I don't have the same mom as some of you gals! She has more cobwebs in her house than I do! I'm finding the older my parents get the less apt they are to keep up the house like they used to. It really is run down and even grungy but it's still home and they love it there and I like visiting.
I remember the days, as a child, Mom would rip the living room apart for "spring cleaning" and the curtains would come down and the furniture moved around so the walls could get a cleaning and even a paint job if necessary. We always had fresh sheets on our beds that smelled like the great outdoors and the bathrooms were spotless. Now I see old everything and though the carpets get vacuumed once in a while there is no deep cleaning anymore. I really don't think they have the money for "upgrades" and the like and they are happy so why should we care, right?
A few weeks ago, the upper kitchen cabinets started to come down. Dad, with mom's help, pushed them back into place and he screwed them all back against the wall. Problem is that the cabinets were custom build when I was a child and the builder did a terrible job and they need to be replaced. Their shower is so grungy that I wouldn't take a shower in there but it works for them. They turned my bedroom into a sitting room with the tv and put in a sliding door to the backyard. I see stains and nails popping through the ceiling in almost all the rooms. But I dare not suggest anything as that might upset them. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Alice