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I. How We Work in Washington. Based on your preferences, we provide you with information about one or more of our contracted senior living providers ("Participating Communities") and provide your Senior Living Care Information to Participating Communities. The Participating Communities may contact you directly regarding their services. APFM does not endorse or recommend any provider. It is your sole responsibility to select the appropriate care for yourself or your loved one. We work with both you and the Participating Communities in your search. We do not permit our Advisors to have an ownership interest in Participating Communities.
II. How We Are Paid. We do not charge you any fee – we are paid by the Participating Communities. Some Participating Communities pay us a percentage of the first month's standard rate for the rent and care services you select. We invoice these fees after the senior moves in.
III. When We Tour. APFM tours certain Participating Communities in Washington (typically more in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.) During the 12 month period prior to December 31, 2017, we toured 86.2% of Participating Communities with capacity for 20 or more residents.
IV. No Obligation or Commitment. You have no obligation to use or to continue to use our services. Because you pay no fee to us, you will never need to ask for a refund.
V. Complaints. Please contact our Family Feedback Line at (866) 584-7340 or ConsumerFeedback@aplaceformom.com to report any complaint. Consumers have many avenues to address a dispute with any referral service company, including the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at: Consumer Protection Division, 800 5th Avenue, Ste. 2000, Seattle, 98104 or 800-551-4636.
VI. No Waiver of Your Rights. APFM does not (and may not) require or even ask consumers seeking senior housing or care services in Washington State to sign waivers of liability for losses of personal property or injury or to sign waivers of any rights established under law.I agree that: A.I authorize A Place For Mom ("APFM") to collect certain personal and contact detail information, as well as relevant health care information about me or from me about the senior family member or relative I am assisting ("Senior Living Care Information"). B.APFM may provide information to me electronically. My electronic signature on agreements and documents has the same effect as if I signed them in ink. C.APFM may send all communications to me electronically via e-mail or by access to an APFM web site. D.If I want a paper copy, I can print a copy of the Disclosures or download the Disclosures for my records. E.This E-Sign Acknowledgement and Authorization applies to these Disclosures and all future Disclosures related to APFM's services, unless I revoke my authorization. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time (except where we have already disclosed information before receiving your revocation.) This authorization will expire after one year. F.You consent to APFM's reaching out to you using a phone system than can auto-dial numbers (we miss rotary phones, too!), but this consent is not required to use our service.
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Orange scented plug-in if possible for the facility, and sometimes if the patient can just wear perfume, that can be a great help. The bathing and cleaning has to be ongoing but sometimes due to the delicacy of elderly skin it's not unusual for them to be bathed only two or three times a week, and even if cleaning is done daily, if there are bodily functions being done in the room, the odors will keep happening. Taking trash out frequently when incontinence supplies are changed helps. So even if there is adequate cleaning and bathing going on, the "masking odors" products can be a big help if allowed at the facility and not harmful to the elderly person due to allergies, breathing issues, or other factors.
Odor Ban is a good product. However, if he is incontinent, the pee smell is probably in the chair that he sits in most often. That has to be remedied. Have chair professionally cleaned or get him a new one with zippered seat cushion so you can wrap the foam rubber in plastic and place it back in the covering.
Get rubber backing mattress covers, too.
None of the odor eaters are going to work if the pee is still in the furniture. Will just mask odor and will return
When u visit ur father open the window there’s no air circulating. If there are no windows I hope he’s getting enough oxygen . U can take a mop a some medium size bottle of bleach mixed with water not to much Andy’s little pinch of pines a tad bit of dish washing liquid just mop the floor. Got buy some poppurri get nice vase or small bowl that leaves a nice scent buy a lite smell nothing to strong. Make sure his close and covers are being washed.
Definitely DO NOT USE BLEACH IN THIS MAN'S ROOM! Using a "medium sized bottle of bleach with not much water" can ASPHYXIATE you and your father in short order. Also do not leave potpourri in an elders room in managed care, ever!
