Our neighbour...

[MrsSchadenfreude]

He is in his 80s, has been in and out of hospital for the past year (he has mental health problems and is often kept in for several weeks), recently went through a very messy divorce to someone less than half his age. He has become increasingly more and more paranoid that "someone" is out to get him, a professional person, who is being paid by his ex wife. He thinks that people are getting into his flat all the time, moving stuff around and stealing his money. (The stuff, and money, inevitably turns up in perfectly logical places, like his wallet, a folder he keeps personal documents in etc.)

He is frightened to be on his own in the flat, and as a result, bangs on our door three or more times a day, to ask our advice about whether he should call the police about this person "breaking into his flat". He asks to come and sit in with us, wants to stay the night. We are quite happy to give him a cup of tea or have him for dinner from time to time, and do so, but it has now reached the stage where he is driving me absolutely round the twist.

I used to work from home one day a week, but have had to give this up, as he just comes and bangs on the door, if he doesn't see me leave the flat. If he catches me or DH on our way out to work, he detains us, talking about the "break ins". I don't want to be rude, but I couldn't get away from him one day last week (he started crying) and was an hour and a half late for work.

I know he is scared and lonely. I know he is old. I know I should be more tolerant, but he is making my life a misery. I can't step outside the flat without him being right outside my front door. He has carers in twice a day, but he is very rude to them, and they hauled me up the other day when I was working from home, claiming that he had accused him of stealing his money, when it was in his pocket all the time.

We have his daughter's contact details, and have told her what she is like. She just thanks us for being nice to him, and says she doesn't live locally, and has a busy life so can't come up very often.

I've started going into work really early, so that he can't detain me (he usually gets DH instead) and trying to coincide coming home with when his carers will be there, so he doesn't bother me then. It's got to the stage where I feel like a prisoner, and my hours are being dictated by this man. Any ideas what I can do?

Thank you nightsky010. The situation went on for four hellish years sadly. The problem was that my relative had no other relations living nearby and I was very ill myself (back and forward to hospital). She would not accept she was ill and certainly wouldn't agree to any kind of treatment, neither would she go into sheltered accommodation. She wanted to live with me but it wasn't possible as I was ill and needed care myself at the time and she never slept and had very paranoid, aggressive dementia. Social Services seemed to play chicken with her wellbeing in the hope I would take her in because I would be too scared of what would happen to her otherwise. It was utterly terrifying but I had no other choice but to let her reach crisis point as I really was ill and couldn't care for her. The reason SS did this was they had no idea what assets she owned etc as she wouldn't co-operate so they were terrified that she would have to be funded by the state. When I wouldn't play ball - after trying very nicely to help them as much as much as possible - they excluded me from everything and wouldn't speak to me at all saying that it was my relative's wishes for me to be excluded (it wasn't).

Twice she just disappeared after she was taken into emergency respite care without me being told and I had to threaten legal action to find out where she was. She was then let out twice more and was only taken into care permanently when her neighbours reported her wandering around outside in the dark late at night on three consecutive nights. There was then a best interests meeting that I was excluded from but luckily her three very elderly siblings travelled a long way to attend the meeting and insisted that my relative would never want me excluded from decisions about her care and that I was to be informed of everything and allowed to apply for deputyship or they would put in a formal complaint. Thankfully, this worked. As she was then judged to have lost capacity she stayed at the care home and I was appointed her deputy (similar to power of attorney) by the Court of Protection. If you could have seen the way she had been living when she was judged to have had capacity you would not believe it, she didn't even have any underwear.

OP, I have to be honest, you do seem very kind but also very passive. If you continue in this way you will be caring for this man until he dies. At the moment Social Services see you as the safety net and carers for your neighbour. As he won't co-operate he can't be made to go into care until he has lost capacity. He won't be judged to have lost capacity until he is judged to be doing things that put him at risk. At the moment he is not at risk because you and your husband keep stepping in and removing the risk - ie he would have been without food but your husband bought him a takeaway, his bad behaviour (resulting from his paranoia) would escalate and become seriously anti-social behaviour except that you talk to him for hours to calm him down. You are enabling Social Services to leave him in his home in this state and they will let this situation go on until you stop.

You need to ring the police - not 101 - and say he is frightening and harassing you and your children. It sounds drastic but if you don't you could still be here writing the same things in a year's time. Trust me, I have been through all this, in the end it becomes impossible to be seen as 'nice' and keep your sanity. You have to be prepared for people to imply you're ruthless and selfish (much as people earlier in the thread have spoken about his daughter - the one who has serious reasons for not wanting to get involved) in order for things to get done.

