One person [*] in our household will from time to time use too much paper, clogging the toilet -- and then flush it two or three times, with the predictable result, which the rest of us are getting tired of cleaning up.
Is there some sort of timer valve available, that would prevent the toilet tank from refilling for, say, fifteen or twenty minutes after a flush?
[* -- this is an 87 year old with Alzheimer's; while education is obviously the most desirable solution, it equally obviously ain't gonna happen]
Sorry about your troubles. I admire your perseverance, I'm pretty sure I could not cope. Family member or not I'd be reviewing the local assisted care facilities.
Turn the valve almost off. You may have to experiment a little. I've always wondered why sinks and tubs have an overflow drain but toilets don't. How hard would it be?
Get one of those toilets that has a pressure bladder inside the tank. My friend has one and when it's flushed, it sounds like a rocket launch and it would flush a full grown cat if you tried. (No, it was never done by me or anyone else at his house.) Come to think of it a cat did turn up missing but it was one Halloween and the cat was black. Folks will steal black cats that time of year. :-)
Hmmm, Why rest of you are cleaning up? Let the person clean up unless mentally challenged or very old person. If you restrict the water it may end up causing more clogging.
Hmmmm, Do you have a reading comprehension problem, or are you just stupid? Read the paragraph *immediately above* your reply: "an 87 year old with Alzheimer's".
Sorry for your situation, and respect for your dedication.
Is this too off the wall: Ration toilet paper in some way? By putting the TP dispenser OUTSIDE the bathroom, and gently, politely monitoring the quantity used?
Not a good idea, as that may create worse problems.
I'm caring for my 84 yr old Alheimers mother and she has problems thoroughly cleaning herself. Improper cleaning can lead to irritation, inflamation, and eventually infection, physical problems far worse than an overflowing toilet.
You can buy a bidet seat from Toto. No toilet paper, no problem. It does require some wiring. You might also look at getting a Toto Drake toilet while you're at it, if you don't already have a clog-resistant toilet.
You're talking about an 87-year-old with Alzheimer's here. They're lucky he's still using toilet paper, and you expect this person to learn how to use a bidet?
What will happen is this: He won't be able to find the toilet paper so he will...
Use whatever's handy, such as a towel or his own shirt. Lovely.
Pull up his drawers without wiping. Equally lovely.
The solution here is not a cockamaime toilet timer that doesn't exist. Doug needs a toilet that can swallow the wad of paper.
If they're so far gone that they can't read a sign that says to push a button for cleaning, then they probably need someone to wipe for them, but that evidently isn't the case here.
Fill your sink with enough paper to block the overflow. Or stuff some crap down into the sink trap. You'll figger out why a toilet overflow won't work. Sink overflows only prevent overflow if the drain is closed, but the PIPE is still open.
Agree. One must always look for the unexpected consequence with dementia patients. We think they will react to things logically, but their logical facilities are eroding daily and so they do very odd things.
My dad had the same problems and I am on the approach curve with moderate to severe short term memory loss that's advancing. I read posts like this knowing that I'd better think about implementing some of them while I still can. I see two approaches to this problem.
I would try to put a sensor on the toilet paper dispenser that was able to send a pulse to my HomeVision automation controller for each reach of the roller using a tiny magnet and a tiny Hall effect sensor. When the count reached some pre-determined number I would have the HV controller announce "That's enough toilet paper, Mom - time to flush."
Sometimes people with Alzheimer's just need a reminder. They get locked into repetitive behaviors with no internal "counter" to break the loop.
I might even consider rigging an actuator from a car power lock or some other device to just go ahead and flush the toilet after 4 accesses to the toilet paper. It's probably quite "doable" and cheap these days to fit the patient with a GPS so that you'd know where they were. That way you could set the system only to warn mom and not scare a visitor with a bad case of the Aztec two-step into a heart attack when they hear the toilet paper talking . . .
However, for the OP I suggest they get a better toilet that's more resistant to clogs. Many of the previous suggestions, as you note, will cause more serious problems. If your mom is like my dad was, she's also easily frustrated and upset and limiting the TP supply or the water supply is likely to cause agitation and perhaps even more bad behavior than it was meant to prevent.
Many of the new low-flow toilets clog at the drop of a hat because the waste channels are narrower than the older designs. More efficient almost always translates into "less powerful" these days. A good plumber will be able to point the OP to a model that's more clog resistant than current. Maybe others can tell us whether the black market for high powered non-green toilets still exists.
The OP should be thankful that his parent is still able to do the job themselves.
I commend both you and the OP for caring for your parent at home. Sometimes it's a crushing job when they don't even remember who you are or what you're doing for them. Alzheimer's is one of the cruelest jokes Nature plays on us, robbing us of our intellect, our dignity and our sense of well-being.
Children caring for a parent with dementia are prone to serious bouts of depression. They often imagine themselves with the disease as they get older. Worse, still, they typically never get a break from caregiving until the patient passes, evaporating before their very eyes. Best day of my life? When my Dad took me to the World's Fair in NYC. Worst day? When he didn't even know who I was anymore or anything about the Fair. Death is frightening enough. Death by dementia is disastrous. )-;
No easy solution on the timer that I know of. Shutting down the fill valve may help.
Perhaps it is worth investigating some of the newer toilets. They are low flow 1.2 gallon, but have large openings to prevent clogs. American Standard was advertising heavily last year showing all sorts of stuff being flushed.
At first I thought OPs request didn't apply because with my Alsheimer, the guy who hates to wash his hands also uses both sides of the toilet paper.
But the toilet timer does touch on something I notice often. There's a tendency to suggest gadgets to help out, presumably by people who have no practical experience. In the real world it usually boils down to increasing amounts of supervision.
So, the fundamental requirement is don't flush the toilet if the bowl is too full already. The simplest method takes its ispiration from the automotive world. You have to break the mechanical linkage between the flush handle and the flapper. Install a motor to raise and lower the flapper. Replace the flush handle with a softwitch, which while looking exactly like a normal handle will actually just send an electronic signal, a Flush Request, to the computer you build, the Toilet Control Module (TCM). The TCM then drives the motor to operate the flapper. With this in place, add a water level sensor to the bowl and connect it to the TCM. Then rewrite the TCM firmware to keep the flapper closed if the bowl water level is dangerously high. It's so simple that I wouldn't be suprized if there are already several choices on the market today. Of course, they're probably all only available in Japan, so they'll be right-hand drive and have to be adapted for American use.
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