lumina services

Stoves and countertop burners in retirement residences

Posted by kmancer on November 28th, 2009

In my last (and first) post I mentioned stoves and countertop burners in retirement residences. By that term I mean places where people get their meals, housekeeping, laundry etc but are basically independent. They are mostly, to use a horrible term, “cognitively intact”. I think I am mostly cognitively intact too, but I digress.

Here is an excerpt on that topic (stoves I mean, not cognition) from one of the books I am writing.

“ In spite of the stove’s huge contribution to domestic simplicity, people, especially women, seem more than happy to jettison this monument to labor-saving technology the minute they have the opportunity to do so. Nine out of 10 people interviewed in a recent research project Lumina was involved in either don’t use their stove (if they have one) or don’t miss it (if they don’t). One woman told me she stores her Christmas decorations in her oven because she is short of cupboard space. Someone else theorized that not having a stove in units absolves women from guilt about not cooking. And yet there are those who feel strongly that the presence of a stove conveys a message about independence—“you may not want to cook and you certainly don’t have to, but if you did decide to bake a cake or roast a chicken you could go right ahead and do that.” I knew a seniors’ housing developer years ago in Saskatchewan who believed that providing any more than eight dinners a month was bad for people’s sense of independence.

While it is true that seniors fear loss of independence much more than they fear death, most do not seem to equate the absence of a stove with a loss of independence. Many women find it liberating. There are the safety concerns to consider as well. Stoves may create a fire hazard if used by people who are forgetful. Residents in buildings without stoves in the units often cite their absence as a comfort, although people living in buildings with stoves don’t seem to be overly worried that their neighbors’ cooking habits might create fire hazards. The community I visited whose residents were most concerned about fire hazards was, probably not coincidentally, the most restrictive about anything that generated heat—stoves, toaster ovens, candles.

And yet, I believe that fostering a sense of indepedence trumps guilt and fire worries. Fire hazards can be managed, and so can guilt with some good professional help. If I were building my own building, I would include either a stove or some burners. So what do YOU think?

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Senior Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.