I don't think I've been passive. For months social services refused point blank to speak to me as I was not him, a relative or his carer. It was only when I got hold of the mental health team that someone would speak to me. I've spoken to the police - via 110, and spoken to an actual police officer, who did come round, and came to see us afterwards. DH went to the police station in person to speak to them about him, but they essentially said there was nothing they could do, and to speak to social services (who wouldn't speak to us...). I have a very full on job, and simply can't take as much time out of the day to try and sort this out as it seems to require (and it's really not my responsibility to do so, but as he's affecting my life so much, and not other people's, it seems to have fallen . I can't leave him slumped on the landing, when he falls downstairs, or to die in his flat if he falls over and can't move.

Uptownflunk

Omg, that sounds like an absolute nightmare. And to 'play chicken' with her welfare in the hope that you'd take her on, how immoral. Then to try to cut you out? My goodness. Did you make a complaint? Thank goodness that situation is now resolved.

OP

In the nicest possible way, I think Uptownflunk is right.

Clearly you are a caring, patient, reasonable person who is trying to do the right thing - a decent human being trying to help a neighbour, and that is lovely. Of course you would assist him and of course you try to play by the rules when contacting SS and the police. I imagine you also hope that the system works reasonably and that someone will step in before it's too late.......

.......... But you have to stop thinking like that. SS's one goal is to avoid allocating resources on this man, it's that simple. I know it is totally immoral and sickening that the system works like that, but it does.

Consider what SS want - they would be very happy for you to care for this man until the day he dies, so that they don't have to, and trust us, that is exactly what will happen unless you act more urgently. If you don't want to do that (of course you don't) then your goal has to be to do everything in your power to escalate this until SS are forced to step in......

.......The only way you can do that is to make them fearful of the consequences of not stepping in - make them realise that he is actually coming to harm and that nobody is caring for him and that you will raise hell to hold them accountable for his injury / death. You need to put the fear of God into them.

All you are currently doing in the way of helping him is enabling SS to neglect him.

Hi MrsS,

I don't think you've been passive either, I think you've been very kind and caring. I know you've tried because I've been following your thread.

I don't buy the "over stretched services in London" crap. I've worked in London and now work just outside. There is a basic level of care and duty which they are failing in. Please don't think that most professionals think this is acceptable because it most certainly is not. Not for you or for him.

Take care.

I agree with the need for ruthlessness. When your neighbour complained to you he was hungry instead of buying him a take away you should have contacted the mental health team and daughter. You should have simply told them he had no food and you weren't going to help him. You are perpetuating the situation through your generous nature.

Have you contacted your MP? The MP should be your neighbour's advocate, not you.

Shirtsleeves

Yes, the OP is so caring, and that has meant she is being taken advantage of by the old man and SS.

I'm not entirely sure what your point is in the second part of your post, but I agree that most SS staff / related professionals would not find this acceptable, however that doesn't mean that this sort of thing doesn't happen. If in your department you deal with thousands or hundreds of cases then statistically there is a good chance a similar situation is occurring within your department.

What SS are doing (not just in this cases but in many others) is IMO criminal. What would happen if an individual with a duty of care treated the person they were supposed to be caring for like this? They would quite rightly be prosecuted for neglect and cruelty. SS should also be. A system where they have so little accountability is very flawed.

I've been lurking so far as it takes me back to the awful time before my Mother went into Care. Sadly I agree with the need to be ruthless now, you have tried so hard to do your best for him. As long as SS know he won't go without food or come to harm as you will call for help then it's unlikely anything will change.

A few of us on the Elderly Parents thread have found that it does take a crisis for things to change and it is incredibly hard to step back. I think at this point I would write to SS and say you now consider him to be a risk to himself as he is unable to provide basic food, is falling and doesn't have an emergency pendant (if I'm right in this) plus his behaviour to his neighbours constitutes harassment.

Say that he is scaring and distressing your children and as you have a duty of care to them you can no longer be involved in his care in any way at all and will be in future having no contact with him or speaking to any outside agency regarding him. That you will in future be reporting any further episodes of hammering at your door to the Police as it is harassment and to protect your children's safety and well being. That they will need to ensure there is a system in place to alert someone if he has fallen as you will no longer be dealimg with this and as he is a Vulnerable Adult the current situation constitutes a Safeguarding issue, hence you are copying in your MP in to ensure s/he is aware of the current Safeguarding issue with a vulnerable person in their constituency.

