To not pay for a dog my mum has found on preloved

[StarDolphins]

I’ll start by saying my mum loves animals & has always really looked after their needs 100%. She would starve to feed them etc.

However, she’s a 77yo hoarder who is bound to 1 room (only moves from the bed to the commode 1m away). She’s had 2 strokes, heart bypass, diabetes & COPD amongst others.

she has 1 dog left out of 5 so I said when she goes, I will take existing dog if he outlived her as she got him before she was immobile. This poor dog is fat (loved, but far too unhealthy) she has a dog walker everyday.

My Ainu - she’s text me to ask me to pay for a dog off preloved out of her money. This dog is 2.5 hours away but no mention of how she will get it. She’s bombarding me now asking me to reply/pay.

would I be unreasonable to find’ an excuse not to do this?, I feel so heartbroken for this dog, I have a dog so I can only commit to taking 2 when my Mum dies & this poor dog will have such a boring life in that horrible house. Loving it won’t be enough & I feel so stressed & upset. I want to go absolutely mad but she will say it’s her money etc & the dog will be loved!

You're doing well, you're putting some boundaries on a situation that has obviously been very difficult for a long time. It is hard to do this because the child/parent role is an entrenched one, but stay strong and know you're doing the right thing, for yourself, your family and for any more poor little dogs she won't be able to care for properly.

Good start but you may need to be firmer. It will not only be about this dog.

I cannot facilitate you getting or caring for any further pets. The dog you already have is too much for you healthwise and financially but our commitment to it remains. If you go ahead off your own back I cannot be involved or support you further.

Thank you😃 I’ve been like a frightened child for many many years & only since my last post on Mumsnet about her have I been different, I’ve done a lot of reading about FOG & I do now have boundaries with her.

I won’t lie, I’m s myself but I’m strong enough to follow it through. I also feel a lot better & reiterating my position.

She will not like my text after being the one solely in charge for years.

• about reiterating

Yes I agree, when I’d sent it I though I should’ve put (or any other animal) but I will say this when I take her shopping Friday. I’ll just keep repeating myself.

You really need to do something about the bank account situation too. It's all so messy. Maybe now you've stood up to her about this you can push on and make some more changes. She sounds exhausting.

This type of thing is one of the many reasons we are NC with MIL. Sounds harsh but oh the joy in not hearing from her is amazing. We put in loads of boundaries but these people are so selfish they don't last and it all starts again. Being NC is (sadly) wonderfully peaceful.

Yes I agree (although I don’t know how given she’s housebound & can’t sign her name) but on Friday,I’m going to give her 2 options as I don’t want to deal with her money anymore & if she’s able to scroll Preloved then she’s able to do online banking…

1. I will support her to get a BA (I’m sure she’ll refuse) or…

2. I will pass to SS to deal with her money.

I don’t want any involvement in what she buys.

Sound just as stressful!

I just can’t go NC, she literally has no one else. I am the only one that wipes her backside, gets her changed & comfortable.

An alternative to trying to get SS to act:

notify, refuse and block further DWP payments to your bank, and set her up with this:

www.gov.uk/payment-exception-service

She/SS then has to organize carers to pick up the money from PO or pay points (shops and supermarkets). You put whatever's in your account onto the pre-payment card hand it over and cease to have have financial arrangements with her, leaving you to decide what other level of contact you want when she calms down from it.

I have hoarding disorder (funnily, enough I never asked for it) and have done a lot of research trying to cure myself, and worked with others with it. There's many types and forms of it from organised, clean, and housed in storage, through to chaotic squalor hoarding, and everything in-between. Some people are very 'normal' outside of the condition, and range through to very eccentric.

Animal hoarding is in a category of it's own as it's almost impossible to get the person to realise they're causing harm, because they choose animals that have a narrative of 'needing saving' therefore any conditions are in their minds better than the alternative, which allows them to keep them in poor conditions and see no problem. They usually know however that others do see a problem, so a lot of mental gymnastics.

