My elderly mother, age 70, who lives with me, has urinary incontinence and wears "incontinence underwear." She is good about changing them when needed but she is horrible about disposing of them. Most of the time, she just piles them in a corner in her room and maybe twice a week will gather them up into a trash bag to be disposed of. She lives with me, and her room reeks of urine. Absolutely disgusting urine permeated air hits you every time she opens her bedroom door. I bought her a "diaper pail" to put them in, but rather than put it is as soon as she takes it off, she places it in a corner in her room and after she has several of them will then put all of them into the pail. I remind her several times a week to use the pail every single time she changes her underwear, and I don't understand why she doesn't. She has never been very good at keeping things clean and put away, even when I was growing up. I have installed an air deodorizer that releases a medical grade deodorizing spray every 15 minutes and have given her a spray bottle of the same product to spray directly on her used underwear when she removes them, which she doesn't use. The automatic deodorizer spray has had some effect, lessened the urine smell some, but the main issue is getting her to dispose of the used undergarments correctly. I was even hoping to take her to her doctor and maybe a talk from him would help, but she refuses to go, and since she has not been deemed incompetent, I can't force her to go. Sometimes the odor is so strong it creeps into other rooms even though her door has been shut for hours. I am at my wit's end and don't know what else I can do.
My mom has vascular dementia; she routinely scores 15/15 on the mini-mental (has no short term memory issues) but can't reason or plan at all.
Unfortunately in this case, as it stands, it does seem to be "mom being mom". My father and I were the ones who handled the brunt of de-cluttering when I was growing up. She would do the dishes, mop floors, etc., but she would always just pile things up to be put away "later" (and even the cleaning she did do wouldn't be done on a timely basis). My father washed his hands of her a few years ago, as she wasn't willing to keep up with the cleaning but when he tried to do it, she would yell at him to stop. He had a stroke a few months before that, and she thought that made him incapable of doing anything - he actually recovered just fine, thank goodness. He provided her money for a while after he left, but it got to the point where she was taking more than he was getting to keep, so he left her with just her tiny Social Security and thus she moved in with me.
Before I resort to doing all of the cleaning up and spraying of her room myself, I think I may start treating her like I would my son when he was younger where I will literally every day tell her to clean her room and spray the deodorizer and try to get this to develop as a daily habit. Other than that, I guess I'm going to have to pick up the underwear a few times a day (which by the way she doesn't even fold up - they are left sitting with the wet urine pad wide open to the air) and spray the deodorizer.
Strangely enough, this is exactly how my grandmother (my mother's mom) got in her older years...she would not do anything. My grandfather did all the chores, all the cooking and cleaning, while she just sat there listening to the radio and playing solitaire. I sure hope this isn't a trait I develop as I get older!!!!
I do want to add in my mom's defense as I haven't painted the prettiest picture of her, that she was a great mom to me, couldn't have asked for a better one. Always there for my school/activity functions, would play taxi to me and my friends, fun trips together, making sure I was able to get the "cool shoes" or other such things....a lot of great memories growing up. I love her so much, even if she is driving me crazy with this issue right now.
You might check out Teepa Snow's videos on dealing with folks with dementia, whether or not she's been diagnosed, you might find some good techniques there.
Before you decide that this is just "mom being mom" and "she's always been lazy", I would check further into her current cognitive skills. Dementia comes in many forms; some of them rob folks of their sense of smell, some of their ability to sequence what they are doing. I think the more you know, the more you'll be able to figure out what you need to do to make having mom live with you work.
Is something preventing you from tossing mom's diapers on a daily basis?