Copy your MP in on this plus his GP if you know who it is. It feels incredibly harsh but sadly is necessary. Really feel for you, horrible situation for all concerned

I had to write to SS saying I was withdrawing all are for my Mother. Felt like a right bitch but the situation here was dire, I was in tears most of the time and my children were really suffering. She has since gone to live abroad in a Home near my brother who was also close to a breakdown after a couple of months. She has always been difficult and manipulative. Her diagnosis is Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer's. Te Psychiatrist told me on diagnosis it would be very hard on me and if I needed anti depressants at any point then he would prescribe them.

God MrsS, horrendous

OP this sounds so tough.

I am a mental health social worker. Lots of people here saying that social services or mental health services need to take more action. The thing is, services can't do anything more else he consents, or if he has been officially assessed as lacking capacity on the relevant decisions, or if he was ill enough to meet the criteria to be sectioned. The key thing here OP is whether his social worker or other mental health worker has assessed his capacity to make decisions about his care and accommodation. He clearly needs higher support, either people visiting him at home more often, or moving to a supported environment such as a care home. He has every right to refuse these things if he has the capacity to make these decisions. If he does not have capacity on those decisions, then using the Mental Capacity Act the social worker or similar can arrange for him to move a care home even without his consent, and in fact would be negligent to leave someone living in their own home when they are at risk of harm if they don't have capacity. If he no longer has capacity to manage his finances, the Court of Protection can appoint someone to deal with the sale of his house, unless he had taken out an Enduring Power of Attorney and appointed someone to deal with his finances. So you need to ask the mental health team, has an assessment of his capacity to make a decision to remain in his current accommodation been done, and what was the outcome? Some mental health staff do not have a good understanding of the Mental Capacity Act so this may not have been done.

Let me give you an example of someone I used to work with (I have changed some details to protect identity). He was a real nuisance to his neighbours. Knocking on their doors a lot and verbally abusing them. He had schizophrenia and was very paranoid. He had a lot of paranoia about his neighbours and used to call the police a lot and report them for things (that they were not doing), and call the fire brigade saying there were fires when there were none. The police would call me up and ask why I was not doing anything about him. The issue was that even with this behaviour, he did not meet the criteria to be sectioned. Every couple of years or so, his paranoia, and therefore behaviour, would worsen and he would be sectioned. He would quickly improve in hospital and return home. Then at some point he would stop taking his medication and then the cycle would start again (for anyone familiar with MH law, he was only ever on a Section 2, so a CTO could not be used). His adult children had long since stopped seeing him.

One route to address his behaviour could have been the police prosecuting him, but they were reluctant to do that to someone so vulnerable. What I really wanted was for him to move to supported accommodation where he could be properly supported, but he refused to move, and crucially, I had assessed that did have the capacity to decide where to live and refuse to move to supported accommodation. Therefore my hands were tied. Another route was for his landlord (social housing) to evict him as he was breaching his tenancy with his behaviour, but they refused due to his vulnerability. I later moved teams so I don't know if any resolution was found.

However, I have worked with people who I have assessed as lacking capacity on deciding where they need to live, and who are at risk staying in their own homes, so using the Mental Capacity Act I have arranged to move them to a care home where they will be safe and cared for. This is not something you do on a whim, there needs to be a lot of evidence.

MrsS please read nightsky's latest post again - or preferable print it out and pin it up somewhere for ready reference - frankly I've rarely seen it better put

Nobody disputes that there are mandated ways in which the various agencies must act, but from bitter experience I must also agree that, unless forced, they will do absolutely nothing. Yet again some box will be ticked and nothing at all will happen unless someone forces a change

It's awful, it's sad, it's infuriating ... but in all honesty, after the huge amount you've already done to no avail, is it really your problem to solve any more??

Answer me this - When he has been banging on your door for ages, have you called 999 and said you feel threatened, scared etc etc?

OP, I've not commented before as I have no useful advice or experience to add, but I remember your thread from the beginning, and just wanted to say that you and your DH sound like such amazing, wonderful, kind people who have done so much for this man. I can't begin to imagine how hard it must be to deal with, and I really hope for you that it will get resolved soon .

I'm in the US so don't know if the UK has an equivalent, but we have the Office of the Public Guardian who can step in (after court proceedings) and become conservator for people who either have no one or whose family isn't interested. It certainly sounds to me as if this gentleman would qualify for conservatorship. And the conservator has the power to dispose of assets and move the conservatee into the most suitable housing, whether the conservatee wills it or no. I worked in the public sector dealing with seniors and the disabled for over 30 years and have seen some hellacious situations. Thank God for the Public Guardian. I can't count the number of times we turned to them when family members basically flipped us the bird and told us to sort their parent/sibling/grandparent/uncle/auntie because they either didn't give a rat's ass or were 'too busy'. There were also a few times that family stepped up when they realized that public conservatorship meant that assets were going to be sold to fund care. Funny how they suddenly had the time and could afford carers once they realized that their inheritances were going bye bye.

