neglected neighbour

[Honneybunny]

More a "what should/can we do"?
Woman next door has advanced MS and has periods where she is severely disabled. She also has estranged husband and four children, three of whom don't seem to be around at all. One is, but seems to be on something all teh time. Her house is a tip, there's rubbish both in and out, dog+cat hairs. It seems to be a health hazard to go near. They have a burst sewage pipe somewhere in the house and the wall we share with them is starting to crumble in places and has mushrooms growing on it.
We don't know how to help... Phone SS? Is there anything else we could do?

maybe phone the council to ask advice?

I would phone ss but be aware that they can offer the woman help but she may not want to take it. If she's able to make that decision herself there's nothing they can do. I'm saying this because if she's in the advanced stages of MS it would surprise me if ss did not know about her already. However, they may not know the full extent and people can somemtimes become cognitively impaired with MS. If you phone you can ask them not to say it was you that phoned if you don't want her to know that.

If you wouldn't mind approaching her yourself you could see if there's anything you can do to help as well?

Any chance you could knock on the door and speak to her ? Think what you can do to help.

What are you doing so far?

Visiting? Are you friendly with her? Gave you asked her what help she needs?

Obviously the burst pipe situation needs to be dealt with asap, but it sounds part of a terrible problem of family neglect of a sick woman. Dreadful

my aunt once had a (far less dramatic) situation with an elderly next door neighbour who was dying and whose daughter didn't really see that it should impinge on her life at all. She took a lot of care of that lady but was always sad and cross that her own family did so little.

I have the same dilemma with the man who lives in the flat downstairs. There is always a terrible smell whenever he opens his windows, and a few weeks ago he was coming out of his front door as I was coming out of mine and I saw that the carpet was just covered in dead flies and filth. I don't know what to do either

What if that was your parent/family member and you didn't know about it? I know, most of us would know and it wouldn't be happening, but it's possible. Would you want to know the neighbours had tried to help?

Nothing wrong with being a nosey neighbour. Knock on the door, find an excuse. The worst they can do is tell you to eff off. You might be able to do something small, or you might feel after speaking to them that SS could help.

Thanks for the replies. We can see if we can get through. I have to admit that usually we stick to ourselves, but maybe in this case we need to take some action... Don't really like sticking my nose in, but then again, this is getting hugely out of hand. Have seen rats already...

What I find incredibly sad about this, is that the lady actually has 4 healthy grown up children, who don't seem to care enough to come and clean, cook and do the gardening once in a while. If they did then we would never have ended up in this situation.

It really doesn't count as nosiness to make sure an infirm neighbour is ok.

Apart from anything else, for purely selfish reasons you are going to have to do something if there are rats in her house and fungus growing in yours.0