It is not the job or the place of a loved one to be mopping floors or using fragrances in an elder care community! This is a matter to take up with the management and left to THEM to decide what cleaning products are safe and not hazardous to the elders.
Candyapple, this is the most dangerous "advice" you've doled out on this site yet!
Why don’t you educate yourself first? The “pee” smell is often mistaken as urine however it is most likely 2 nonenal, not piss. Please don’t insult the elderly anymore.
And more often, the urine smell is due to urine having soaked all the soft goods in the elders room. I know the difference between "old people smell" and "piss". Nobody's "insulting the elderly", just talking turkey about the realities of life for the very elderly and sharing tips, which is what we do here. If you'll note, your educational article discusses the origins of the "old people smell" that occurs with humans between 40 and 75 years old. Not 90-somethings suffering from incontinence.
Popted below. Odoban. Non toxic to humans and pets. Environmentally friendly. Eucalyptus and lavender. Takes urine and fecal smells from my dad's carpeted room!!! Fantastic and non harmful. I add it to laundry. Sooo soft, non cling. Use it for carpet cleaning, stains... Can't say enough good about it. ODOBAN!
Odoban. An environmentally friendly non toxic to humans and pets. Eucalyptus or lavender. Fantastic stuff!!!! Takes fecal smells and urine from carpeted room!
Try the ZORBX Unscented Odor Eliminator. This can be found on Amazon. Someone urinated on my car passenger seat. After having it professionally cleaned, I could still smell the urine. I tried the Zorbx and it worked like a miracle. The odor has not returned.
If all these things worked then nursing homes wouldn't smell like urine. Obviously if a paid facility cant find a solution I doubt anyone can. Is this really how the elderly want to live and be remembered?
Aging92: Sadly, if your father is soaking through bedding including sheets, blankets, bedspreads and even pillows and other items, no product is totally going to get rid of the malodor. However, you could try some charcoal bags. Best of luck.
I would first bring it to the attention of the director of nursing and the director of the facility.
Ask the facility if they have an ozonator and request they use it in his room bi weekly.
Buy the blue washable blue protection pads for his bed. https://www.northshorecare.com/incontinence-products/incontinence-bed-pads/washable-bed-pads/northshore-champion-xd-washable-underpads/northshore-champion-xd-washable-underpad-x-large-35x47-in-4pack
Remove any urine stained furniture.
If the carpet stinks of urine tell the facility to replace it.
Make sure they are changing him regularly. Facilities can lax in this area.
Buy a good diaper https://www.carewell.com/product/tena-stretch-ultra-briefs/
Have you complained to the manager? Who is cleaning his room? I can understand if you want to put a freshener in the room but shouldn't the cleaning of the room be the responsibility of the place he is at? They need to use products to help keep the room smelling fresh.
Amen to all who suggested Odoban. Have used it for my Dad (aged 94) for a long while and it works great. Just a small amount of the concentrate in the wash cycle each time I wash (along with his regular detergent) and the odor is gone.
Would an air purifier help? I own this one, which has an activated charcoal filter as well as a HEPA filter: https://www.amazon.com/Winix-5500-2-Purifier-PlasmaWave-Reducing/dp/B01D8DAYII
I don't have a urine odor problem in my house, so can't say if it will help, but it's not very expensive and might help.
If you do buy it you'll have to set it to run continuously. The default setting is for it to go into sleep mode at night.
What works for me is getting rid of all carpets and upholstery. Laundry including bedding done daily in hot water and Persil. Trash with used incontinence products removed at least daily. If mattress is smelly get rid of it and get another. Cover with waterproof case. I use Odoban eucalyptus for cleanups. For me there has been nothing else that works. Also I have to be vigilant in making sure mom wears pullups at all times. I have to accompany her to each toilet visit to make sure she actually backs up and sits on the commode properly. Any drips or misses cleaned up with odoban immediately. Its a lot of work but it's the only solution for me. I doubt if the facility staff would be able to do all these tasks. Mom is at home with me so I have to do it all myself. I dont think I could do it if mom were in a facility.
