To hope my sister is about to learn a really hard lesson?

[Sistertrouble]

where do I start.

Dsis was on her very last chance with her landlord and I think she has just blown it.
She rents the house she lives in but the council pay her rent and council tax.
Lets say my sister is not the cleanest person in the world, well her house is an absolute pigs sty, its dirty smelly, even flys have moved in.
The house has no order in it at all, clean and dirty clothes mixed together spread all over the house, kitchen draws hanging off, holes in the walls and doors,
Just a complete mess.
My parents and I are always bailing her out doing a deep clean, fixing things ect before her landlord does a check, but it never lasts, a few days later it's back to the way it was.
Her poor dcs have to live in that, they go to school in dirty clothes, they wear the same socks all week, their feet really smell, god knows why the school haven't said anything they must of noticed.
The beds never have any covers or pillow cases on, their bedrooms carpets all ripped up, the dcs have no boundaries and never told off when they're naught, my sister has no control at all.
I could go on and on but I won't bore you with it all, yesterday her landlord turned up out of the blue and of course the place was a tip, she came because neighbours made a complant about the state of the garden, the gate blew off, well so she says, but i know the kids climb up and down it.
The landlord has said she will be doing weekly checks from now on, she is going back next week.
The icing on the cake is her oh lives there and he works full time while she us claiming to be a single parent, the landlord knows this as she has been told by neighbors and has said she is going to tell the council what she knows.

Sorry this is long but aibu to hope he gets caught living there and landlord gives her notice for her to move out?

Poor Landlord. Poor taxpayer. And most of all Poor Children!!

OP Report her for benefit fraud. Report her to Social services. If she is genuinly ill they will put in support for her. If she is just lazy she deserves to have her children taken off her. No child should live in squalor. It is child abuse!

From what the op has said her sister is dirty, lazy, a bad mother who lets her children go to school in dirty clothes, and while the tax payer is paying for her house (that she has no respect for) she has moved a bloke in who works .

Not a shining example of anything good is she?

how is that what is wrong with 'people today' though? that is two individuals in one family. hardly, representative of society in general and certainly not 'everything' that is wrong with people today. there are lots of different things wrong in society, this is one thing.

also, why are you directing this all at her and not her partner?

I don't know where the money goes, I'm 99% sure they're not on drugs.
If she wasn't my sister I would of reported her ages ago, I just can bring myself to do it. But I will as a last resort if it will help her.

I think you have a duty of care to report her and her DP for the sake of the kids. Sorry but this slips through the cracks all to often, I see it every day in my job and it's heartbreaking. She's had her chance, you've given her help. Who is helping them?

i agree with bibibelle. they have had the deepcleans from your family. they have had the landlord give them a final chance. and nothing is changing. SS will insist they improve the living conditions in the house or they will place the dcs with your mum. SS will also be better equipped than your family to put in place the help they need.

I don't mean to scare you, but actually if things are really that bad and children are being neglected, you and/or your mum need to find a way of communicating your concerns to your sister and ensuring that she takes on board and acts on these worries.

Otherwise one of you will need to report to childrens services. If things are so bad that the school will notice and potentially report it you need to intervene. Social Services can get very twitchy about placing children with friends and family if they have reason to believe that the same family members have sat by and observed the abuse (which neglect is). It does not always follow that children will be placed with family members, at least not in the interimn, until assessments have been completed.

sorry, meant to add , might sound harsh, but any parent knows that children's needs have to be put before an adults. This is what SS will want to see that a prospective carer is able to do

The family are giving practical support, but there has been no mention of any emotional support and it strikes me that she needs that more than anything else. It's all very well to go in and deep clean but how about sitting down with a cup of tea and talking as well? OP doesn't seem to know what makes her sister tick, she doesn't know where the money goes, what she does all day. Maybe the Sis is desperate for someone to do that?

I have not read the whole thread ( sorry) but if SS did get involved and your mum said she would have them, they would probably look at family fostering, not just rip them out of their home and into care.

Waltons while I agree the sister may need emotional support those children need IMMEDIATE support

just read snakes and ladders- maybe short term fostering to see if she can clean her act up a bit. This would be in conjunction with SS helping your sister.

sorry, haven't read the whole thread, but thinking about it, coud either you or your mum offer to take the children in now before things get out of hand? is it possible that your sister would see this as a supportive measure?

We could take them in but I doubt very much she would want us to.

Social services definately need to be involved.

She is clearly lacking the capacity to parent to a "good enough" level for reasons which will need looking. The children won't necessarily be removed especially if she engages in working with the professionals.

Agree with the previous poster who said your failure to make a referral makes you complicit in the neglect. Please make a referral.

if you really believe that you are powerless to influence any change you must report this.

Boohoo I think both she and her partner sound vile, and people like them are fast becoming the dregs of society.
I do not pay my taxes so some workshy woman can have her rent paid while she sits on the internet, lives in squalor, neglects her children and has her cocklodger sponging off the rest of us

I think this has gone beyond the " go around for a cup of tea and ask her if she is ok " stage.