Whereas with most people who hoard items, if you do it right according to individual issues and needs, can be got to see there's some level of problem and can be helped to varying degrees.

But real change can only take place if the person wants it and it's still hard going because the stuff is the symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. The same is true of animal hoarders, but we rightly say the animals welfare needs to come first.

Trying to get rid of the symptoms without tackling what's causing them unsurprisingly just doesn't work, and people instinctively reject attempts at it. I hope hoarding Uk told you that but their 'model' didn't used to seem to recognize this.

I'm not having a go at you, there's obviously a complicated painful relationship playing out, but the reason secret (or otherwise) removal of stuff isn't recommended, is because it triggers worse accumulating and replacement accumulation. The person doesn't even have to know it's happening, just a sense that things are gone, or permanently lost is enough. One person told me the great thing about getting animals was apart from 'saving' them, her partner couldn't get rid of them without her noticing.

I'll no longer be involved with animal hoarders because I've never found a way to really help change their mindset, but it's very much about what they get from the sense of 'saving' the animal's and a sense of usefulness/ to heroic, for doing something for them. Some start out well enough and become overwhelmed, others like your mother, are totally blind to the animals needs.

In case it's not instantly clear, with the payment-exception-service, anyone can take her pre payment card (or a code number on a phone when she looses/buries the card) with her ID, and theirs, and collect from PO and/or shops for her.

I'm no expert but could this be a dog that has been used for breeding on a puppy farm?

Hello you sound absolutely lovely and I feel for you, as you mentioned your Mum lives in council housing it may well be worth contacting her housing trust, she may be in breach of her tenancy by hoarding and they take the fire risks related to this seriously.
They often have specialist support available in hoarding and might take some of the burden from you, especially regarding planning for the future.
You have nothing to feel guilty about and need to care for yourself and your daughter.
best of luck and happy new year x

Just popping back in to say you're doing so well OP, you sound absolutely lovely and are clearly doing your best in a very difficult situation. Sending an unmumsnetty hug to you! (and gin!)

@StarDolphins your mum may have capacity in other areas but she may not have financial capacity if she struggles to manage her money - eg not paying bills, spending everything on non essential items.

If she is benefits dependent (this includes the state pension), you could speak to her social services department or a solicitor about appointeeship. This is where a person or organisation can be nominated to claim and spend benefits on essential bills on a person's behalf. If you feel unable to do it a charity or solicitor can be appointed to do it for you.

My Mum was a hoarder (still is TBH but less capacity as she's in Res Care now )
Not animals thankfully (though plants were a fix at one time)
It is a mental compulsion, and it's easy for people on the outside to breezily say "Go in with a binbag and start dumping stuff"

My Mums room was a danger , so much clutter she couldn't get to the door . If I did clear (painstaking process) it would be 48 hours till the mess crept back.
I had to make my Dad (who was her carer) swear (on the stack of 45 Bibles that she had ) that he would throw out every box , tub, tin, not let her keep them. She filed things with clothes , thread, buttons , sewing , any random tat .

I recognise they were children in post war rationing , but she seemed to think it was funny or endearing ( it wasn't)
I dreaded there being a fire TBH .

She used to joke "I'll leave you £150 for a skip" , I said "Try £450 , this is 3 skips worth"

You won;t cure a hoarder , they don't see it as clutter . My Mum always wanted a "tidy house" when we were kids but didn't want to tidy . We weren't allowed to throw things out , even our own things "Someone in the Church will want that" then it sat forever .
I got to the stage we deliberately broke things then we could dump them otherwise she insisted on keeping them. And she unpicked clothes to "alter" but they never got sewed up again.

I pre-warned her CareHome , when she went there we got rid of a load of clothes she hadn't worn in decades and she got new ones , but she will not part with some old ones .

You won;t cure a hoarder , they don't see it as clutter Actually those with a level of self awareness do, they just struggle hugely with letting go of it, but it suits many agenda's to try and categorize huge numbers of people as beyond help, based on the worst least treatable cases.