Praise to you for your commitment to mom. I am fighting my family now because they all want to dump my dad in a home. I worked in these places and in my opinion I will fight til I can't fight anymore to let my daddy die at home with his only baby girl.
My mother lived in Memory Care AL for nearly 3 years. Towards the end of her life, nothing got rid of the urine odor in her room. The staff constantly changed the trash bag in her bathroom and cleaned it up, that wasn't the problem. The problem was this: she wet her recliner chair, she wet her throw, she wet her bedspread, she wet everything, it was all damp with urine. No matter how many times her items were washed, they still reeked. Nobody could wash her recliner fabric, and even though the staff laid down disposable chucks on it, it STILL reeked. I could open the windows in there till the cows came home, and it still smelled awful. This was private pay MC, so that had nothing to do with the price of eggs; her wetting everything in sight DID.
Ask the management what products you can bring in before you do. Then don't get your hopes up if your father is also like my mom, wetting everything that exists in his room. Even if you bring home his laundry and wash it in your machine with all the odor killers available, his room will STILL likely stink b/c the urine is soaked into everything IN there.
It is what it is. I had a hard time dealing with the odors myself in mom's room, but I realized there was nothing to be done about it, really. So I dealt with it.
I had a purse a few years ago that smelled of mildew; I bought some charcoal bags online to put inside the purse b/c charcoal absorbs odors. They did a great job. The bags are scent-free themselves; you can place them around the room w/o offending anyone's allergies etc. Here is a link to these bags on Amazon:
I remember an Aunts facility smelling. I couldn't take visiting her.
I found vinegar in a bowl helped with the smell. If Dad wears polyester pants, I found these are the hardest to get smells out of. Vinegar in the wash water seem to work until I put in the clothes dryer and the smell came back. So I hung Moms pants outside. Never tried the products listed. I did find that Arm and Hammer did not work for me so went back to Tide which seemed to work much better.
Try adding Odoban to his laundry. The gallon size concentrate can be found at Walmart or most big box hardware stores. It removed cat urine odor from my garage cement floor.
My moms memory care unit smells like urine and feces constantly. It's awful. I recently took some plug ins for her room. I haven't been told I can't, so I did. When she was in private pay, it didn't smell like this.
Aging92, before using any products, check with the Staff at the retirement home to be sure it is allowed due to any allergies the Staff or other residents may have. The retirement home may have a product that they use.
Not sure if you are saying he has "gas" or "has" incontinence. If he is incontinent then changing his disposable briefs (aka "diaper") EACH time it gets wet in important. If clothes are wet they get changed as well. If bedding gets wet they get changed. Furniture should be cleanable NO cloth recliner, couch, chair... Bathroom should be cleaned daily particularly at the base of the toilet. If the floor is tile the grout will hold urine and will cause odor unless it is cleaned properly. There are products that will get rid of odors. Clorox makes a product called Urine Remover that does a great job. OdorBan is a very good product. Enzyme based it eliminates odors not just covers them. Diluted several different strengths it can be an air freshener all the way to a Sanitizer. If this is an Assisted Living facility this problem should be brought up to management. It is their responsibility to provide a clean and safe environment.
