My mother had dementia. She lives at home but we have carers 4 times per day and my sibling s and I take it in turns to visit daily. We organise for a hairdresser to set her hair twice a week and so as not to confuse her this is done on same days every week.
She had a great routine and that is how we run things to keep mum safe and secure.
We employed cleaning company to send a cleaner twice per week. Once on a Monday and once on a Thursday. It was working out well and the same girl came for the whole time we used the company.
She was great, even making mum a coffee before she left and chatting to her as she worked. However, she decided to go out on her own. We stupidly cut ties with the company and paid the cleaner directly to come. It was all well for 11 weeks, then she started not showing up on the Monday and coming on another day (varied depending on what she could fit in) this was confusing mum so I spoke to her and asked her to keep the days the same. We were flexible on time but days needed to be same.
She was becoming very unreliable some weeks only coming one day and then we discovered she want staying for the full two hours we were paying her. Usually leaving after and hour and twenty minutes. (We have security cameras so we could see her coming and going.)
Mum was getting confused and anxious and as we had spoken to the cleaner three times I told her it wasn't working out for us and we didn't need her to come back.
She has since bombarded me with calls and messages about how she misses mum and she's annoyed we sacked her. Sometimes they are really rude messages. She recently sent a message saying she is taking legal advice and plans to sue us as we have left her financially unable to cope.
Can she do this? Should I have persevered?