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One thing I did notice as a Realtor before I retired is that many old peoples homes smelled the same....Not sure why that is but we sure hope to avoid it in our house.
One thing I did notice as a Realtor before I retired is that many old peoples homes smelled the same....Not sure why that is but we sure hope to avoid it in our house.
I have to agree with this one, I buy, renovate, rent or flip homes. Here in Florida, many elderly people just let their homes go, carpet, paint, fixtures and so on...you would be surprised how many I see that still have shag carpeting, and, it stinks!
Time seems to sit still for them, everything is same as when they moved in.
When I read stories that say that many baby boomers are in a lot of debt and are financially irresponsible, I think that is true. This is just based on personal experience and a few people I know. Some boomers have paid off their houses and may not be in a lot of debt, but a disturbing number of the ones I know haven't.
As opposed to the previous generation of retirees, the boomers I know seem to really want nice homes for retirement, even if they can't really afford it. Is this just a boomer thing? The previous generation seemed satisfied with staying in their lifetime houses during retirement. There are some old neighbors I have in their 80s-90s and they just stayed put in their houses it seems.
Some of the boomers also got late mortgages at like 50+...to get bigger or better houses. And are now having to work or are having serious financial difficulty. Now that I think of it, getting a 30 year mortgage at 50 seems like a bad idea. Many boomers are smart and youthful, but most employers think they are old or overpaid, so in some cases my friends or colleagues got burned bad by job discrimination.
I know 6 couples like this. They are of various colors, but mostly white, and have varying degrees of education from trade school to post graduate. I'm not sure why they want to work forever just to pay for housing. I'm also not sure why having a luxurious lifestyle that they did not have while working seems so important to so many people during retirement.
One thing I did notice as a Realtor before I retired is that many old peoples homes smelled the same....Not sure why that is but we sure hope to avoid it in our house.
Omg, I've noticed this too! What is that smell and is my home doomed to smell like that?
When I was looking for our current home my realtor and I would step through the door and just look at each other because it was akin to going into a smoker's home. I'm not sure what that odor is, but it's definitely noticeable.
One stereotype is that we are all "duffers". Not true. I'm at least as active as before retirement...maybe more(?). It seems as if I always have a lot to do!
Another is that "old people" (I'm 67) can't drive any longer, or go too slow, "out for a Sunday afternoon drive", etc etc. We not only both drive, but I plow snow from our yard, drive, and part of the street, for both myself and a neighbor. One thing I will say: I avoid driving at night or in bad weather -- not because of any visual or reflex issues, but because of the younger folks on the road, who haven't been trained to drive well.
As for the "smell" in older people's homes, we gather it is a combination of: 1) cooking odors built up over time, 2) lack of decent ventilation in the house, 3) lowered standards of personal hygiene due to "not having to go to work every day", 4) pet odors, and 5) hoarding old stuff that most of us would throw out, such as bags, string, newspaper, cardboard boxes, etc, that they'll never use!
There are a lot of stereotypes about seniors. One I know is seniors love to golf, but I'd say the percentage of seniors who like to golf is in line with the rest of the population. Another is that seniors all want to retire to Florida, obviously not true.
We just retired and moved to Northern Michigan into a golf community and we don't golf....I would say that blows BOTH of those stereotypes out of the water....
While I agree that neither of those two stereotypes is valid, your personal example doesn't blow anything out of the water. A stereotype is a generalized belief about a group of people. The validity of the stereotype does not depend on EVERYONE fitting it, but on lots of people fitting it.
For example, let's take one that is valid, that Latinos are interested in soccer. They are more interested in soccer than other groups in the United States because it is part of their culture, but it does not follow that ALL Latinos are interested in soccer.
There are a lot of stereotypes about seniors. One I know is seniors love to golf, but I'd say the percentage of seniors who like to golf is in line with the rest of the population. Another is that seniors all want to retire to Florida, obviously not true.
What stereotypes about retirees do you think are true, false, or annoying?
Seniors have the time & money to play golf. When you're working and putting kids thru college, you have neither.
So the golfing (white, male, affluent) senior is a stereotype that's true.
And (affluent) seniors want to retire to a state that's warm and has no income tax. Florida is one, Texas is another. Again, these are affluent seniors who have the resources to see their grandkids or whose kids have the resources to allow the grandkids to come see them.
One thing I did notice as a Realtor before I retired is that many old peoples homes smelled the same....Not sure why that is but we sure hope to avoid it in our house.
I always think of this as "old man" smell. The closest way I can describe it is a combo of dirty hair and dry cleaning fluid.
One stereotype that I find true is that they all want to talk about their latest ailments, treatments of their latest ailments and how their treatment and meds might be different from someone else's, complications of their ailments, and the GD doctors.
Last year we went to FL to visit 2 couples. It seems like the first 2 hours of each visit was for the purpose of the above. Thank God they also drink a lot. Another stereotype that's true.
...that Florida is full of retirees. I just heard it again at lunch today. We retired there (our first retirement ) for five years before moving to Cape Cod and there are far more retirees here on Cape Cod!
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