To NOT offer to help NDN with lawns

[UserFriendly14]

NDN is in her 90’s and lives alone. She has Carers come in twice a day to make sure she’s eating etc. DC live away and have obviously not visited during lockdown. Both front and back gardens are overgrown and need tending to. Me and DH keep discussing whether or not to offer to help out with the gardens but with a young family ourselves, and DH working full time still, it’s hard enough to find the time to sort our own home/garden out. (Seriously he’s still out in our garden now after cleaning our windows).

The gardens are sizeable and would take a good day, if not more, to make right. The thing that sticks in DH’s throat is that 1- this has happened before when DC have gone a while without visiting, so they know well about it. 2- she has a window cleaner, who repeatedly and loudly told her [and half the street] that her DC would be paying her, so no need to worry about her paying. I’m not for a second saying how others should be spending their money, but DH has stated a gardener really wouldn’t be out of the question if it came to it. (As I said, sizeable gardens so a lot work round here and forever getting leaflets put through the door etc.)

Another point is, her memory is patchy at best, so would she remember that we’d said/agreed earlier in the day that he’d help out? (It really is painful to have a brief conversation with her).

Fully prepared to be flamed and told to go and be neighbourly.

@Cadent was a joke, if you’ve got any sense of humour left. Just a wee joke.

Someone’s got more money than sense. Your tradesmen definitely see you coming

Nah we just dont hire a gardener lol
If it wasnt identifying id post a pic of back yard but its about an acre and a half. It would be a huge job with many varied tools required.
But at that price id expect they also dispose of rubbish created by their work and supply ALL tools needed for the job.
Sure there are cheaper but the quality of work....... well......

You lot are mean, where's the kindness.
Whats mean about not wanting to be someones freebie gardener when they can afford to EMPLOY someone? OP putting her family first isnt mean or unkind.

I mean where the old womans kindness? Why wont she employ someone during corona?
Or her kids kindness, why havent they either dropped in or arranged a gardener if they cant travel?

because it’s a kind thing to do and as I said before being in your 90s with dementia is not a nice place to be and a bit of kindness goes a long way. Doing it once doesn’t mean you are shackled to do it all the time, if that’s the problem.

What would be kind is if the OP or her DH were paid for their time and effort.

Being taken advantage of is no fun either.
We tried helping our elderly neighbor, until he started taking advantage of us, expecting this or that at the drop of a hat, calling at stupid hours, ignoring requests to be mindful of the car in his electric scooter.
Final straw was him hitting the car, DP lost it as he had been asked nicely several times.
Now we barely speak.
So yeah, give an inch, some take a mile. Now we just dont even risk the BS and dont offer to help

I would help, personally - once it's at a manageable height it would be only a once a week job and as she obviously hasn't got family to help she's probably very lonely.

@squeekums not everyone takes advantage, not everyone can afford a gardener. Dementia can make you wary of strangers, might just be nice if someone helped out. Not everything has to be a monetary arrangement.

Well, hey, if you're all for 'helping out' why not PM the OP, see if you're in the area to offer this help or a donation towards hiring her a gardener.

It's not difficult to be free and easy with other peoples' time, money, equipment etc.

How do you know those people advocating kindness aren’t mowing their elderly neighbours’ lawns?

My mum's neighbour miss my mum's front garden for her. I'm very grateful. I do the back. It takes ages. Front about ten minutes

I couldn't watch her struggle to sort it out. She's really old. It may be distressing to her. At the very least I'd offer to help organise someone to come. It's really not a wonder that so many people are lonely in this country.

once it's at a manageable height it would be only a once a week job

Fuck that, we don't even mow our small lawn every week, let alone someone else's sizeable garden, who can afford to get their windows regularly cleaned.

In my experience, families like this usually don't want to tap into the inheritance. In circumstances like this lady's, you usually find the savings are stacking up, because it costs very little to live. I did home care at one point.

The family just make mugs of, willing to help, neighbours. At one point a few of the care staff would do extra cleaning and gardening, until our managers, who had access to financial information told us to stop, because we were being taken advantage of. We did carry on with extra cleaning.

It's different if an out of work neighbour/volunteer wants to help, but working young families shouldn't feel obliged to do what could easily be paid for. There's probably more struggling single parents than pensioners, who could do with a hand.

