Hi,
Looking after 82year old mother-in-law who has moderate-serve mixed type Dementia.
Her latest thing is adjusting the temperature in her house and I am looking for some advice if possible.
She has started going on that someone has come round her house and taken all the airbricks out and thus she can not breathe and want us to call the Police. We have tried many times to tell her that her house did not have any air bricks and does not need air bricks as she does not have a gas fire, coal fire or wooden floors but she is adamant that someone stole them all and then obviously repaired the brick walls and redid all the plastering and internal decorating whilst she was in the toilet.
So we then fitted window restrictors so she could have the windows open slightly to get air movement but she does not know that windows can be opened and of course once we tell her she forgets and it all starts again the next day.
So she has now got it in her head that if she turns the boiler off this will allow fresh air into the house and allow her to breathe. However turning the boiler off off turns the heating and hot water off so she is complaining to the plumber that the boiler is faulty and we have had to tell the plumber to ignore her calls. She then moans to us that the house is cold and she is freezing.
She turns the boiler off by flicking the circuit breakers but she also turns other circuits off like downstairs power thus the fridge, freezer and TV stop working and then we get irate phone calls that someone has come to her house and broken everything.
We put a big notice on the circuit breaker box saying do not touch which she ignores. We locked the circuit breaker box but she then broke the lock to get in. I build a wooden box to cover the circuit box but she ripped that off the wall to get in.
So, is there a way to prevent mother in law from turning stuff off at the main circuit breaker box without chaining her to her chair
PS, she does have carers who are great, they come 4 times a day but it's getting difficult to keep asking them to do all these extra daily checks to check she has not tampered with anything in the house when they should be caring for her.
Looking after 82year old mother-in-law who has moderate-serve mixed type Dementia.
Her latest thing is adjusting the temperature in her house and I am looking for some advice if possible.
She has started going on that someone has come round her house and taken all the airbricks out and thus she can not breathe and want us to call the Police. We have tried many times to tell her that her house did not have any air bricks and does not need air bricks as she does not have a gas fire, coal fire or wooden floors but she is adamant that someone stole them all and then obviously repaired the brick walls and redid all the plastering and internal decorating whilst she was in the toilet.
So we then fitted window restrictors so she could have the windows open slightly to get air movement but she does not know that windows can be opened and of course once we tell her she forgets and it all starts again the next day.
So she has now got it in her head that if she turns the boiler off this will allow fresh air into the house and allow her to breathe. However turning the boiler off off turns the heating and hot water off so she is complaining to the plumber that the boiler is faulty and we have had to tell the plumber to ignore her calls. She then moans to us that the house is cold and she is freezing.
She turns the boiler off by flicking the circuit breakers but she also turns other circuits off like downstairs power thus the fridge, freezer and TV stop working and then we get irate phone calls that someone has come to her house and broken everything.
We put a big notice on the circuit breaker box saying do not touch which she ignores. We locked the circuit breaker box but she then broke the lock to get in. I build a wooden box to cover the circuit box but she ripped that off the wall to get in.
So, is there a way to prevent mother in law from turning stuff off at the main circuit breaker box without chaining her to her chair
PS, she does have carers who are great, they come 4 times a day but it's getting difficult to keep asking them to do all these extra daily checks to check she has not tampered with anything in the house when they should be caring for her.