[doggiedo]

I visit my parents, who live an hour away, once a week. My mom continuously battles depression but lately she says she is doing better. The doc switched up her meds a little and she said its helping. But every time I visit her the house is a pig sty. She doesn't dust, vacuum, or anything. I usually try and help outside with the yard and stuff when I can and I always clean the house when I'm home. its getting to be a lot- they have a new recliner and have the old one sitting in the kitchen/ living room area. They were moving a dresser and it was too heavy to get it into the new room, so it's been sitting in the living room for two months. I don't get it. I trip over crap all the time. I don't know how to help them and as much as I like helping them by cleaning, it's getting old. I'm tired of doing it all the time.

My mom has health issues and is on disability, so she doesn't work- she has some nerve damage and stuff. But that doesn't mean she can't clean every other week. It's not horrible but it's def needs a cleaning. Nothing like on the tv show Hoarders, but still. Who knows how far it will go! I just don't know what to do!

[henrydavidtherobot]

I don't know if I can offer any advice other than just trying to convey your concern without sounding judgmental.

I know how you feel though. My mother has struggled with depression her whole life and things got out of hand following my sister's death. She is on disability for depression. Her house is disgusting and covered in food and animal waste. It's really hard to see your parents in bad shape. I hope you're doing okay.

[doggiedo]

Thx Hun. I know it must be hard for u too. Luckily they aren't at that point, but who knows what it'll be like in 2-3 years, u know?

[radio_flyer]

The only thing I can think of is maybe when you visit your parents, you could mention to your mom that you'd like to help her clean the house. And if there are heavy things maybe ask a neighbor to help you move it for them. And even if she isn't "up " to helping you clean, maybe you could go ahead a clean one or two rooms for her....

I know, lots of times, when mother was alive, and when I'd visit her, I'd clean just for the sake of helping her. She loved it when I helped her...

[trass123]

Originally Posted by doggiedo

Thx Hun. I know it must be hard for u too. Luckily they aren't at that point, but who knows what it'll be like in 2-3 years, u know?

totally agreed

[doggiedo]

Oh I help her all the time and she does appreciate it. I usually clean the bathrooms, do laundry, vacuum,sweep, dust, etc. but then in a few weeks it us back to normal again.

[Victoria'smom]

I don't know if you can afford this but there's always the option once you clean the place up to hire a maid to come in 1-2x a week just to help out.

[doggiedo]

Yea that's a good idea. I told her she should hire someone to come in once every two weeks but she claims they can't afford it. I know they can. They are doing their deck-so I mean, use that money to take care of the inside, u know?

I think I might be a little critical. I just texted some pics to my friend and he said that it looks lived in, is all. Idk.

[Perna]

Getting older is very hard. I recently had to start having a cleaning company come in every couple of weeks to help me keep things cleaner.

I would talk to your parents and see if they'd like you to call and get someone to come out and haul the old recliner away (they should have asked to see if they could have paid the store to do that; we just got a new mattress :-) and maybe some bags of stuff you could work with your mom to have ready?

When things start to slide it can get harder to get them back up to "okay". But we called a cleaning crew who came and did the whole house, 1-1/2 days, 9 hours of cleaning (I don't dust either and can't do floors well like bathroom and kitchen, etc. and my husband smokes so his porch walls, ceiling and windows were "yellow" instead of light tan, etc., took them 3 hours to clean just his little 9 x 9 porch!).

Just getting ready for the cleaners (I also had the junk haulers come out the same day) was hard, sorting through all my little stuff and throwing stuff out, donating it to charity, boxing the stuff I wanted to save and putting the boxes in my car so the shelves/surfaces would be clear for them to clean, etc.).

I don't think your mother is ever going to not need your help from now on but she is really fortunate she has you. If I were you though, I think I would schedule your time and/or see if you could rope a good friend, cousin, other relative into helping you occasionally and figure out ways to help your parents deal with the "big" stuff (like the recliner problem).

[Nessa213]

My parents house is also extremely cluttered, my mother also having depression. The only difference is that theirs IS approaching "Hoarders" status. There's actually been a few episodes I've seen where I think "hm... well that doesn't look SO bad".

With my parents kind of mentality they legitimately believe that they can sell their things rather than just throwing it away. In some cases this is true. Thankfully, I turned my father on to Craigslist and he's starting to at least clean out one of his barns. (He had to build two full size barns and was considering a third.) My mother... well that's another challenge that I haven't quite worked out yet. I tried suggesting easy easy cleaning products. Like those disinfecting wipes, or Swiffers. I even bought her a Swiffer but she never uses it. I'm in the same boat. Don't really know if there's anything we can do about it.