My mother had pieces of paper towel and half rolls of toilet paper everywhere! Beside the sofa, on the sofa, paper towels spread all over the sofa, in the kitchen the bathroom, in drawers basically everywhere. Has anyone else had a similar experience? I'm just ignoring it since it's not hurting anything It's just curious. She leaves the paper towels spread all over the sofa because Marvin her kitty likes to sit on them. Of course kitty has 3 beds, a bunch of blankets and a clothes basket all to himself. LOL
I don't think your mother is alone with her obsession to always have tissues with her. If yours is like mine, she stuffs them in her pockets or carries them, dropping them here and there or depositing them at some distant point (table, drawers). The unfortunate ones aren't discovered until they get in the vent of the dryer.
Mine does the partial roll of toilet tissue, too. She tucks one in her rollator, along with a lot of tissue and other things that she forgets is in there, so grows during the week. Partial bottles of water here and there are scattered amongst the tissues. I don't say anything. I just pick things up and toss them in the trash.
She also had room deodorizers everywhere. Sometimes 5 in one room! Eventually, she stopped though. As she progressed, she no longer paid attention to things like that.
They get dropped everywhere, a real treat for our two dogs who just love to shred them! No, a cloth handkerchief would not work because he does not use them for his nose/mouth. He just holds them in his hands until he thinks he needs another one --or six. I think it must have something to do with sensory stimulation--but I fail to see how one could be stimulated by a tissue!
She would buy the thin paper plates by the hundreds. There were always stacks of them on every flat surface. She used them to write notes on to herself and others. Large reminders. And since they were thin and stuck together she would just put five or six new ones on top of the used ones. You might think it was a stack of clean paper plates and once you started using them discover the soiled ones.
All of this before anyone thought she had dementia.
When I go to her house weekly I will pick up all the paper towels stuffed in the side of her chair. I've almost thrown away her teeth by accident as they were wrapped in a paper towel. I buy the large economy size of paper towels, pads, pull ups, paper plates, bowls napkins, tissue and toilet tissue and now we are into band aids. She has the half rolls of paper towels handy as well. It's considered an emergency if she is out of paper towels. She also was into the scented plug ins and burning incense and candles. I was finally able to get people to quit giving her the candles and the scented wax melters. What should we give her they ask. I'm tempted to say, paper towels. Happiness is a fresh roll of paper towels.
Mom would verrry slowwwly rip them from roll, fold them precisely in half, then stack them in a plastic container that was shaped like a tall, skinny shoebox.
Mom would also layer paper towels between her dinner plates (in the cupboard).
Mom would cover piles of important mail and checkbook and her purse -- which were perched all over the kitchen counter -- with paper towels. So "no one" could see them. (She was living alone at the time.)
And don't get me started on her love affairs with paper clips and ziploc bags!
Saving paper products is easy because it is non perishable. It is a compulsion brought on by the earliest years of extreme waste not want not.
My grandma never ...never.. threw out any paper. My mom was afflicted with this to some degree too. I still have to figure out a time to start remove the mountain of used wrapping paper so she doesn't see it going away.
She also has the ziploc bag obsession. All paper is filed and labeled in gallon-sized ziploc bags. All food is repackaged and labeled in quart-size ziploc bags. Also all garbage bags must be see-through plastic, the large size that is only available at a warehouse store, and she usually goes through the garbage before taking it out to the curb.
Alas she is too young to have the depression as an excuse. Her parents were very wealthy so it's not like she grew up learning to save things.