There is an elderly lady living across the street from us. It's become obvious in the last six months or so that she is in the throes of some sort of dementia/ senility. She has no children but there are three nephews who used to visit regularly but now they come sporadically at best - to my knowledge as I am in work all day. To DH and myself (and other neighbours we have discussed it with) it has become obvious that she is no longer capable for caring for herself. She stands out on the street yelling abuse at no one in particular, she goes from door-to-door knocking and ringing bells - sometimes she just wants to chat, sometimes she need help with her bills, sometimes she has cakes for the children. In the last two weeks she has approached DH very upset saying that all her money has been stolen, she has a special hiding place in her house apparently. One week she said she was missing £300, yesterday she said she was missing £400 - DH has advised her to go to the police and lent her money to tide her over as she said she had no money for food.
Thing is we suspect it might be one of her nephews stealing her money, DH asked her to think carefully who had access to the house - she mentioned one nephew, lets call him Tom - his name crops up all the time. Her version of events is so unreliable though - one time she said Tom calls every day, another time she said she hadn't seen him for months etc etc. Tom won't give her his phone number - think he changed it as she used to call him at all hours.
It's not our place to get involved but we can't sit back and do nothing. BTW other neighbours think it's just as likely she has forgotten where she put the money or hasn't collected her pension at all. What is the appropriate level of intervention from concerned neighbours? We have tried to track down nephew to talk about our concerns - not possible at the address the lady gave us. Is it our place to talk to police/ social services? There are other incidents pointing to how much her mind has deteriorated lately but this is already long enough! Would appreciate any advice.
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to wonder how to handle this neighbour?
17 replies
knitpicker · 04/10/2012 12:54
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