Our home, favorite furniture, or comfy rug where we used to sit: all of these become less innocent the older we get. Little details that we once ignored can become tricky or suddenly require more attention and care.
To learn more about which household objects have become potentially life-threatening, we interviewed a group of people over 75. Here’s what many elderly people had to say about seemingly innocent, everyday objects in their homes.
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Refrigerator door
Oddly enough, several people said that their refrigerator door became unexpectedly large or heavy. Opening the fridge door becomes hard to manage when one’s grip lacks sufficient strength to handle the suction. “It’s like the fridge door grew muscles overnight,” a woman in our survey said. She fell once when she pulled too quickly.
Old-fashioned clocks on high shelves
It’s not a dangerous appliance or heavy tool. However, reaching for one on a high shelf has tripped up or injured more seniors than you might think. “I used to be Mr. Fix-It, you know,” one man said. “I used to change batteries and adjust the time and that was it. No problem. But not anymore. Now I wait for my grandson to change the time or I just leave it.”
Sliding windows
It’s the actual sliding part of the window that is hard for some seniors. Some windows require the right amount of pressure and if a senior’s hands slip a little, they might fall or end up with bruised knuckles. Even having fresh air in their homes has now become a little more dangerous for some.
Medicine bottles with childproof caps
Parents use these to keep medicine away from their children. Opening those tight childproof lids is not so easy when you age. Joints weaken; bottles spill. Several older people said they gave up on daily pill bottles and only use large containers for weekly use. “The bottle always wins,” one man said.
Floor-length curtains
Beautiful when they drape from the window to the floor, but that floor length now creates a risk for some. Pulling a walker, a cane, or even a shoe through that curtain can cause a big problem. One woman in our survey said her curtain pulled down half the rod when her cane hooked it. Now, she trims the curtains above the floor.
Microwave plates
Pulling out a hot plate from a high shelf in the microwave can be dangerous. Heat plus weight plus height equals a recipe for dropped plates and burning fingers. One senior laughed, “That’s why I eat soup in mugs now.”
The garden hose
Not the watering, but the winding. Several survey respondents said the twisting and turning of a heavy hose left them dizzy and unbalanced. A few admitted they now only use retractable reels on hoses to avoid the “hose wrestling matches.”
Decorative floor plants
They might look beautiful when they’re placed around a room. But plants on the floor that have to be stepped over can be dangerous when aging vision blurs or lighting dims in the home. One gentleman we surveyed said he’s kicked that same fern three times this year. “And it keeps winning,” he jokingly said.
Bedside lamp switch
A few participants in our survey said it was easy to knock the lamp over when fumbling with the switch. Some even reported getting their hand tangled in the cord while still asleep. The danger is not in the lamp itself, but the moment between being cozy and being clumsy in bed.
Rolling desk chairs
Those who had desks with chairs on wheels in their younger years enjoyed them. But now the swiveling wheels they once loved so much are dangerous. “My chair tried to run away from me yesterday,” a man in our survey said. “I couldn’t sit down because it wouldn’t come to me.” He called them “a danger disguised as convenience.”
The washing machine
This was not a comment about electricity or leaks, but the laundry that needs to be pulled out. One participant said her back can not bend over the washing machine the way it once did. Others agreed and said the newer front-loading machines were a blessing to avoid the “acrobatics” of laundry day. They just have to be installed at the right height.
Like our content? Be sure to follow us.
