We own Mom's house. She lives with us now. Should we tell her we are selling "her house"?

Dear BeeBeeL,
You know for several years I would read on here about everyone's parents wanting to go home. My Mom was in her own home on Easter Sunday 2 years ago. We were doing dishes my sis and I. She was standing in the kitchen watching us and said "I can't believe I'm not even in my own house but you guys decorated this just like my own kitchen. Giant pause...
For about 4 years every dang day before this she would ask about the house she grew up in. Who lived there, etc. Were her patents alive go through the list of siblings.
Now 7 1/2 years later I finally have to put her in memory care. I can do so many things but all those years of the daily home and family questions were killing me!!!
Now I am closing the 4th generation family western store. This was HER family. I will never tell her this. We still own her house. Finally after hearing all this on here about when they want to go home, it's really their childhood home...I get it. Now In the MC unit she just asks about her mom and dad and siblings. She thinks everyone is in her old family home just waiting for her. I will NEVER kill this dream. I creatively use fibblets. I'm sorry but this has been going on 5 years.
When I finally decided I would just start to lie (spelling) like a dog, it really got better. It will drive you crazy when it goes on forever but the good news is "This too shall pass" and it does. She mentions it less and less and I always agree it will be so good to get back home. Because I believe it will be great. I think everyone is waiting to greet her with the Lord in Heaven. And she will Finally be Home!

Your mother most likely will not understand if you tell her you are now selling her house. It would serve no purpose other than to upset her. With Alzheimer’s, she is no longer capable of reason. When she says she wants to go back, she is imagining her house as it was 50 or 60 years ago. You can use the therapeutic fib and when she asks, tell her you are having the house fixed up for her. Tell her that every time she asks, because she won’t remember the last time you told her.

Unless her things are things she needs, like clothing, or heirlooms, don’t let her know you are bringing them. Even go so far as to rent a storage unit. Don’t leave them out where she can see them and become upset. She remembers things for a long while because she associates you with “relocating” her possessions. When she sees you again, it reminds her that she is upset about what you are doing.

You mom is living in her own world now. It seems that people who suffer from Alzheimer’s/ dementia are very easily upset. They live in two worlds. One is a world of their own making, usually a world of happier times. Every so often, the real world intervenes. They are lost and confused. They become upset when someone tries to “tell them like it is”. Part of it may be because we don’t want to accept their new reality either. We try to reason and explain to no avail, and then WE become upset.

Keep the sale of her house to yourselves. Do not discuss the sale in her presence or earshot. Keep her possessions out of sight. Tell her when her house is finished being “fixed up”, you will discuss her return. And, of course, the house is never finished.

As the house is not your mother's property, that takes care of the main ethical issue easily - it's not hers and neither is the decision to sell it. So that bit's easy - it's a No. You needn't tell her.

Then there are the emotional issues. And here again it's a no, but for different reasons.

1. it wouldn't make any difference. Just as your mother can no longer manage the thinking processes behind where she lives and where her things belong and what's going in general, neither would she retain the information that "her" house has been sold and now belongs to another family. So telling her would do nothing more than cause temporary agitation and distress. It would not explain anything to her, or soothe any anxieties.

2. it wouldn't help *her*. When your mother wants to be taken to her house, arguments against doing that will have no weight for her. Whether you were to tell her that she doesn't live there now, that it's the middle of the night, that it's been quarantined because of anthrax or blown up by a rogue UAV; the only thought process her brain can compute is "go home go home." So, again, explaining that the house has been sold will not help her.

Redirecting is indeed the correct approach - have you tried the questioning technique, rather than the changing the subject technique? E.g. "well I don't think we can go now, mother, we're just about to eat. Was there something in particular you wanted from home?" The idea of the questions is to help her express her preoccupations and anxieties, and with luck lead her gently back to what's happening right now without having to contradict or obstruct her.

I am afraid that you are right to suppose that this will go on whatever you do. How are you and your husband coping with this extremely challenging phase? I suppose what I'm asking, actually, is how much more can you take? Do you have any support or any respite?

I'm going through the same thing with my mom. She always wants to "go home" and I was told by APS to not let her in or else I'll never get her out. This is such a sad situation and it puts us in a terrible spot when we love our parents!
I'm probably going to have to tell my mom that I have to sell her house. She's in AL right now and it's located only 1.5 miles away from her home. My approach (I think) is going to be that her home is not "safe" for her anymore and it needs a lot of "repairs." I'm going to tell her that it makes more financial sense to sell it so she has more money to live off of. This, by the way, is true so that helps me. Maybe this approach can work for you too?
This is such a delicate situation and I wish you all the best!

I normally ask what you are attempting to accomplish by telling her. Is she able to process and retain information? If telling her would mean that she could process that information, retain it and no longer ask to go there, it might be beneficial, but, is that really possible? I would think that she would probably get upset, feel confused and/or angry and still demand to go there. And, you would need to repeat it over and over. So, what is the harm in letting her believe she will eventually go back there?

Plus, the home she is describing may not be the place you think it is. Some people with dementia beg to go home, when they ARE leaving in their home.

Ahmijoy said it. Depending on the extent of the Alzheimers, they live in their own world now and we just have to do what we can to keep them happy and healthy. When I was new to this, I spent months mentioning selling my moms car as she would no longer drive and it was just sitting in the driveway. She always agreed it was the best thing to do. I always try to do the best I can for her. Once it was sold, she told people I sold the car right out from under her!!! Lesson learned. Her level of reality is her own, and we try to respect that things are so different for her now. We just try to accept it and keep her happy and her level of understanding just is no longer how it used to be.

I wouldn't tell her. When it comes to bringing her stuff to ur home just tell her you thought it would be nice to have her stuff around her during her stay. You can tell her the doctor suggests she stay with family foe a little while.

It sounds like the question is not "do I tell her or not" but "how can I cope with her obsessive demand to take her to her house."

I don't know the answer. I'm not an expert in this kind of thing at all. It may be that you just have to continue to cope on a moment by moment basis as much as you can (interspersed with leaving the room, etc.). It's hard to know whether she will understand what you explain, or retain it.

Perhaps limit the number of items you bring over from her house so she doesn't become upset by them.

My experience with my mom's obsessive questionings is that I just come up with a bland answer ("I'm not sure" or "We'll see") and commit to saying it over and over and over and over and over until I can leave the room for a while. Eventually she forgets to ask, then I know I'm over the hump with that one, anyway. Until the next one.

Good luck. This is tough.

Whew! Sorry Boots didn't mean to write an article lol! It's just I know what it's like. Everybody have a good day !

This may not be the right answer, but you know your mother best. You could try telling her that the doctor has said that she cannot go back to her house because it is not safe for her and you could be in trouble with the law if you let her go and she is injured. The doctor says it needs to be sold. You could take her to the house in the half cleared state – not looking like her house because not everything is in place and there is a fair bit of mess, eg boxes of stuff on the floor. Clearly it will make her unhappy, but it may also help her to understand that she can’t go ‘home’. Just another approach to think about.