"At the very least I'd offer to help organise someone to come"

You've got to be careful with not being accused of taking advantage/bullying/being responsible for the quality of work, with someone vulnerable.

I'd mention to the carers that I'd seen her trying to cut the lawn.

I’d steer clear because this has got slippery slope to expectation written all over it, and once you start it would be nigh on impossible to stop.

There are adult children and carers involved. They are able to get a window cleaner in to do the windows; it would be the work of minutes to book a gardener to come regularly to start getting it under control and then keep it under control once done.

By all means mention the repeated attempts to mow to the carers so they can talks to the lady’s children, and also potentially lock up the mower, but really, this has got a strong whiff of the potential for you to be taken advantage of once you start and for them all to expect you’ve taken it on as a permanent job, rather than a one-off or temporary thing while things are tricky.

How do you know those people advocating kindness aren’t mowing their elderly neighbours’ lawns?

Because they'd be the first to tell you .

It's not mowing, though, the OP states there are sizeable gardens that need work.

My across the road neighbour lives next door to a young lad who doesn’t give 2 hoots about his garden and she tends to it, but she is very house proud and I think she only does it because she thinks it lowers the tone of her house!

Well, she's right, isn't she? Who the hell wants to live next to an overgrown garden?

In my experience, families like this usually don't want to tap into the inheritance. In circumstances like this lady's, you usually find the savings are stacking up, because it costs very little to live. I did home care at one point.

The family just make mugs of, willing to help, neighbours. At one point a few of the care staff would do extra cleaning and gardening, until our managers, who had access to financial information told us to stop, because we were being taken advantage of. We did carry on with extra cleaning.

This!. 100%.

It's not mowing, though, the OP states there are sizeable gardens that need work

I think OP might be exaggerating a little. And as for the blithe assumption that all good neighbours are virtue signallers - fuck me, the human race is nasty sometimes.

Alsohuman

Why is it exaggerating to state that we have sizeable gardens?!

Thanks again for everyone’s input. I spoke to DH again and he said he’ll offer during lockdown as her family obviously can’t get here, but after that we’ll take a step back.

Nice outcome OP.

Why is it exaggerating to state that we have sizeable gardens?! hmm

Because it doesn't fit someone's agenda to remonstrate with others that they are nasty and mean and not as good as oneself (but it's not at all nasty to call someone a liar because you don't like what they've said ).

Yay! That's a lovely thing to do, kindness wins out. I like a happy ending.

Yeah, let's see how kindly the family treats you for offering free services, it's the kind thing to do.

What are you on about?

@Ponoka7

In my experience, families like this usually don't want to tap into the inheritance. In circumstances like this lady's, you usually find the savings are stacking up, because it costs very little to live. I did home care at one point.

The family just make mugs of, willing to help, neighbours. At one point a few of the care staff would do extra cleaning and gardening, until our managers, who had access to financial information told us to stop, because we were being taken advantage of. We did carry on with extra cleaning.

It's different if an out of work neighbour/volunteer wants to help, but working young families shouldn't feel obliged to do what could easily be paid for. There's probably more struggling single parents than pensioners, who could do with a hand.

Yes be careful that you're not taken advantage of us as this is what happened to me & my neighbours. There was a frail elderly lady whom we all really liked and looked out for, did shopping & ran errands for. Her local family didn't visit very often, a few times a year & never for Christmas. We all took it in turns to host her for Easter, Christmas & other occasions. When our elderly lady died, her family were round daily, selling her furniture etc. The house was up for sale before the week was out, it was all very distasteful. Her dils accused some of us of copying keys & taking advantage of her. Just awful people, we were shocked at how different her family were from her.

The best bit was when the elder dil came banging on my door asking if I knew anything about equity release. My neighbour's late husband had all the equity released from the property before he died. So after my elderly neighbour died the house was going back to the company & not her children! The look on her dils face when she realised she was getting zero was priceless.

RIP to my lovely neighbours, you played a blinder on your greedy parasitic children! 👍👏

I don't enjoy cutting my own grass so pay someone to do it so there is no way I would spend a day cutting some one else's. I would happily cook for neighbour or do shopping however so not totally unkind

However, I would happily recommend my gardener to the carers/window cleaner whomever is in contact with her children.

A quick 10 min whizz with a flymo is one thing but cutting up to an acre of grass or whatever is quite another.