Back in the day, and perhaps still in other countries, we had evaporative cooling. You had to keep the windows open.

OP, could this be part of the problem for your MIL, not understanding the difference between evaporative and central air?

Anonymous wrote:Put in one more ac and nail the windows shut, don’t answer the phone. Voila, as long as you didn’t mess up the installation and cause a fire, problem solved.

I came here to say the same thing. Screw the windows shut. And then wait for the calls that she's mad she can't open them.

I spent a Summer living with my MIL after my FIL passed away and she was..... like a toddler about everything.

I:


-put my keys in the wrong place
-parked wrong
-put the trash cans away wrong
-used the washing machine/dishwasher/fridge wrong
-I ate dinner at the wrong time
-bought the wrong type of chicken to grill (and feed her)
-bought russet potatoes instead of yukons. Wrong!
-bought basmati instead of long grain. Wrong again!
-sat in the front room at night on my computer, against the rules
-took showers too long
-didn't use my knife and fork correctly


And on and on. Never mind the fact that the entire summer I was working FT and still spent an hour a day fixing things at her house for free and cooking her two meals a day while she didn't do shit except get into the Chardonnay at 3 each afternoon.

1. Buy her a fan.
2. Tell her you're not helping her anymore if she's opening the windows with the A/C on
3. Give her links to A/C units so she can order one.
4. Give her the names and numbers of a few handymen who do installs

OR, if she has dementia, talk to your wife about getting her into memory care.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She burned out her third AC becuse she 'likes to have the windows open too."

I have explained, ad nauseum, how this kills the compressor. She doesn't care. I told her this would happen again after I installed the second AC, if she continued to run it with the windows open.

Shes on day 3 of the heat wave and crying to my wife that it's too hot.

I'm not giving her another one.

That's all.

Is she European? They don’t seem to understand Ac or central air or that there are different climates than in the homeland.

Stop buying appliances for people who can’t maintain them properly. Ie overwork them to death.

Hey! I'm European and my elderly parents know very well that you can't use A/C and open the windows at the same time. Everyone knows that. OP's MIL might have dementia.

Bad, PP, bad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so glad my in laws are dead. Hang in there.

Mofo

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this your problem?

IF she wants to have the windows open she should enjoy it and you should enjoy not hearing about it.

OP here.

1. Because it's my wife's mom
2. Because my wife doesn't know how to install AC
3. Because my wife has no brothers to help
4. Becaue my MIL doesn't know how or have the funds to to the work
5. Because she is a spolied brat that will belarening a very hot and long lesson.

I think the fifth one is the only that matters here.

Unless her health is imminently at risk, let her sweat it out. If she complains, tell her you can help her order a new AC and find a handyman to install it.

Heat does make health at risk for elderly folks.

Anonymous wrote:I'm so glad my in laws are dead. Hang in there.

Teach your wife how to do it and then make it her problem.

Anonymous wrote:She burned out her third AC becuse she 'likes to have the windows open too."

I have explained, ad nauseum, how this kills the compressor. She doesn't care. I told her this would happen again after I installed the second AC, if she continued to run it with the windows open.

Shes on day 3 of the heat wave and crying to my wife that it's too hot.

I'm not giving her another one.

That's all.

Is she European? They don’t seem to understand Ac or central air or that there are different climates than in the homeland.

Stop buying appliances for people who can’t maintain them properly. Ie overwork them to death.

Put in one more ac and nail the windows shut, don’t answer the phone. Voila, as long as you didn’t mess up the installation and cause a fire, problem solved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Letting a senior citizen stay alone in an un-air conditioned house in a head wave is elder abuse.

I would tell her to hire a handyman in the future but I would send her to a hotel until she did so. I would not want someone’s death on my conscience no matter how spoiled they were.

I had a distant relative die of dehydration in her own home during a heat wave. What matters is monitoring. OP's wife can check up by phone, and visits and if she seems disoriented, call 911. On her dime.
To be clear, I'm assuming OP's MIL is in the DC area where last weekend it was still non-life threatening to live in a house without A/C for a person who is mobile and can cool themselves down with water and pull down the blinds. My relative fell, couldn't get up again, and passed away in a 45C degree heat wave in southern Europe. Not the same sort of heat at all.

NP. We don't know where the MIL live but "monitoring" is too little too late in many cases. By the time MIL "seems disoriented" she might be far along the path to her body shutting down, depending on her physical condition. And many of us, OP's wife included, aren't trained in what to look for. Just going by whether mom seems disoriented is not good advice.

OP, sounds like your MIL is not thinking straight and/or does not grasp (no matter how much you explain it) the fact that her habit of a lifetime -- the windows open-- is the reason she's killing these AC units. Instead of expending your energy being mad at her, your wife should be the one to get a third party to come talk to her. Some older people respond much better to hearing things, from a doctor, handyman, a professional AC installer, their pastor/priest, a home visitor from the county services for the elderly, than they do to hearing from their own adult children and in-laws. Your MIL is your wife's to handle and your wife should get on the ball to tell, not ask, her mom to stop this, and should enlist someone your mom will listen to, to reinforce the message. Frankly this heat is nothing compared to what's coming when summer really hits, and your MIL is actually at risk here. But you are too pi$$3d (with very understandable reason, OP!) to keep dealing with it. And your wife needs to realize she has to step up or she may get a call in August one day about her mom being found in a hellishly hot house and rushed to a hospital.

Note: I say it's the wife's job because I think that it's the role of the adult child to handle their own parent. I'd say the same if the adult child were OP, a man, and iit was his parent who was being this way about the AC.

I'm so glad my in laws are dead. Hang in there.

Anonymous wrote:Letting a senior citizen stay alone in an un-air conditioned house in a head wave is elder abuse.

I would tell her to hire a handyman in the future but I would send her to a hotel until she did so. I would not want someone’s death on my conscience no matter how spoiled they were.

I had a distant relative die of dehydration in her own home during a heat wave. What matters is monitoring. OP's wife can check up by phone, and visits and if she seems disoriented, call 911. On her dime.
To be clear, I'm assuming OP's MIL is in the DC area where last weekend it was still non-life threatening to live in a house without A/C for a person who is mobile and can cool themselves down with water and pull down the blinds. My relative fell, couldn't get up again, and passed away in a 45C degree heat wave in southern Europe. Not the same sort of heat at all.