complaint·September 30, 2025

It was alleged that R1 has gastrointestinal issues causing odor, staff open R1’s door to air out their room into the hallway, and the odor goes into other resident’s rooms causing illness. LPA inspected the entire facility, including the memory care and assisted living sections, common areas, hallways, and 16 resident rooms, including the room of R1 and their neighbors, and noted no bad odors. LPA interviewed four neighboring residents and did not obtain information corroborating any issues relating to smell in the area around R1’s room. LPA interviewed AD who stated that R1 receives incontinence care, does not have any gastrointestinal issues and has regular bowel movements, receives incontinence care with the hallway door closed and the patio door open, and requests that the hallway door be opened after incontinence care is completed and the facility does not deny R1 this personal right. Per AD, there is nothing out of the ordinary about R1 or their incontinence care, the same type of care is provided throughout the facility with no issue, R1 has been out of the facility for almost a month and no complaints were received from other residents about the incontinence care provided to R1 while it was taking place at the facility, and the facility takes general steps to address odors from incontinence care including opening the patio doors, using sprays and diffusers, and running the central air conditioning system. AD stated that the facility was unaware of the alleged odor issue while R1 was in the facility, but if R1 had been at the facility, AD would have inspected their room and asked neighboring residents to gauge the impact of the smell and would have taken appropriate measures to try to mitigate the impact. LPA interviewed one staff who denied the allegation, claiming they never observed any out of the ordinary smells with R1 and that R1 had no gastrointestinal issues. LPA reviewed R1’s Medical Records which indicate that as of September 3, 2025, R1 was not noted to have any gastrointestinal concerns or diagnoses by their doctor. The investigation did not reveal any information corroborating that other residents contracted any gastrointestinal issues from R1. No information was obtained corroborating that there were out of the ordinary smells coming from R1’s room, that any residents were bothered by smells coming from R1’s room, or that the facility did not properly address odors relating to incontinence care. The Department has investigated the above allegation and found it to be Unfounded, meaning the allegation was false, could not have happened, or is without reasonable basis. An exit interview was conducted and a copy of this report was discussed with and provided to facility representative.