AIBU to just throw my hands in the air re elderly parent?

[ImATerribleMultitasker]

My elderly father has made no provision for his later years whatsoever.

He’s 88, and his health and mobility is declining. He lives in a 4 double bedroom house, with lots of additional rooms and a large front and back garden. It’s crumbling around his ears. He’s had a few accidents climbing ladders and slipping on ice in winter. His house has 4 bedrooms filled to the brim of crap; 500 books, 50 plates, 30 coats, 200 pairs of socks……….

In addition he doesn’t like being in the house alone. Despite having a very good social life, and being out a lot, he hates it when at home alone. He has no friends or contacts in the street.

He’s had a few health scares and can walk well now. The stairs in the house are really steep.

I’ve had 3 conversations with him about moving to make his life easier. Somewhere like a bungalow (won’t move to a flat) with a small garden to tend.

No. Apparently my sibling and I should be maintaining his house for him and he’s a bit bitter that we aren’t. Also, he says he's not elderly. He says he jumps out of bed, everyone thinks he’s about 70, and no one can believe how old he is. His age is fast catching up with him.

I can’t as I don’t live close, work full time and got DC at senior school who need driving around.

I feel overwhelmed and frustrated just listening to him. I’m exhausted.

What would anyone suggest I do to save my own sanity?

Oh OP it's so hard. My friends and I talk about our elderly parents a lot and it makes such a difference if a DP is adaptable and open to support from outside the family. My DF unfortunately isn't either so I feel your frustration. Not saying we have solved anything at the moment but I hold firm on what I can / cannot do on visits and get him to prioritise or work out what someone else can do. He has a cleaner now and a carer for DM, so that is an improvement - but he hit crisis several times before this happened. And the house is still cluttered! I have not succeeded in that at all.

@PlutarchHeavensbee
You really have a terrible situation going on there and for your own sanity you need to cut back on what you do. Your father is not even a nice person. Put your phone on silent over night. You could have a pretend illness for a few weeks and see how he gets on.
For various reasons my sister and I are LC with my mother, who is in her 90s. My brother visits her once a week with her shopping. He takes her to medical appointments but that is it. My mother knows that there is no point moaning to us as we just say ‘do you need to go into a home?’. She has carers, a cleaner and a gardener because none of us will do these things for her.
My children will not be doing care for me. Why would anyone want someone they love to be their skivvy? I have spoken to my children. They would arrange care for me but not do it.

You can’t make him move. We had the same dilemma with my dm after my df died. Lived in a big semi, 100ft garden. Totally overwhelming for her, but didn’t see why she should move and I agreed. She’d been there for about 30 years. However, after a hospilization because she wasn’t looking after herself, she decided to downsize.

I think you can raise him moving, but ultimately, it has to be his choice. I would make it clear, however, that you are not going to maintain his house.

Tell him he has a choice.

Choice 1:
You will help him to find and lock in a gardener and cleaner for one day a week and a handyman one day a month. He will have to pay for this.

Choice 2:
Or he can sell and move to a manageable home.

Choice 3:
Or he can do nothing, in which case you will get social services involved at some point - for safeguarding reasons.

This bothers you. Rightly so. If you avoid the hard conversation then you are only prolonging the situation.

It is not your responsibility to allow him to absent himself of his responsibility. You can't expect any other outcome if you won't speak up.

This is a wonderful and insightful reply, the best on here. Great advice 👍

My god you poor woman! This sounds like a living hell. I have no advice other than to say I'm so sorry.

Even though your DD sounds like an awful person of course you worry for him. I hope in time you find a way to cut yourself off from him.

Decide what not to care about.
House move- if he doesn't want to go, you can't force him or talk him into it. The instinct and emotion attached to the psychological safe place is so powerful. So assume big crumbling house is it, until carried out in a box or extreme crisis forces nursing home.

Garden- the most dispensible thing. Somebody in to mow the lawn but apart from that- as long as there are no awful invasive species, anything that's going to wreck the foundations or dangerous trees that are going to fall across boundaries onto the heads of passers by or neighbours then let it go to absolute shite and get somebody to razz the feck out of it with a chainsaw, or sell as is, when he's dead. Maybe stick a couple of pots with tulip bulbs in near the door or something to make it look as if there is some semblance of control.

