How to limit toilet paper?

Hope you get a good answer as I have the same problem, not with TP but I cannot keep tissues in stock my husband hoards them, even the used ones every morning his nightstand is full & If I forget to check a pocket I have an OMG laundry mess

This is a great question. My Mom goes through anything disposable, tissues, underpants, paper towels and wipes like wildfire. Thankfully she hasn't stopped up the toilet yet, she seems to throw almost everything in the trash can but I'm so tired of the heave, ho of emptying the trash all the time. I know the people at the dump must think we are awfully messy people since we show up there almost every other day. Oh yeah, and she stuffs the tissues in her pockets too. What a mess it makes in the laundry. I invariably forget to check the pockets. My bad.

At least she hasn't forgotten how to wipe yet! Do you have room for a trash can next to the toilet. Maybe you could get her to put the tissue in it instead. Disgusting for sure but better than stopping up the toilet??

This almost belongs in the "Grossed out? Need to vent? .. " thread, but ..

Almost wish we had that problem. Ours is the reverse. No more than 4 squares. EVER. Guess what's all over her hand before she's done? And, I'm here to tell ya that she uses those four squares as many times as she can fold them over.
Ugh!! Oh .. I forgot to mention .. she loves biting her nails. Soooooooo gross.

We finally got her to use wet wipes and we managed to drill it into her that it HAS to be thrown in the trash. At least it doesn't plug up the toilet, that way. And supervise. Really. And ignore her 'shut ups' .. you're doing what's best for her and her home. Sometimes YOU gotta be the mom.

I wish I had a solution for you. Unfortunately I have the same problem as LadeeC...I'd give anything for a "happy medium"! I get the tissue blizzards in the washing machine too, but ya know what's worse? (This may be more fitting for the Grossed Out thread too...) Back before my MIL started wearing Depends she sometimes used Poise pads...the big, extra absorbent ones...and sometimes she'd "forget" to remove them before tossing her panties into the washer. OMG talk about a mess! Those things shred into a zillion wet clumpy bits that stick to everything!! She lost one into the toilet once too, and because she wasn't sure what to do about it she just left it there for us to sort out "later". FYI, the "extra absorbent" feature is as advertised. By the time she got around to telling us what happened ("oh...by the way....") it had grown to the size of a baby seal.

Rolling on the Floor Laughing ROTFL

At least they're a zillion CLEAN bits. Doncha love/feel weird vacuuming out the inside of the washing machine .... and the floor ... and the dryer? egads.

Sorry .. I feel like this hijacked your question NiceNurse. But, hope you got a little giggle out of it.

If you come up with an answer please let the rest of us here know! It must be some type of fixation with paper goods. My Dad uses the toilet paper like its going out of style and plops it all in the toilet and flushes. I don't know how many times my Mom has had to get the plumber's helper and a straightened out wire clothes hanger to unplug the toilet. He has to have paper towels to wipe and blow his nose. He doesn't want Kleenex for some reason, though lately he's started tearing those up in strips and throwing them in the trash can next to his chair. He did that some time ago and quit, but now he's back at it. (I think it might have something to do with a recent med change experiment that backfired!) Mom buys Kleenex in bulk when its on sale somewhere, maybe 10 boxes at a time. A few days ago she decided to hide all the boxes she's stocked up on, but lo and behold Dad suddenly had a brand new box -- he found the stash, don't ask me how, probably peeking around the corner and watching her while she hid them. I don't know about folding the TP, but Dad does fold or scrunch up the paper towels he uses for his nose until they're almost too small to blow on! He has also become obsessed with the moist towelettes for washing his hands. ONCE he was given one to wash his fingers with before dinner because he thought his hands were dirty (he pees .. sorry .. right before dinner .. just his routine .. and didn't remember washing his hands afterward). Ever since then he has to have a moist towelette, baby wipe, whatever you want to call them, to rub over his fingers before eating. Because his hands get dirty in the half minute between washing his hands in the bathroom and getting to the dinner table! And he won't sit down and eat until he gets one. Then while he's eating he continually picks it up and asks what it is and if he should leave it there! Dad stuffs folded up paper towels into books, spiral bound notebooks, other boxes, the top drawer of his bureau, etc. and then can never find one when he wants one, and then wants another one. But, I guess it could be worse...

