Eavedropping and rooting and snooping

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Is this behaviour that all old people engaged in. This is stuff that I caught my mother doing over the past 3 years or so and there's more and more evidence of more. All I have to do is leave a shopping bag on the kitchen floor, go to the bathroom and come back and she has her head and hands in my shopping. I caught her loitering in the hall when I was on my phone too. It's just so small minded and disgusting and she has no boundaries and I feel like if I call her out on it she will only become extremely thick and ignorant and angry with me.

Just this evening she came to me with a request to buy her lip balms from the internet. I helped her last year with it. Now she wants more.

After the behaviours I caught her doing, I just can't stomach the idea of spending my own money on her own stuff when she has no respect for me. I told her I checked online and can't find them yet and I think I will stay with that excuse.

Would you ask if all black people or all women behave in X way? No? So don’t do it to older people.

If your mother wasn’t always like this it may be dementia or general cognitive decline, or given how much it is upsetting you perhaps she was always a nosy cow but she now tries to hide it less.

It sounds like you need to reduce the time you see her for. It’s a bit weird to be mean about getting her lip balm though, isn’t it?

I don't understand your problem with the lip balms.

You do come across as quite nasty, irritated and dismissive of her, which is really sad. Also the term "disgusting" is a little bit extreme to use about her looking through the/her/your shopping.
Has she always been the nosey type? If not, have you ever thought that she hasn't got enough going on in her life and that she's trying to find something interesting, albeit small and boring?
Do you live at home or just generally visit?
Do you have other family to help out, or is resentment growing because you're the only one she depends on?
It's almost like you're punishing her by not getting her the lip balm she wants? What is the issue with getting her it?
It's hard to say what's going on, with little back story to this really.

Ref the ‘snooping’ is she bored? If you’re her only contact with the outside world it might be an (unpleasant) manifestation of loneliness.

When we buy stuff online for FIL we use his card, we don’t pay for stuff because we’d never get the money back. A bottle of milk here and there is one thing but his Amazon trawls are something else.

It’s hard looking after parents. You get all the feels, and a massive rise of frustration. If you don’t have anyone to vent to irl there’s always someone around on here.

This is a very unkind post OP.

No, not all old people snoop. They are not one identical group of people who all behave the same way when they draw their pension.

Just this evening she came to me with a request to buy her lip balms from the internet. I helped her last year with it. Now she wants more.

I don't get this at all. I often buy stuff for my parents, I then say, 'I got you the x and x, it comes to £25' then she gives me the money. If she doesn't give you the money you need to ask for it. If she says, 'no, I'm not giving you any money' then obviously you're within your rights to refuse any further requests to buy her stuff because she doesn't pay you back!

Just get her a lip balm. It's horrible when it's cold and your lips crack.

As you know she has a snooping personality, then don't leave shopping about in her house. She may have the start of dementia or maybe shes lonely or bored. What's the big deal? Have you got something secretive in your bag? It's annoying but she's your mum. Does it really matter? Don't you have other battles to fight instead?

Just get her the lipbalm. It's £5, if that. You could probably find them in the poundshop for £1. If it keeps her happy then what's a few quid?

This sounds familiar OP, have you posted before?

Do you have a sibling who lives abroad who sends you photos but you don't want to show your Mum?

Thank you for helping me understand. It's unnerving but thank you for explaining.

I am not responsible for her being lonely. She never developed a friendship network. She comes from a large group of siblings and she wont ever meet them ever and their only relationship is sending Xmas cards. They saw each other at a funeral in 2010 and didn't see each other again in 13 years. They all live in the same country bar one and many of them in the same county too. My mother will never pick up the phone and make arrangements and if they make arrangements she pushes them away.

She wanted to take up a hobby a few years ago and said it to me and I gave her loads of ideas and all she did was decline them all.

I'm not responsible for her being lonely. It's so unnerving what she does.

I grew up with a neighbour who was an older man. He was a bachelor and and he lived with his brother who was also a bachelor. He brother was lovely but this other man. I will call him Jonny. He would go into town every day on the bus to do nothing but loiter around and he was know just to eye up women. If he got lucky and chatted to anyone he would give the wrong name and address and often the names of other neighbour men so other neighbours would get these strange women calling to their doors.

In recent years, I caught him when I was out walking home at night for loitering around homes and looking in windows. He was an awful idle old man.
Lately my mother kinda reminds me of him to some degree. Just idle. It's different but in her own way it is so much similar. Sometimes she reminds me of a child with autistism in that if I walk into a room she will walk out without talking to me but she snoops, roots, eavesdropps and takes and even takes personal items which is unnerving. But she will hardly talk to me until she wants something.

It's not just one lip balm with her. When she wants something there is no stop with her. It won't be one. She will want me to get a 5 pack or more and there's just no switch off point with her.

A few months ago she was looking for washing power but she wanted it on offer. I found a fantastic offer on a co-op shop. It was a giant box of washing powder that was like an industrial box. Definitely like for B&Bs and hotels. It was huge and it was great value for 30 pounds. I suggested that to her but then she wanted more of them. She did not want just one. She wanted at least 2 or more.

I had to pull back and make excuses about having bank and card problems. Because it was just too much. There is no switch off point with her.

I am not responsible for her being lonely.
No, you’re not. Just because an anti-social or unpleasant person gets old does not mean they should be forgiven and coddled.

The collecting/hoarding does sound like a thing though. I can understand your wariness.