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81 years old. Lives in a Ranch style home across the street from us. She requires a walker and her travel distance severely limited. Lives alone. One son who lives 40 miles away. Son has moved twice in the past 5 years, each time further away.
Son cuts his Mom's lawn 2 or 3 times per month, and she pays him! We cut it other times for free. We do 100% of her snowshovelling and de-iceing during Winter months, and nearly all of her lawn raking in Fall for no charge. We also hand deliver her mail to her each day.
Her laundry is in the basement and her son ( a union pioefitter) has been promising for years to install a first floor laundry but has done nothing. She drives and does her own grocery shopping using motorized carts, but getting from parking lot to store lobby, and store lobby to her car, consumes all her energy.
She insists on remaining independent but is clearly living in an unsafe environment.
We would discuss this with her son but he is a lazy POS (in my opinion) and might intentionally be doing the absolute minimum to expedite his sizeable inheritance!
What to do? Any ideas? Nice lady and we enjoy her friendship.
Stay out of it. She is an adult, making her own decisions.
It is nice you help her, do it if you want to help, but not out of any expectations.
Everyone around my MIL thought we were all POS's. "how can they leave her alone?!!!!"
So they helped out, and she treated them like poop, and then they understood and stopped speaking to her.
She fired all the Medicare aids because they were minorities, then told us she needed $350 a month to have someone help her. Big nope.
It's not your business, your opinions on the situation really have no value.
I may be confusing posters, but are the person who has quite a few posts/threads about you helping other people and there being problems?
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81 years old. Lives in a Ranch style home across the street from us. She requires a walker and her travel distance severely limited. Lives alone. One son who lives 40 miles away. Son has moved twice in the past 5 years, each time further away.
Son cuts his Mom's lawn 2 or 3 times per month, and she pays him! We cut it other times for free. We do 100% of her snowshovelling and de-iceing during Winter months, and nearly all of her lawn raking in Fall for no charge. We also hand deliver her mail to her each day.
Her laundry is in the basement and her son ( a union pioefitter) has been promising for years to install a first floor laundry but has done nothing. She drives and does her own grocery shopping using motorized carts, but getting from parking lot to store lobby, and store lobby to her car, consumes all her energy.
She insists on remaining independent but is clearly living in an unsafe environment.
We would discuss this with her son but he is a lazy POS (in my opinion) and might intentionally be doing the absolute minimum to expedite his sizeable inheritance!
What to do? Any ideas? Nice lady and we enjoy her friendship.
Thanks.
Your neighbor will need to face the consequences of her own decisions which sound very poor to me. Remember her decisions have been VERY poor as a Mother too hence the reason he is only there 2x a month doing the bare minimum for her. I would not cut her lawn, rake the leaves, she sounds like a con-artist.
Helping others can be a slippery slope as I know from personal experience. It can escalate until you are doing too much and people go from being grateful to expecting it. However, adults are allowed to make their own decisions and live unsafely and as a former social worker I support them. But they have to live with the consequences of their decisions. My advice is to be careful that you don’t help so much that you grow resentful.
She's an adult making her own decisions and she wants to remain living independently in her own home for as long as possible. It's nice of you to help her out with snow shoveling and leaf raking but the truth is most people her age require help with chores like that. It doesn't mean that they can't live in their homes. If those chores are not something that you can help her with anymore then let her know and I'm sure she'll hire it done. If she's able to do her own grocery shopping then she's probably capable of fending for herself, at least for now.
It's good that her son drops by to visit her. It is not unusual at all for the elderly to want to stay living in their own homes with their familiar things and keep going to their same neighborhood stores.
Stay out of it. She is an adult, making her own decisions.
It is nice you help her, do it if you want to help, but not out of any expectations.
Everyone around my MIL thought we were all POS's. "how can they leave her alone?!!!!"
So they helped out, and she treated them like poop, and then they understood and stopped speaking to her.
She fired all the Medicare aids because they were minorities, then told us she needed $350 a month to have someone help her. Big nope.
It's not your business, your opinions on the situation really have no value.
I may be confusing posters, but are the person who has quite a few posts/threads about you helping other people and there being problems?
I agree with this. You really have no idea what her family dynamics are. Help her to a certain point if you want to, otherwise she already has resources she isn't using. For example she can have groceries delivered. She can hire someone to help with laundry and shovel snow once in a while, and do lawn maintenance.
You said she will leave a sizable inheritance for her son. She needs to use some of that now to help her with things she has trouble doing for herself. For goodness sake, she's in her 80s and won't be taking any money with her to the grave. If she's too cheap to hire some help once in a while, that's her own doing.
We cut it other times for free. We do 100% of her snowshovelling and de-iceing during Winter months, and nearly all of her lawn raking in Fall for no charge. We also hand deliver her mail to her each day.
Basically, you are enabling her son not to have to do anything, because "the neighbors across the street are taking care of her."
Next you'll be driving her to doctor appointments, surgeries, and the grocery store.
I would never get involved with a neighbor like this because when you get tired of it (and yes, you will), she will expect you to keep it up.
It's certainly nice of you to do it, but that feeling will eventually go away and you will resent having to do all of this. In fact, you are part of the way there because you are blaming the son instead of pointing fingers at yourself.
She can drive the store carts to her car.
You can find a handyman to move her laundry.
You can find a local lawn/snow service for her.
You have given and she has accepted your gifts. It may turn into expectations. I would retain the friendship, the small gestures but not extend further right now.
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