Smoking

[feffy123]

My MIL smokes...a lot. She has been doing it for years in my house and its so distressing. I've never been happy and tried to make her do it outside. Now she refuses and when we come in to her room she has started hiding lit cigarettes! So dangerous. My question is would you confiscate them? To me I would feel really bad about this as its her property and I would never take anything. BUT I feel we are at risk. Also my daughter is asmastic...which we have told her and I am a reformed smoker so the worse kind! Thanks for your help in advance

 

[Not so Rosy]

My MIL smokes...a lot. She has been doing it for years in my house and its so distressing. I've never been happy and tried to make her do it outside. Now she refuses and when we come in to her room she has started hiding lit cigarettes! So dangerous. My question is would you confiscate them? To me I would feel really bad about this as its her property and I would never take anything. BUT I feel we are at risk. Also my daughter is asmastic...which we have told her and I am a reformed smoker so the worse kind! Thanks for your help in advance

Could you perhaps leave her with the cigs but takeaway the lighter, at least you would know when she has one on the go.

 

[feffy123]

Hmm good idea...but..when she run out of matches she lights them over her cooker and has burnt her hair in the passed! Good thought though

 

[Kevinl]

Do something and do it now, get fire alarms in every room and consider a fire extinguisher too. My wife became an absolute nightmare I kept finding cigarette burns that could have so easily become fires. Now I work from home it's easier as I can make sure she only smokes in the kitchen with the cooker hood on and I keep all the cigarettes and lighter. The other thing is that left to her own devises she'd smoke dozens a day, I think when she bored or isn't engaged with something then default activity becomes go and have a cigarette. Smoking in "her room" specially if that means it has a bed in it is even more dangerous.
Don't get me wrong I smoke too but same rules in the kitchen with the cooker hood on.
Smoking around children is wrong ones with asthma is just beyond wrong.
If anyone suggests the artificial cigarettes then I can only say I couldn't make them work for my wife (or me either) but you could give it a try it really depends on whether she's that dependent on nicotine or it's just a displacement activity.
K

 

[garnuft]

Give her her own space to have a cigarette...not in the kitchen under the cooker hood...
and make sure each cigarette is supervised from a distance,
don't sit over the top of her watching like a hawk,
make her feel it isn't something you disapprove of, something you are comfortable with her doing.
If she does it in the approved space, that also means you have to take control of the cigarettes and lighter and that ALSO means you HAVE to make time without demurring, when she needs it.

Compromise on both sides.

 

[Kevinl]

not in the kitchen under the cooker hood...QUOTE]

Why not in the kitchen with the cooker hood on (not under it like you said)? I guess it depends on your kitchen, our is galley style no kitchen table, no "heart of the house" stuff, it's the cooking room, I only have a kitchen because it came with the house.
All the other rooms have soft furnishings, carpets and burnable stuff, most of the year the kitchen window is open, in winter the hooker hood get's rid of at least some of the smoke, seems a whole lot safer than in a bedroom.
"Give her her own space to have a cigarette" garnuft are you secretly Kirsty Allsop
K

 

[feffy123]

Well the question is its our right to have a smoke free home and its not right really. We tell her all the time and then she says she forgets.

 

[opaline]

Who buys her the cigarettes? Couldn't you 'forget' to buy them and see what happens? Otherwise you need to keep them and give her them as and when, a bit like sweets with a child. It's just too dangerous as she could be smoking when you are asleep and she could end up trapped in a fire, x

 

[meme]

her room surely is her space to smoke...if she has been smoking there and lived with you for years then surely it is not ok to take her pleasure in smoking away? just keep things as safe as possible...extra smoke alarms...big ashtrays for her and unobtrusive checks before bed etc...

 

[southlucia]

If MIL was smoking anywhere else; someone else’s home, a shop, pub etc she’d be stopped and would have to smoke outside. MIL has the right to smoke, but you have the right to a smoke free home, so does your daughter. The only compromise here is for you to keep hold of her cigarettes and give her one when she asks, to smoke outside. If MIL no longer has the capacity to understand the associated risks of smoking indoors; health of all living there, as well as the high risk of fire, I believe you have every right to take control of this situation, without denying her of her need to smoke.

