My mom is what I call an organized hoarder. She has lovely things but far too much. Two of the rooms of her home is dedicated to her dolls and related items. The rest of the home is packed with furniture and accessories. All of her drawers are filled with items she will never wear again and has tons of jewelry she’ll never wear. She has 40 wedding gowns in her basement that she insists on keeping.....and it goes on from there. She is in early stages of dementia, and while she has always been difficult she can now be irrational and mean. My dad is getting worn out and would like to move to an AL facility. She refuses. Plus my younger brother and his family are her favorites and she is not shy about letting my sister and I know. When approached about letting some things go....she says they are for my brother, but he doesn’t want it, so it stays. I’m at wits end. Any suggestions would be helpful.. thank you!
So many times I had read that one parent wants to move to senior living and the other parent refuses. My parents were that way. Dad was ready to sell the house, and move to a nice retirement place. Mom, never, no, nada.
My folks didn't hoard but they had a lot of knick knacks. I tried to get Mom to start giving away items, thus for the hospital rummage sale each year she would give me one item to take... at that speed it would take 200 years to downsize :P
Once my Mom passed, Dad was ready to move. He had to narrow down all of his books. A standing joke became that out of the 200 books that Dad had, he narrowed it down to 199 to keep :P It was just easier to move all the book cases and books as those books were his "cocoon".
Abby, being our age doesn't help, I know was so exhausted when it came time to clear our my parents house to put it on the market For Sale. Our parents don't see us at our age, they still view us as being 20's and 30's with a ton an energy. Well, that ship had sailed !!
At this point in time, let it be. You can't get your Mom to change. Would Dad go on his own to Independent Living? Could he budget that and also keep the house running? I think the only way to get Mom out of the house is to have it condemned somehow [or use that as a therapeutic fib].
It sounds like your brother would be a much better choice to be mom's POA.
My mother is also a "tidy" hoarder. Drove my dad insane.
I finally went to WalMart and bought tons of cheap plastic bins. Sorted through her "treasures" and put 90% of that stuff in a storage place. (For her, it's in the crawlspace of the house they live in) Marked "IMPORTANT PAPERS" which actually means,"When mom dies you can burn all this stuff."
Once mother knew she wasn't losing her treasures, she was much more amenable to culling out a few things. It's really a losing battle, but make sure your dad has a room of his own, if possible that is HIS. If all it has is a chair and a TV and he's happy, then do that.
My mother got so angry with me trying to help her de-clutter, she literally went out into the garbage bins in the middle of the night with a flashlight and those "grabby sticks". To retrieve a rotted plastic frog that was 20 years old.
I gave up. She lives alone now and all do is make sure she has no tripping hazards and I take away the dead plants.
IF you do have POA--wow, I wish I had it over my mom--I would wield that mighty power to give your dad (and mom) a cleaner, tidier place to live in.
Just prepare yourself that whatever you do----she's going to be mad.