I may be completely off the wall here but do you think that if you 'threatened' the daughter that you were going to file for some type of conservatorship/deputyship that it might make her step up to the mark? I mean, if she thinks you're going to be 'in charge' of his assets (i.e. that you'd sell his flat to fund his care) maybe she'd be a bit more 'involved'. I'm not saying that you should assume that responsibility, just threaten it.

Dementia is a bastard and it's a damned shame that the 'authorities' seem to ignore it until someone is badly injured or dies. I agree that, unfortunately, you need to stop assisting this man and start calling the police each and every time until they get sick of it and force SS to do something.

I've come across this thread really late and it's too long for me to read at the moment but just wanted to say OP, if you haven't managed to get any help we had an almost identical situation with our neighbour and when things got really bad we phoned Crisis- they were brilliant. They got SS involved, they completely took over and told us our neighbor wasn't our problem, we weren't paid to look after him etc. Hope your neighbor and you get some help soon.

Mrs S You and DH sound lovely. Keep phoning the police. It has gone too far now.

Well done for caring so much his dd should be more helpful if he's in this state.

I would suggest to his dd to install him a personal alarm service which are used in case of accident or fall to alert family members. However I think it may go over the top if he "abuses" it by believing he is being burgled all the time.

Acrossthepond, we do have the equivalent of conservatorship here, I can't remember what it's called. The person has to be deemed to have lost capacity, and then guardians are appointed. It looks very similar to what you have.

The problem SS face is that they simply don't have the resources, manpower nor money to deal with everyone who needs help in the best way possible. So they don't really have much choice except to look about and if there's a hint that someone else can keep an eye then the care gets devolved. That's why you, MrsS, are being urged to stop helping, because as long as you do they will be able to tick the box that says care in the community, or whatever.

There are so many people who need SS help, and so little money to pay for it, that I think they just have to wait until a really big crisis happens before they can take over. That would probably involve neglect and heaven knows what.

Really, don't criticise his DD so much. The reasons for her being NC for so long are absolutely understandable. I'm not giving the reasons on here, as it would probably out me and him, but I think there would be very few people who wanted contact with their father after this (and no, he's not a paedophile). And if she had said now that she didn't want to get involved, that would be more understandable than the minimum amount of contact she does have.

Ijustgotmy - no, I have never called 999 and said I feel scared, threatened, because I don't, and would feel that I was wasting police time. I don't feel threatened by him - very stressed and irritated hugely by the non stop banging and him standing on the landing, but not threatened.

I have my renewed plan of attack with SS and the MP next week.

MrsSchadenfreude if, when I get to my eighties I am unlucky enough to be in the sad state that your neighbour find himself I sincerely hope that I am lucky enough to live near lovely people like you and your DH.

Of course it is not your responsibility and it is not right that the relevant services are under resourced and it is not acceptable if it is the case that they are happy to conclude that neighbours will take responsibility. On the other hand how often have there been stories in the press about vulnerable people who have come to harm and questions asked about what kind of society are we when no one notices or cares.

Your neighbour is lucky that his neighbours do notice and do what they can. It must be very difficult to cope with. I hope your plan with MP and SS produces some action that helps matters.

My lovely caring friend got involved like this and she wasn't a youngster herself.

First it started with a bit of shopping, then collecting his pension, then closing his curtains on a night.

Then him knocking on the wall when he needed her. Then it got too much.

She came to visit me and wasnon a right tizz over him. Fortunately the situation broke down while she was away and he was taken to hospital and into care.

I haven't had time to read your ft but I feel for you because you are only being neighbourly. I have elderly neighbours near me that I keep an eye out for but neighbours should not be put upon to the extent where they worry what will happen when they go away.

I hope someone sorts out this Intolerable situation for the benefit of all concerned.

FFS, having had a peaceful day today (only one interruption), he is now banging on the door... I am trying to get some sleep, the flat is in darkness.

Hi Mrs S, I've been lurking since the beginning of your thread and am horrified at the length of time this has been going on
Are you going to call the police?

Hope he gave up quickly Mrs S

What - at nearly midnight?? Did one of you engage in conversation with him in any way?

Sorry, but it's painfully clear that the extreme kindness you've always shown is simply encouraging him; after all I don't think you've said he's this bad with anyone else in the block? In the end only you can now decide whether to protect yourselves by going with the many suggestions offered ...