NOW if this is a "gas" problem. There are air fresheners that might help. I have also read of charcoal underwear liners that will help absorb odor. Not sure if they work but I guess there is a product for every "problem"
I agree with all that you are saying about urine issues. When it gets into things like chairs, mattresses, and rugs, it soaks into the padding of these items. The number one way to get rid of these odors, unfortunately is to discard the items. Then, beware of what you buy if you replace them. Talk with his caregivers at his retirement residence. They often have ideas to stop the odor from taking over. My mom had such bad incontinence that when we finally moved her into assisted living, we had to strip the room and discard every “soft item in there”. We thought we would have to remove the carpet and pad but the carpet cleaning had something that neutralized the odor and luckily it could be saved. Unfortunately wen we bought her a recliner and mattress for the assisted living place she moved into, the chair was vinyl, and the mattress was enclosed in a plastic mattress bag before any waterproof mattress pads were put onto it. Our family were all in agreement that her furniture would be eventually ruined. The main issue is actually the “source” of the problem. Talk to his doctor and the retirement home staff and seek out any and all advice on how to stop him from “overflowing past his depends”. Even while the thought of a catheter and bag seems to not be a very feasible answer, it is amazing how this can change things for your father. Good luck! I know (firsthand) that this is a very difficult thing to go through with a parent. Your parent and you should be able to spend time together without the concern of odor driving you away. Don’t give up until you find a solution. People always need to talk to doctors, even if they think the problem is inevitable. ALWAYS ask WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION? These are our parents and we always want the very best for them.
Can you open the window and air it out while you are there? There are options like activated charcoal or vinegar in small bowls if he will let them be. I like the plug ins from bath and body works, or even glade ( at the grocer) and many have night lights also,, a plus! And since it;s gas,, can he have Beano? Its a small pill and it works at the source
I use OdoBan for my mom’s puddles. You can get the concentrated formula in a gallon jug or diluted formula in a spray bottle. I use the concentrate in the laundry rinse for her clothes and sheets and towels to eliminate the odors. I dilute the concentrate to refill the spray bottle. I spray the floor after I mop up the puddle. I like the eucalyptus scent.
By proceeding, I agree that I understand the following disclosures:
I. How We Work in Washington.
Based on your preferences, we provide you with information about one or more of our contracted senior living providers ("Participating Communities") and provide your Senior Living Care Information to Participating Communities. The Participating Communities may contact you directly regarding their services.
APFM does not endorse or recommend any provider. It is your sole responsibility to select the appropriate care for yourself or your loved one. We work with both you and the Participating Communities in your search. We do not permit our Advisors to have an ownership interest in Participating Communities.
II. How We Are Paid.
We do not charge you any fee – we are paid by the Participating Communities. Some Participating Communities pay us a percentage of the first month's standard rate for the rent and care services you select. We invoice these fees after the senior moves in.
III. When We Tour.
APFM tours certain Participating Communities in Washington (typically more in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.) During the 12 month period prior to December 31, 2017, we toured 86.2% of Participating Communities with capacity for 20 or more residents.
IV. No Obligation or Commitment.
You have no obligation to use or to continue to use our services. Because you pay no fee to us, you will never need to ask for a refund.
V. Complaints.
Please contact our Family Feedback Line at (866) 584-7340 or ConsumerFeedback@aplaceformom.com to report any complaint. Consumers have many avenues to address a dispute with any referral service company, including the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at: Consumer Protection Division, 800 5th Avenue, Ste. 2000, Seattle, 98104 or 800-551-4636.
VI. No Waiver of Your Rights.
APFM does not (and may not) require or even ask consumers seeking senior housing or care services in Washington State to sign waivers of liability for losses of personal property or injury or to sign waivers of any rights established under law.
I agree that:
A.
I authorize A Place For Mom ("APFM") to collect certain personal and contact detail information, as well as relevant health care information about me or from me about the senior family member or relative I am assisting ("Senior Living Care Information").
B.
APFM may provide information to me electronically. My electronic signature on agreements and documents has the same effect as if I signed them in ink.
C.
APFM may send all communications to me electronically via e-mail or by access to an APFM web site.
D.
If I want a paper copy, I can print a copy of the Disclosures or download the Disclosures for my records.
E.
This E-Sign Acknowledgement and Authorization applies to these Disclosures and all future Disclosures related to APFM's services, unless I revoke my authorization. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time (except where we have already disclosed information before receiving your revocation.) This authorization will expire after one year.
F.