I am just rolling with laughter at the various answers, but glad to know a whole bunch of us have the same problem & I am not the only one. My husband did start throwing a few in the bathroom wastebasket that is actually for magazines, but the dogs gets them before they hit the bottom as dogs LOVE tissues old & new, when he opens his bedside drawer every night (actually about 40 times a day) the dogs (2) are right behind him on the bed hanging over the open drawer just waiting for the second he is not looking to wipe out his stash. I did read somewhere on here that it is OK to remove the tissue buildup in the drawer but leave a few so he/she does not feel they have been robbed.

Yes, I guess we'll just have to make humor of this. My Chihuahua , Lola, was snacking on some of moms used T.P. --how gross! I knew she loved to roll in it outside but now its a nice treat

My mothers white teacup poodle once came down the hall looking like she went bobbing for apples in Hersheys syrup but we had no syrup, I had forgotten to take the trash out.....eeeeewwwweeeee!!!

I'm howling with laughter right now - thank you all! My mother has been using at least one double roll of tissue a day for over a year. I accuse her of using sheets of them at lunchtime for her sandwiches. She just says she likes to be clean! I just discovered her bedside stash of wadded up tissues and cleared that up last night but will be sure next time to leave a few for her security blanket; I had never thought of her maybe thinking they were stolen!

first time I took all the tissues out of the nightstand, my husband came rushing downstairs that someone had robbed him. that is when I read about leaving a few behind. his nightstand with two large drawers is his haven, he says all he owns is in those draws, so I am very careful of not disturbing anything in there, basically check for overflowing stash, dog treats, candy pieces, and an occasional doggie poop bag, full & tied off! UGH

if the parent is toileting without assistance and cleaning themselves up i would consider exessive tp usage to be something i could live with. i think the wet adult wipes are much more effective. urinary infections can be caused by less than adequate cleanliness.
if quirky personal habits is the theme here my mom farts when shes walking thru the house sometimes continually. it doesnt embarass me a bit. getting rid of gas must be a real relief for her. caregiving has taught me a lot about humility and patience..

you win Captain, for # 1 Quirky personal habit of the loved one you are caring for!

LSHIAPMP, Captain you're too funny. Momma too, sounds like a choo choo going down the hall.

sometimes you have to look hard to find the small blessings in life. be thankful that mom still knows the difference between s**t paper and a shower curtain..

Been there with the few squares of TP, now its diapers . Nicel explain that you have a septic system and it will cost money to fix if she clogs it. The elderly are super cheap and wont want to chip in to pay for it. IF she can read put up a huge note in the bathroom to use wastebasket, etc. Argh, its rough! My mom used to get up, drop her drawers and squat and pee all over my bedroom floor, we've been thru it all. Good luck

Ohh, what I have to look forward to. I had been considering buying a fancy shower curtain for mthr to go with her seaside decor (was a marine biologist), but she is rapidly approaching stage 6, and I think I will save the money for more TP. The curtain is beige with brown shells, but I think skid marks would be obvious still.

I recently saw an ad for Flylady's Clog Cannon, which is a hand pumped toilet pipe blaster. I'm going to preemptively buy it and try it on PEAT MOSS that one of my little kids dumped in the basement drain a few years back. Even when we snake through the peat so it will drain, the peat grows bigger and blocks the passage of water again. Metal snakes have to be rewound, but a blaster would be convenient. I'm sure it would work on TP troubles!

Wet wipes. Smaller, half-used rolls or even unwind and fold up more than enough to use and put the big rolls away. Hope something works!

Every single post on this thread got a Helpful Answer "tick" from me. I was nearly doubled over with laughter. I'm telling you, if stand up comedians ever read these stories, their audiences would be rolling in the aisles!

For now, I have the opposite going on in my house. When my mom uses the toilet (to urinate) and she doesn't always flush she only uses one or two sheets! I don't want to say anything to make her feel bad but I would have no problem if she used a few more sheets! Captain, I had a good laugh....out loud.....reading your comments.....sooooo funny.....thanks.....I needed it! :)

Traded in tp for baby wipes. Get the dispenser that gives out one at the time. That way at least it will slow her down having to get one at the time. Also a baby diaper disposal system is great for disposing the wipes without stopping up the toilet. And wetness means cleaner wiping, too.

But, seriously, its so healthy to find the humor in the quirky behavior of dementia. My caregivees have all done some version of these descriptions but I agree with Captain, if they're doing a good job of cleaning up, I'd rather have them using more than less.