Stairs. Well. You can ask about downstairs living but- again, psychologically having to "give up" is a bigger deal for some. I have a client in work that I do housecalls for. He lives alone, only family member >50 miles away. He has lost so much sight that he's registered blind. Last year my heart was in my mouth when he'd scuttle upstairs on hands and feet to retrieve something he wanted to show me. On my most recent visit I was pleased to see he has a stairlift now. It's very neat and you can easily walk past it up the stairs and I think he still does, but uses the stairlift for coming down or for carrying stuff up and down. Perhaps you could talk him into that in a "just in case you have an arthritis flare up and need it the odd time" or "handy for coming back down". Sell it as the ticket to keeping the uninterrupted freedom of the whole house. I think it's worth concentrating some effort on the stairlift campaign.

All the crap. Forget it. If he was going to do Swedish death cleaning he would have done it by now. Maybe bulldoze a lot of it that he doesn't use into a couple of the rooms he goes into the least ? Just leave a clear track to the windows so he (or more likely you or a home help) can throw them open to air the house without climbing over stuff and try to get as much off the ground to mimimise trip hazard potential. I wouldn't bother exhausting yourself and annoying him by trying to declutter properly, it'll only cause anguish. Just run your eye over everything and have a look at some "elderly house clearout" resources to mentally prep for the inevitable. You could show an interest in a book or two, ask to borrow them, read and leave them back and talk about them so at least he could feel useful and helpful and not like you are just trying to get rid of his stuff.

Power of attorney- do it! Important , definite priority.

Ladder climbing, ice slipping. Que sera, sera, to an extent. What tasks was he doing when these happened and how can risk be mitigated? So "wheelie bin closer to the door" type thing? You might be able to persuade him to only work at height when there is somebody to foot the ladder at least. And get a good stash of grit on standby now and make him promise to check the forecast every day and get it down in daylight ready for an overnight frost.

The blind chap with the newly installed stairlift I mentioned is 94 by the way.

Yuck, I feel sorry for the eldest children in that situation. As OP lives far away from her dad, I assume that you think that she should give up her job and leave her husband and children to care for her dad in a home that is totally unsuitable for someone in their late 80s?

My Dad was a bit like this. He lived 200 miles away and I tried so hard to persuade him to move to a smaller, more manageable property where I lived so I could support him better but he wouldn't do it. He was resentful my siblings & I did not visit him as often as he thought we should. He lived to be 94 and in fact in the end spent all but the last 10 days of his life in his own home but PlutachHeavensbee I feel so sorry for you, your situation with your Dad sounds awful

Not very helpful. Your grandmother could have had a stroke anywhere. Many (most?) elderly people live alone, so if they sadly pass away from a sudden illness like a stroke, then yes, they’ll die alone. My GP died suddenly - in a neat and tidy house where they lived with their spouse, and still they died, because they were struck down by a stroke.

I'm dreading this life stage.

My parents are deeply sensible. Dad moved to a little bungalow at about 60, in tip top health. Mum has made her house as low maintenance as possible, had everything fixed while she can afford it, and has thought through plans for either a stairlift or a downstairs bathroom.

My inlaws, on the other hand, are an endless burden due to their own pig headed stupidity, and are only in their 70s.

They moved, at 65 and in already failing health, to a run down cottage in the middle of nowhere. It needed total refurbishment, which they have neither the money nor energy to do. They're on gas bottles and have a septic tank. They have a large garden that they can't manage, a sloping driveway which they have regular falls on, and can only leave the house in a car as they're on a major A road with no pavement, and nothing to walk to anyway (no shop, no pub, no bus stop). The house is full to the brim with shit - newspapers, books, wool, art supplies, cooking equipment, pot plants, empty jars, bulk bought out of date ingredients.
Both in laws are endlessly ill, injured or being operated on, and the house makes their circumstances 200% worse. It's so dirty, it must be horrible to try to recover in.