The op has posted out of desperation after years and years of the same pattern, all the while the children are getting more and more neglected and the woman is spiraling downward. She pays someone for pick ups? This is quite serious and I think she needs help from ss. It has reached last resort stage.

Although I agree completely with both of these comments ...

... I haven't seen a single comment from OP to suggest that she and her family have ever tried to do any of this. I've asked twice and had slightly evasive replies back from the OP.

There is no reason that both SS and family emotional support can't be sorted at the same time. SS referral may be the best thing for the kids, no dispute with that, but what is the OP's family giving by way of emotional support? Deep clean and hot meals are great, but it's here today, and all too bloody obviously, gone tomorrow. How is OP's sis supposed to move on? I suggested Family Support Worker.

OP thinks that sis losing her home is the best solution.

OP could take the kids for a couple of months so her sister can sort herself out properly.

With several kids many don't get the time to themselves to get to the GP, I lost a much-loved Aunt this way as she delayed getting the lump in her boo checked until it was too late. 6 weeks after diagnosis she was gone. It may not be depression, it could be diabetes, cancer, the onset of MS or any number of genuine health reasons why her sister is failing to cope.

From the OP's spiteful, judgemental atttitude you can easily see that she'd be the last person her sister would tell if she's stuck in abusive relationship - so much goes on behind closed doors that family friends are unaware of till it's too late. It's how we have 2 women a week die due to DV in the UK every week. It may be she wants to be evicted as an "excuse" to leave her partner (does he contribute to the household, why isn't he doing anything?) I've seen that happen & Mum and kids bugger off into the sunset on eviction day to another part of the country, away from unhelpful family & abusive man.

The OP needs to stop being so selfish towards her own nephews and nieces and go help properly. Not a clean up and a lecture but real action for the kids. That means bathing them, feeding them 3 times a day, hugs, feeding the ducks - the works.

The poster who stated that if family knew those kids were being neglected yet it is reported by school or other outsiders then they are likely to be judged as complicit in the neglect had it spot on! These kids are part of the OP's family and yet she's LETTING this happen. Shame on the OP.

"For evil to prevail, good men need just do nothing"

I've namechanged.
To certain extent you could have been writing about me 10years ago.
I was a single parent to 1 DC.
My house was disgusting. You wouldn't let an animal live there. My DC had crisps for breakfast. I was always on the "emergency" for electric and gas. I never had any money. I had no motivation, no will, no get up and go to make anything better.
My family tried to talk to me but I couldn't/wouldn't open up. I was up to my eyeballs in debt but no-one knew. They all assumed I was recieving lots of money. nothing could have been further from the truth. Because of the shame I felt about claiming benefits (I was brought up to believe that claiming benefits is bad) I didn't claim any . Yet no-one knew. So i ended up in a right old mess. I was evicted, I was chased for council tax payments. It was all so stupid because none of it was neccessary if I had found the help I was entitled to
I know what changed for me and maybe this is where I differ from your Dsis. I suddenly realised my DC was old enough to remember and I didn't want him to have those sort of memories. So I sorted myself out. It was bloody hard and I had to largely on my own because I never admitted the truth to anyone. I guess what I am trying to say is are you sure you know the whole story? Looking back I was very distrssed/depressed/incapable - label it what you will but I needed help.
Sorry - long post, lots of memories came flooding back for me.
I have done a complete 180degree turn in my life and my DS (and my other DC) are all wonderful and very few people know exactly what I was like all those years ago - certainly my family don't.
Sorry no advice as such.

iwaslikeyoursister - brave is you! There but for the grace go a lot more of us than I suspect would have the courage to admit it.

I wondered if her still claiming benefits is because her partner doesn't contribute to the household, she's too proud to admit it, yet needs to keep the kids fed. In a relationship I've always been more houseproud cos men appreciate it. That's nice men that you wanna keep iykwim.

It's so easy to judge, much harder to actually get up and do something constructive isn't it OP!!!!!!

'The OP needs to stop being so selfish towards her own nephews and nieces and go help properly. Not a clean up and a lecture but real action for the kids. That means bathing them, feeding them 3 times a day, hugs, feeding the ducks - the works.'

Similarly, this mother needs to know, through SS, that if she doesn't start availing herself to whatever support is at hand and owning up to her responsibilities, there will, quite rightly, be consequences.

If the OP were truly selfish and didn't care, she wouldn't have even started this thread. It just wouldn't have registered with her for it to matter.

Thankyou TSC and Bochead. I feel sick at how I used to live and cannot equate that person with the person I am now.
I agree with Expat also, if OP didn't care she wouldn't have started this thread. My sister would have posted a similar thread back then if she knew MN existed! I wish I could say what could have got through to me when I was at my worst but I honestly don;t know. Even being evicted didn't. The memory of me walking out of my home when I was evicted (I didn't know it was going to happen I had ignored all the letters) with my 18month old with just a suitcase and all the neighbours watching has me in tears now but at the time I just felt numb. None of it connected.