This is a subject near and dear to MY heart as my mom harassed me from the time I started accomplishing my own personal hygiene until I moved out of the house. She thought I was always using too much toilet paper. lt was my thinking that I wanted to come away from the task with reasonably clean hands. It wasn't until her disabilities and illnesses, where I was either observing or supervising her bathroom activities, that I came to find out she was one of the "4 sheet" ladies. Unlike myself, she never cared if she got pee on her hands or poop under her fingernails. Ewwwww.

Once I realized this, I asked her, Mom, why do you do that? She informed me that toilet paper was expensive (cheap, like many others?!). I told her not to worry about that, the price had been lowered and we have plenty of money to buy toilet paper. She said that didn't matter, that "you never know when it might be hard to get". While further questioning might have allowed me to ferret out additional information about her thinking, it was obvious that the conversation was irritating her, so I had to let it go.

But my elder relatives, and most likely many on this site, who went through the depression, were taught to live on less money and to conserve in the extreme. On top of that, my mother's father died when she was 2, and her mother when she was 8. Between those ages, she sometimes lived in "the country" outside of St Louis with her maternal grandmother, 1/2 indigenous Indian descent. My great aunt told me that they didn't always have toilet paper (they didn't use corn cobs, haha, but they did make use of vegetation such as inedible weeds).

Just for reference, my mom was born in 1918. They ate differently in the city, but out in the country, they often had gruel for breakfast and rattlesnake with dandelion greens for a late dinner (which would be like a late lunch for us). For "supper" (our dinner), they might have tea and leftover bread or biscuits.

Makes it easier to understand how their generation came to be "cheap" as well as feel the need to save a scrap of anything, because they never knew when they might need it. This belief is so internally strong, it just gets magnified during dementia.

What difference does it make if one wants to wipe with a quilted northern sheet (2-ply) or a dollar store sheet (1-ply).

In the woods, when you got to go, you got to go. Wiping your butt with a leaf is NOT out of the question if you have no TP.

My MIL has the same issue with paper products. We buy the cheapest tissue by the case and buy Scott toilet paper (like you would find in a public bathroom) because she goes through so much. We have found that this toilet paper is septic safe and even if she uses a lot of it, it's not like using the same amount of Charmin. We also have this issue with napkins. My MIL uses so many napkins that we went to a commercial napkin dispenser. I would much rather buy these products than have you use her clothes, which she did before she came to us. I don't ever think we will be able to slow her down on her usage. We have at least 4 boxes of tissue going at one time for her...car, walker, where she sits, and sleeps.

There is a solution, but it takes quite a bit of upkeep. On the other hand, we were paying a plumber almost every week because of all the clogs. What we do is save the cardboard centers of toilet paper rolls and then we feed a small number of squares (12 or so) onto the roll from whole rolls of TP and put that on the TP holder. So when mom needs to use the bathroom, all there is are 12 squares. Of course, everyone else knows where the whole rolls are hidden and our pre-prepped 12 square rolls that we keep just for mom are constantly replenished.

My Mom too loves her TP. She always puts it in the waste can next to the toilet which is fine. I just empty at the end of the day. Now with tissues I just give her 3 at breakfast and keep replacing as needed especially at meal times. I'm surprised her nose isn't sore from all the use of tissue!!

My Mom too loves her TP. She always puts it in the waste can next to the toilet which is fine. I just empty at the end of the day. Now with tissues I just give her 3 at breakfast and keep replacing as needed especially at meal times. I'm surprised her nose isn't sore from all the use of tissue!!

Ha ha. just poppin in on this but my momma had an opposite problem when I could still get her to pee on the pot...she liked to conserve, and would only use a sheet, or two if lucky and I had to always be there to instruct her to grab more please!

Llove it about the 12 squares!
When I was growing up with mom she, had 1 sheet for pee and two squares for the other, we were monitored. She also used Scott tissue the hard single ply, which in my adult life, I never used.

But I am not her caregiver at this moment, she does not need it yet,
but if she did, I am sure this would be an issue.

Wshe uses paper towels to dry a counter, she saves them, by drying them out and folding them and putting them in the lower under sink cabinet. If she spills something on the floor. she uses those instead of getting a new one.

Instead, I am a caregiver to a hoarder of every napkin and tissue
and would have an endless supply of tissue, but it is napkins,
so I cannot use them ot it as a money saving device, so I have to throw them out.