I just moved my 89 yr old dad into a retirement community apartment. His old house is falling down around him and I stopped visiting over a year ago because he's a borderline hoarder. He's still active, still drives and exercises every day. Physically he's in very good shape for his age. He's almost completely deaf, but does have hearing aids & that helps. The big issue we have is he never throws anything away and seems to have forgotten all he ever knew about cleanliness. My partner & I bought him all "gently used" furniture to furnish his apt so he wouldn't bring his "Beverly Hillbillies" junk to the new place; we also bought all new dishes, glasses, flatware, etc. to outfit his kitchen. We've spent weeks shopping & setting up his new place, and it looks really nice. He loves it and was very excited to move (this wasn't pushed on him & he's ready to leave the responsibility of maintaining the old house to simplify his life). His first day at the new place he brought a van full of boxes filled with old, dirty miscellaneous kitchen items, canned goods that are probably expired and other things I can't bring myself to even look at. We bought new bed linens so he'd leave his old sheets, etc. at the house to be thrown away & told him to bring his "pillows" (thinking surely to God his pillows are ok!). When we removed them from their ancient pillow cases, the pillows had mildew on them & smelled terrible. Everything he brought with him is dirty. He sees absolutely nothing wrong with this. He's fully capable of cleaning up after himself, but he just chooses not to & doesn't see cleanliness as important. I'm making a trip for new pillows today & will take care of that, but I know he will continue to bring loads of "junk" from his old house to this new apartment. The apt complex cleans each apartment weekly so that will help, but he's a packrat and I'm sure over time it will end up looking like his house - crammed full of stuff & junk he picks up along the way.
Do I accept that he's going to to do this and stop trying to keep the new place nice? Should we smile and say nothing, knowing we did our best by setting him up in a nice place with nice furnishings, and let him do what he wants to do? The stress is high and my partner & I are the only ones feeling it - our thoughts now are "If he doesn't care, why should we?" How do you let go and let them do what they're going to do?
Thank you again for the responses... they really helped!
Having someone from the outside come in to clean and look at his mess frequently, and probably comment on it, may inspire a little better standard of cleanliness.
If he is just trying to get you riled up, that phase should go away when you've disposed of all the unhealthy items.
My best friend's mother is a life-long hoarder. She was also a collector and had many valuable antiques and collectibles. When she moved from a very large house to a townhouse, it took her kids more than a YEAR to get the house ready for sale. It involved sorting the trash (several dumpsters full) from the collectibles and antiques, several estate sales, professional appraisals, and lots of hard cleaning work. Whew! The mother was mad that the kids would let bring only 4 complete sets of dishes to the townhouse. She never entertains, or has dinner parties. All holidays and celebrations are hosted by her kids. But she loves being surrounded by things she owns. Now that she has been there a couple of years, her kids are going in and trying to nip the collecting and hoarding in the bud before it gets completely out of hand again.
I'm certainly not an expert on this strange behavior, but my guess is that if your dad is a hoader (as opposed to adverse to cleaning and a little lazy) that isn't going to change. Focus on keeping him safe and healthy. Try not get too attached to making the apartment look good according to your standards. It just needs to meet the fire marshall's standards, and basic hygiene considerations!