upbringing. It started with pets - TONS of pets, a lot like your mom. She would allow these pets -dogs and cats - to completely overrun her house, to pee everywhere, to tear of things - I couldn't for the life of me understand why my formerly fastidious mother was suddenly letting pets be so destructive - and COLLECTING pets. At one point my parents had seven dogs and five cats. My dad would never "put up a fight" with my mom so he was just allowing everything around him to become more and more chaotic and meanwhile us kids and grandkids finally had to tell my parents "We can't come visit you anymore because your house smells so strongly of pet urine that we get physically sick when we step inside it." Wow, that was a hard conversation to have.
When my dad died, I had to find homes for (or put down - I had some limited success) five dogs. Amazingly, my mom is actually good with ONE cat - she is Johnny on the spot about that litter box - but it's only because the facility administrator told her that if she didn't take care of it, the cat would have to go. My mother is always surprised by boundaries because she has simply never had to deal with many of them in her life.
Unlike your mom, my mom loves herself first and foremost, and some would say that's healthy. I think it's healthy to some extent, but it really helps if a person also has a nurturing and/ore empathetic side. My mother is TOTALLY lacking in the nurturing and empathizing departments! I mean, totally. In her defense, she never got a lick of nurturing in her childhood so she didn't have any good role models for that. I honestly think my mother did the best she knew how to do when it came to raising kids, which is why I don't and won't kick her to the curb now. Was she a loving, attentive, nurturing mom? No. But I do think she tried. And I look back on photos of me when I was an only child (I am the oldest and didn't acquire a brother till I was nearly six), and I always notice the attention to detail that my mother had so obviously put into caring for me. Cute clothes, good shoes, always a little slip or lacy undershirt, matching barettes, neat hair, even gloves at Easter. I was also blooming with health. I attribute all that care directly to my mother. She didn't know how to express love in the form of affection, but I did always know that my mother was determined to take care of me, even if I was more of a responsibility than a joy.
Not a bad idea but I can't imagine my mom allowing me near enough to do that, and I also can't imagine her doing it herself. And I sure can't imagine the conversation leading up to it.
But I will try to work it in, because like I said, that is a good idea.
My mom has long chin hairs. I tried offering to pluck them. You would have thought I was dipping her feet in boiling oil. She would NOT keep still or quiet - all she did was flinch and cry out and move her head away - it was so stressful that I finally just said, "I'm not doing this anymore." So I bought her some really cool, easy little razor thingies, specifically made for chin hairs on ladies. You don't even need a mirror to use this nifty little thing. She was very thankful and seemed excited about it - but hasn't used it one time, and I have no idea where the package of five is now. And she has a fine collection of chin hairs going on. It's alarming, to be honest. But I'm not touching them!
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make her drink. But sometimes it works for me to just leave things in Mom's apartment without making a big deal out of it. I think the maids and/or her meds administrator sometimes remark on something and encourage her so occasionally she will surprise me. so maybe if I buy some dry shampoo and just leave it next to the meds lock box and ask her meds administrator to remark about it, she will use it.
She has been surprising me lately with how much neater she's keeping her apartment. So there's hope!
My mom has long chin hairs. I tried offering to pluck them. You would have thought I was dipping her feet in boiling oil. She would NOT keep still or quiet - all she did was flinch and cry out and move her head away - it was so stressful that I finally just said, "I'm not doing this anymore." So I bought her some really cool, easy little razor thingies, specifically made for chin hairs on ladies. You don't even need a mirror to use this nifty little thing. She was very thankful and seemed excited about it - but hasn't used it one time, and I have no idea where the package of five is now. And she has a fine collection of chin hairs going on. It's alarming, to be honest. But I'm not touching them!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OTOH, my mom, with more advanced Alzheimers, squeals and fusses loudly about showering, grooming and dressing appropriatelly, will randomly come look for me, rubbing her chin, wanting me to get those chin hairs.
Weird, huh!
My mom has long chin hairs. I tried offering to pluck them. You would have thought I was dipping her feet in boiling oil. She would NOT keep still or quiet - all she did was flinch and cry out and move her head away - it was so stressful that I finally just said, "I'm not doing this anymore." So I bought her some really cool, easy little razor thingies, specifically made for chin hairs on ladies. You don't even need a mirror to use this nifty little thing. She was very thankful and seemed excited about it - but hasn't used it one time, and I have no idea where the package of five is now. And she has a fine collection of chin hairs going on. It's alarming, to be honest. But I'm not touching them!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OTOH, my mom, with more advanced Alzheimers, squeals and fusses loudly about showering, grooming and dressing appropriatelly, will randomly come look for me, rubbing her chin, wanting me to get those chin hairs.
Weird, huh!
Yes, very strange. Well, let's put it this way - if she doesn't bring it up, I'm not going to.
My mom fusses SO much about getting her hair washed. She is showered 3-5 times a week and is getting so orney about it now! She really needs her hair washed frequently in the summer because her hair is baby fine, she is outside quite a bit, sweats with the higher humidity and her hair really gets so greasy looking after two days!
Great idea on the shampoo!!
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