You consent to APFM's reaching out to you using a phone system than can auto-dial numbers (we miss rotary phones, too!), but this consent is not required to use our service.
Get rubber backing mattress covers, too.
None of the odor eaters are going to work if the pee is still in the furniture. Will just mask odor and will return
It is not the job or the place of a loved one to be mopping floors or using fragrances in an elder care community! This is a matter to take up with the management and left to THEM to decide what cleaning products are safe and not hazardous to the elders.
Candyapple, this is the most dangerous "advice" you've doled out on this site yet!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X15411984
Ask the facility if they have an ozonator and request they use it in his room bi weekly.
Buy the blue washable blue protection pads for his bed.
https://www.northshorecare.com/incontinence-products/incontinence-bed-pads/washable-bed-pads/northshore-champion-xd-washable-underpads/northshore-champion-xd-washable-underpad-x-large-35x47-in-4pack
Remove any urine stained furniture.
If the carpet stinks of urine tell the facility to replace it.
Make sure they are changing him regularly. Facilities can lax in this area.
Buy a good diaper https://www.carewell.com/product/tena-stretch-ultra-briefs/
how about Under the nose products to try:
Good ole’ Vicks vapor rub
StinkBalm Odor blocker
Essential oils such as lavender or peppermint
I don't have a urine odor problem in my house, so can't say if it will help, but it's not very expensive and might help.
If you do buy it you'll have to set it to run continuously. The default setting is for it to go into sleep mode at night.
Ask the management what products you can bring in before you do. Then don't get your hopes up if your father is also like my mom, wetting everything that exists in his room. Even if you bring home his laundry and wash it in your machine with all the odor killers available, his room will STILL likely stink b/c the urine is soaked into everything IN there.
It is what it is. I had a hard time dealing with the odors myself in mom's room, but I realized there was nothing to be done about it, really. So I dealt with it.
I had a purse a few years ago that smelled of mildew; I bought some charcoal bags online to put inside the purse b/c charcoal absorbs odors. They did a great job. The bags are scent-free themselves; you can place them around the room w/o offending anyone's allergies etc. Here is a link to these bags on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=charcoal+bags+odor+absorber&crid=2EATEWPIC4MJH&sprefix=charcoal+%2Caps%2C853&ref=nb_sb_ss_deep-retrain-0-ops-acceptance_3_9
IDK that they will work to eliminate the odors in dad's room, but it might be worth a try.
Best of luck.
I found vinegar in a bowl helped with the smell. If Dad wears polyester pants, I found these are the hardest to get smells out of. Vinegar in the wash water seem to work until I put in the clothes dryer and the smell came back. So I hung Moms pants outside. Never tried the products listed. I did find that Arm and Hammer did not work for me so went back to Tide which seemed to work much better.
If he is incontinent then changing his disposable briefs (aka "diaper") EACH time it gets wet in important.
If clothes are wet they get changed as well.
If bedding gets wet they get changed.
Furniture should be cleanable NO cloth recliner, couch, chair...
Bathroom should be cleaned daily particularly at the base of the toilet. If the floor is tile the grout will hold urine and will cause odor unless it is cleaned properly.
There are products that will get rid of odors.
Clorox makes a product called Urine Remover that does a great job.
OdorBan is a very good product. Enzyme based it eliminates odors not just covers them. Diluted several different strengths it can be an air freshener all the way to a Sanitizer.
If this is an Assisted Living facility this problem should be brought up to management. It is their responsibility to provide a clean and safe environment.
NOW if this is a "gas" problem. There are air fresheners that might help. I have also read of charcoal underwear liners that will help absorb odor. Not sure if they work but I guess there is a product for every "problem"
Good luck! I know (firsthand) that this is a very difficult thing to go through with a parent. Your parent and you should be able to spend time together without the concern of odor driving you away. Don’t give up until you find a solution. People always need to talk to doctors, even if they think the problem is inevitable. ALWAYS ask WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION? These are our parents and we always want the very best for them.