We and their other child live several hours away, but they expect endless attention and support for their multitude of health issues (DH makes it clear there's nothing we can do as we work full timeTheyThe calls are endless.

They will not have a conversation about what the future looks like.

It sounds unkind, but I can't help thinking they're both a bit thick.

Leave him to it. I wouldn't get involved.

Totally off topic but your username is fabulous! Loved that film as a teenager. What a throwback.

Yes to letting the comments wash over you and don’t go into solution mode. Think of him as an elderly chap on the bus who tells you his woes. Nod and smile.

He's not a baby, it's his choice. Focus instead on getting him help with house and garden that is not you and getting him ideas to help with loneliness, like a lodger or foreign exchange student. There's tons of people need low cost accommodation and it could really help him out as well.

Let him get on with it. Honestly you’ll drive yourself demented trying to get him to do what’s best for him when he’s not on board, so save yourself the mental trauma and don’t bother. When he falls and breaks his hip get adult social services involved and take it from there.

Sounds like for them the ‘future’ is already here.
It can’t get much worse.
Are social services involved ?

It's not fair for him to expect you and your sibling to regularly clean his house! Especially when he brags about leaping out of bed lol! A lot of men of older generations struggle when they find themselves on their own because their wife did all the domestics for them. If you're in the UK find out about/apply for attendance allowance, find a local cleaner and/or gardener and he could pay them with attendance allowance. Maybe use the cleaner starting as encouragement for him to think about decluttering. Suggest a pendant alarm or falls alarm if he is worried about falling and not being found. This might make him feel more secure about being at home on his own overnight. You can even get smart watch ones which don't look 'old'. Age Uk are really good to find out about this stuff. Definitely remove the ladders but let him know, otherwise he'll think he's losing his marbles!

@ImATerribleMultitasker You say the house is "crumbling" around him.

I think you should make sure the structure of the house is not damaged, so for example keep an eye on the roof, gutters, downpipes, and indoor plumbing. Water damage is the thing to avoid.
You don't want to see the value of the house seriously decreased.

If it is just things like kitchen cupboards falling apart, that doesn't matter.

@EuclidianGeometryFan
as pp says.
if he can jump out of bed he can clean and garden
however ,,,
I know a 90 year old who lives alone (still drives )
has gardener , cleaner , hairdresser , stair lift ,
House is well maintained, but is fairly new (not a new build though )
she’s just started having carers twice a day - she’s not immobile but has a walker
She is also always up early every morning, though I don’t there’s much leaping out of bed involved.

My friend's dad was like this. He wouldn't take any suggestions from her and the house was falling down around his ears - piled high with crap. She offered to do a dump run but got abuse for interfering.

In the end she left him to it as she felt she couldn't help someone who wouldn't accept helo.

You really have my sympathies. My highly organsied gran died recently and it gave my hoarder parents a kick up the arse to sort things out as just dealing with probate etc was traumatic enough without a house full of crap. I would never leave my children this kind of burden, I want them to be focusing on their famiies and see me for the occasional sunday lunch as a nice thing not a burden Good luck with it all X

Unfortunately I don’t have any advice, just solidarity as I’m in a very similar position.
I’m an only child and my parents live in a crumbling house, too big for them, isolated, freezing and bordering on hoarding. Recently one parent had a serious health situation with months of hospitalization ahead, the exact worst case scenario that you need a POA for, but of course they don’t have one and are digging their heels about sorting now. The expectations are growing in how I can help both the parent at home and in hospital, despite having no siblings, a very full time job and young children.
They won’t consider a cleaner/gardener/etc, won’t pay for any home improvements which could ease some of the issues, the ‘healthy’ one won’t look after themselves although more than capable.
What’s frustrating is that for the last few years they had never wanted to be that involved with me/being a grandparent as they were ‘living their best life’, but really they missed the best years to spend as a family and now want that support now it suits them, but still largely don’t appreciate it.

I think you've posted about this before? There isn't anything you can do. If he needs help employing a tradesperson then help him with that but that's all you can do. I'm in my mid fifties but I don't feel any different to when I was in my 20's, he's probably the same. It's only health things that remind me I'm not!