 

[AlsoConfused]

I agree. Hopefully your MIL will forget about smoking if she's not "reminded " to do it (eg by the sight of matches, cigarettes or other people smoking).

Could you encourage her to substitute for smoking any other safer, short-term pacifier (eg a small chocolate bar, biscuit or whatever)?

 

[lexy]

deleted

 

[Spamar]

OH smokes a pipe. In summer he may only light and smoke it outside, in porch or in conservatory ( he doesn't use his workshop anymore). In winter he still has to light it there but may smoke in living room. Note that we do have a wood fire!
Recently his smoking has decreased a lot, partly because he can longer light up!

 

[Kevinl]

Well the question is its our right to have a smoke free home and its not right really(

It's you house so it's your rules as they say, I guess with hindsight if from the outset smoking had been confined to the kitchen/conservatory or where ever it might have been better but as she has been allowed to smoke in her room making a change now is harder.
As I'm typing this there's an ad on the telly warning of the dangers of passive smoking to children..spooky...as I was just about to say my main concern is the health of your asthmatic daughter and the risk to you all from a fire. I can only see control of the cigarettes as a solution.
K

 

[Bod]

Who buys her the cigarettes? Couldn't you 'forget' to buy them and see what happens? Otherwise you need to keep them and give her them as and when, a bit like sweets with a child. It's just too dangerous as she could be smoking when you are asleep and she could end up trapped in a fire, x

Rationing.
Only smokes when you know what she's doing, and where!

Bod

 

[Tin]

there was a smoking thread started last week, carer asking similar question.

My mum has Vascular Dementia and her smoking had increased to out of control, since she moved in with me I have control of lighter, matches and cigarettes, it is now too dangerous to leave her alone with these things. Sometimes when she has smoked too many I tell her they have all gone and show her an empty pack.

 

[feffy123]

Thanks everyone. The weird thing is she cannot buy food or anything but buys cigarettes! So we can't control this she sneaks out on occasion and says she is buying a paper.

 

[feffy123]

She hides the fags because I clean her room when she is at the day centre but I would dream of taking them as I would never touch her things but it makes me angry to think its so dangerous for our family she was allowed to smoke in the beginning by my husband but I always objected. But now its a question of how dangerous it is. I also think that she does know she is doing wrong as she runs off if we knock on her door and puts it out. She then says she forgets well if that's the case why hide it? I do think sometime she plays on things as horrid as it sounds x

 

[IcareformyMum]

My Mum also smokes (along with me and my Dad) and we have recently had to take the decision not to leave her alone with cigarettes or lighters anymore as she has recently burnt her finger quite badly - we can only assume with the lighter! My parents have for a long time only smoked in their conservatory which has fire retardant seats and carpet tiles as we have had numerous accidents by where she has just dropped the cigarette and unfortunately her reactions are no longer as quick and by the time she has picked it up it had already burnt the carpet.
Mum now only has a cigarette when we physically give it to her and light it for her, she is then never left alone during the time it takes her to smoke it as we generally have one at the same time and that way she does not feel like she is being watched. Mum is aware that she has cigarettes but has no idea where they are and even if she were to look for them she would not be able to reach them.
It is very difficult as my Dad says he does not want her to stop doing something she enjoys but you have to find the fine balance between enjoyment and safety!

Maybe you could try and reach a compromise about where she smokes as even as a smoker the bedroom is not a good or very safe place to smoke! (Sorry my opinion!)
I hope this helps you in some way and apologies it's an epilogue!!

 

[byrnedjp]

My Uncle always smoked - I felt guilty hiding his tobacco when he started rolling one after another ...I learned to roll his cigarettes and I leave them next to him at various parts of the day - it seems to work.

I would hate to deprive him of "his habit" when all else is shot to hell.