Possibly triggering. Death related. Sorry it's long too.
So last month I lost my mum. She died over the Easter Bank Holiday, in her bed, asleep. But obviously alone. Which is hard to think about.
She lived in sheltered-accommodation, and since Tory cuts, there's been no warden cover for evenings, weekends and bank holidays.
My mum was found on April 23rd, the warden's first day back. It was a total shock despite my mum being an alcoholic and very poorly with it.
When we arrived, the police and paramedics were there and after the undertaker took her away, they told us to not enter the bedroom as the bed was a state 'with multiple types biological mess' and it was a hot weekend, so not something her children should have to face, if you get what I mean? 😥
As the sheltered accommodation was council property, if we apparently called the council, they had a specialist cleaning team, but we may have to pay for it. Which is understandable and no problem. But they strongly advised my brother and I 'didn't enter the scene'.
I called the council that very day, plus every day after and kept being told someone would call me back. After days of no call back, I went to the council offices and sat in with someone who logged the details and promised a call back. They also took notice on my mum's flat.
The next two weeks pass without any of the call backs I was promised, I tweet them loads too, they still ignore me.
My little brother loses it, as we need to get into her bedroom and clear it. He takes his mates over and clears the stained bed linen into black sacks. I know the sights and smells have traumatised him. I'm so angry he's had to do this.
If the council couldn't actually help us, they could have just said and we'd have called a private company. But the police told us the council would sort it and with all the rest going on, organising the funeral and trying to sort finances etc. My brother just got sick of the council ignoring us and went round.
So FINALLY the council call 3.5 weeks after mum has died, on the day of the funeral, so I missed the call.
I call them a couple of days later, speak to a customer services manager, very apologetic, but has no explanation. So logs a formal complaint. Then asks me "What can we do?" I'm like, my head is mashed, it's so far down the line now that I don't even know now. Turns out they fucked up the 'notice of tenant's death' too and we went from 2 weeks notice to vacate to 2 days, as we'd been misinformed.
So she offers a month's rent free extension on vacating the flat and wants to know else I 'want', so I say that I want mum's soiled bed removing free of charge and mentioned that her carpet is also covered in 'biological mess' that I've had to cover with a blanket while clearing her room, as it's too upsetting. She says they will come take the bed and rip up the carpet next day.
I said, please don't. The room is 'organised chaos' with stuff for charity and rubbish in set places and I'm in there the next day to do more clearing and cleaning, so ask she calls me at the end of the week to arrange them coming in.
I go in the next day as planned. But against my wishes, they have been in, taken her bed away and pulled up carpet and taken it too. But in doing so they've mixed up charity and rubbish bags, so I no longer know what is what. They've filled back up the double walk-in wardrobe that I'd previously spent half a day completely emptying.
They also filled her half-cleared living room up with furniture from her bedroom, (which I can't lift due to a slipped disc) and even completely broken a brand new chest of drawers that my mum had just bought two months before she died, it still had the instructions booklet inside and yet to be filled with clothes. It was broken beyond repair due to how they'd moved it. So now I can't sell it.
They've undone hours of work, broken my mum's possessions and yet again ignored me. I'm so upset.
My brother is totally distressed from what he had to do and I'm also in bits by their subsequent actions and the fact that each time I've been building myself up to go over there and clear stuff and the time I've epent has been undone.
So AIBU? What do I do next? I've requested them to collect the broken furniture free of charge and to repay me for it, (which is pending the investigation). The few items my mum has I'm selling, then anything I make will go towards her ashes being interred.
I'm so stressed and angry. If you've made it to this point of reading, thank you. x