Elderly putting phone in commode?

I've posted this before. Grandma used to keep her teabags in the commode. The new ones of course. The used ones went in the trash. No, I didn't let he use any of the commode tainted teabags. I would just throw it all away.

I don't think it's just dementia for dementia's sake. There is logic to the madness. It wasn't just the commode. It's that it and the trash are good hiding places. The trash is full of balled up paper, so balling something up in paper and putting it in there makes it a perfect place to hide valuables. I used to have to hand search all the trash before throwing it away. I used to find bundles of money in there. I used to find a lot of jewelry. I didn't catch everything and as the years have gone by, most of the jewelry has disappeared.

Taking on board that the root cause of this is dementia, the person still has a reason for putting the phone in the commode. Why do you think the person thought this seemed like a good idea at the time? If you can figure that out, you may be able to figure out a better idea that the person will accept, such as having a clear "right place to keep the phone."

Um, I hardly like to ask - was the commode in use for, er, other purposes? Did the phone survive its experience???

Was it her phone or yours? Is there a question you wish to ask? If it was her phone, maybe time to stop allowing her to have one?

Was it an accident? Did she drop it in the toilet?

Dementia