nerfherder
Active Member
I spent the weekend at Mom's, arriving the day after my "adopted baby sister" and my older daughter screened the house for hidden or hoarded treats.
I went through after I got there, and we found three bags of expired cough drops and about 25 lbs of bug-infested chocolate/cookie packages/expired candies/expired crackers. All into the trash. Cousin's son who lives with her was thankful, he's been working 60 hour weeks and hasn't been able to keep up with her lately. He spends time every day with a wand vacuum sucking up the myriad egyptian grain moths that are coming from SOMEWHERE. Hopefully I got some of the nesting sources.
Mom has ALWAYS had a hoarding problem, probably the concentration camp years, so this isn't anything new or typical of her being 94. Just that I'm not living with her to eat the stuff now.
I brought along four of the dollar store door alarms. One on the breakfast cereal cabinet, one on the "rest of the food pantry" cabinet, one on top of the fridge out of sight and one on the garage-to-house door (rest of the pantry, trash cans.)
Kiddo HATED it. She spent some time each evening stimming on the phrase "NO ALARMS ON DOORS!" Plus, oddly, no TV all weekend? Mom now has a beautiful porch to sit on, so she takes her Kindle or whatever book she's reading and sits out there, gets sun and air and naps with her dogs.
But we had fun, sort of. She got to hang with her cousins, she got to hang with her grandmother, I felt a lot more at peace with the alarms keeping her out. I did catch her about to open one of my mom's dresser drawers, and she gave me That Look.
I'm sure she got into SOMETHING while we were there, she's got three new pimples around her mouth. Or it was the leftover chicken breast Mom got from the synagogue kitchen that we were snacking on for lunches before Passover started last night.
Mom's fridge smelled like Death. Once again, Cousin's Son apologized for not having kept up with it - he usually does, he's kind of a clean freak which is why Mom hasn't been in the hospital for "a stomach virus" (meaning she ate something she hoarded in the fridge) since he moved in. The smell came from a couple of chicken thighs she thawed "a couple days ago" (um, a week? I used to process chicken, I know what a mis-rotated box smells like!) and I threw away yet more pounds of stuff, cleaned out the freezer too, found stuff she insists Cousin's Son must have bought because SHE would never do it - hah. I check with him, he only buys hoopty organic or healthy stuff for when his little daughter stays over. Probably just people giving her stuff because - well, tiny 90ish year old cute woman who is a manipulator that would put many of y'all's kids to shame. It's a survival trait I expect.
So the fridge and freezer is clean and organized - one whole shelf for her sweets and nosherai, one whole shelf for cheese ravioli (she buys it and forgets to eat it?), one whole shelf for her meat products, and the bottom shelf drawer for Cousin's Son's stuff. All the random half-used french fries and other weirdities got baked for snacks for the party, which worked out perfectly.
I went through after I got there, and we found three bags of expired cough drops and about 25 lbs of bug-infested chocolate/cookie packages/expired candies/expired crackers. All into the trash. Cousin's son who lives with her was thankful, he's been working 60 hour weeks and hasn't been able to keep up with her lately. He spends time every day with a wand vacuum sucking up the myriad egyptian grain moths that are coming from SOMEWHERE. Hopefully I got some of the nesting sources.
Mom has ALWAYS had a hoarding problem, probably the concentration camp years, so this isn't anything new or typical of her being 94. Just that I'm not living with her to eat the stuff now.
I brought along four of the dollar store door alarms. One on the breakfast cereal cabinet, one on the "rest of the food pantry" cabinet, one on top of the fridge out of sight and one on the garage-to-house door (rest of the pantry, trash cans.)
Kiddo HATED it. She spent some time each evening stimming on the phrase "NO ALARMS ON DOORS!" Plus, oddly, no TV all weekend? Mom now has a beautiful porch to sit on, so she takes her Kindle or whatever book she's reading and sits out there, gets sun and air and naps with her dogs.
But we had fun, sort of. She got to hang with her cousins, she got to hang with her grandmother, I felt a lot more at peace with the alarms keeping her out. I did catch her about to open one of my mom's dresser drawers, and she gave me That Look.
I'm sure she got into SOMETHING while we were there, she's got three new pimples around her mouth. Or it was the leftover chicken breast Mom got from the synagogue kitchen that we were snacking on for lunches before Passover started last night.
Mom's fridge smelled like Death. Once again, Cousin's Son apologized for not having kept up with it - he usually does, he's kind of a clean freak which is why Mom hasn't been in the hospital for "a stomach virus" (meaning she ate something she hoarded in the fridge) since he moved in. The smell came from a couple of chicken thighs she thawed "a couple days ago" (um, a week? I used to process chicken, I know what a mis-rotated box smells like!) and I threw away yet more pounds of stuff, cleaned out the freezer too, found stuff she insists Cousin's Son must have bought because SHE would never do it - hah. I check with him, he only buys hoopty organic or healthy stuff for when his little daughter stays over. Probably just people giving her stuff because - well, tiny 90ish year old cute woman who is a manipulator that would put many of y'all's kids to shame.
It's a survival trait I expect.So the fridge and freezer is clean and organized - one whole shelf for her sweets and nosherai, one whole shelf for cheese ravioli (she buys it and forgets to eat it?), one whole shelf for her meat products, and the bottom shelf drawer for Cousin's Son's stuff. All the random half-used french fries and other weirdities got baked for snacks for the party, which worked out perfectly.