We used to treat people with all sorts of MH conditions like this.

@Elleherd

I was watching a programme a few years ago , one of those professional cleaning ones ( some were quite invasive , "Oh lets look at this terrible house and say how can anyone live like this" )
In one there were two operatives who went into a woman's home , she was there throughout . Every time they picked something up she snatched it back "I need that/I use that" no matter what it was .
That;s what my Mum was like , clothes she never wore , sometimes it was a gift . She wouldn;t get rid because x gave me that . Clothes , hats, scarves , gloves , jewellery she never ever wore !

Even after she was pretty houebound and couldn't replace what was shipped out , the clutter still appeared .
For my Mum, she had this idea she could fix things but everything lay half done . Things that were useable became things that were not , even new stuff

As I said , thank goodness her hoarding didn't go as far as animals .

I know the threads probably moved along since it’s taken me an age to post this but the capacity act would say that you absolutely cannot deny her access to her own funds. If she has capacity, she’s allowed to make decisions, stupid or otherwise.

id be worried though too. It’s just withholding her money would be considered abuse and I wouldn’t want anyone getting caught up in that

70isaLimitNotaTarget Believe me I get it. I grew up in a squalor hoard and am under no illusions about how difficult some individuals can be. I ended up out of my 'home' as a child. There was a hierachy of things, and I came low in them.

For a long time I didn't see my own behaviors as hoarding, because mine present as organized, clean, and not particularly obvious in my home. Totally different from the image people have of hoarding.

However over time it became clear that I was very much suffering from hoarding disorder regardless how it presented, and sadly one of my Dc's also is.

I challenged your statement because there are actually huge numbers of 'ordinary' people, quite a few of us on MN, suffering from this condition and being told they're incurable. It just isn't true, but people despair and even take their lives believing there is no hope because it's repeated as 'fact' so often.
There is a whole industry around it, that isn't in favour of self help or cure without being able to afford their services.

It's like saying that because a portion of drug addicts never beat addiction, all addicts are incurable and there's no hope for any of them.

Of course people will behave the way the woman on tv or your mother did when treated like that.
It's done deliberately to trigger that reaction, because what really needs to happen, requires an understanding of the individual and where they are at, a lot of patience, and detachment, and is undramatic, slow paced, highly nuanced and doesn't make for good tv drama.

I haven't cured myself, it's a difficult journey in progress, but I have worked with very typically difficult and extreme people and seen great results by applying far subtler methods based on where they are at and what's going on internally and helping them change their mindset.

Animal hoarders have some commonalities with object and info etc hoarders, but there is another level of mindset which seems to be even harder for them to recognize as maladaptive behaviors. I think it may be because it's almost impossible for them to marry up their mental 'saving' of the animal with the fact they're maltreating it. There also seems to be a need for all/some of the animals to remain 'damaged.' However I'm not a psychologist and perhaps there are solutions.

But, Op's mother is clearly at a point in life where it's probably all rather to late for both her and op, and op needs to be freed of financial responsibility especially so she can't be used in the acquisition of this poor dog, or find herself accused of mismanaging financial control.

hows it going op did yur mum reply to you-the ad is still there so i assume she didnt buy the dog

Just wanted to say well done, OP, you’re doing brilliantly to set a boundary. I know how scary it can be

Your post is very interesting, thank you. I regicide a lot, I think she gets a lot from ‘saving’ these animals.

My Mum had 3very traumatic events in her childhood which will be the cause of this. She knows she’s hoards I think but pretends not to. I asked her previously if she would like us both to go through some stuff to get rid of anything & so we started & I was v gentle but she said no to everything (she might need it). So I gave up.

I am at the point of thinking all this stuff makes her feel comfortable so I leave it but not where a poor dog is concerned. I just can’t.

No reply. So she’s sulking now.

I keep checking the ad too! She’s very intelligent & will absolutely know I am right. It’s just if her own needs(which right now, is this dog she’s fixated on) come before what is right.

Thank you😊