AIBU To not want worker to just walk into my house.

[Maxsmum255]

Hello, First time poster so I apologise in advance for any mistakes, I wasn't sure what to title this so I hope its ok.

A bit of back story I am disabled and mostly bed bound, I have a hospital bed in my home that was provided for me by my occupational therapist which I truely appreaciate as I wouldn't be able to afford it by myself and I would end up with pressure sore if I was in a normal bed.

This leads to today when the company that provides the beds and services them wanted to come out and service the bed, Unfortunately my sister who takes care of me and anwsers the door and things like that was out as she had to go to an appointment, so it just wasn't an option to have the worker come today plus they said they would call before they were coming so we could cancel or not but there was no call.

It was 10.30am this morning and I heard a knock at the door but as I am unable to answer the door myself I just had to ignore it, my mum who lives across the road from me called as she saw the worker at my door, I told my mum that I wasn't available to have the worker come in my house. My mum told the worker this and he got rude and said that he wouldn't be leaving without getting into my house.

For some context I live in a small cul de sac that has alot of disabled and elderly people who live here and have carers who come in everyday and as they are also bed bound the carers tend to just walk right in their houses as some have keys and others just have the doors unlocked, Thankfully my sister takes care of me so I don't need carers to come in. The worker told my mum that he would just wait for my carers to come and he would go in with them. My mum told him that I don't have carers and he said that as he travelled 40 miles to service my bed he would just walk into my house and do it anyway.

I was scared at this point as I suffer from bad anxiety and I knew that my sister had forgot to lock the front door(she usually always locks it but was in a rush this morning and forgot). So I knew he could just walk in if he tried so I was just shaking stuck in my bed and I heard him outside shouting at my mum and knocking on my windows and door. He told her that he wouldn't be leaving until he got in my house one way or another. He was outside for 30 minutes just sitting in his van, my mum then rung me to let me know that he had moved on to some other peoples houses to do their services even though he told my mum that he had come all this way just to do my bed and I was costing him money. He also threatened to come and remove my bed as he said it will fail insurance if he doesn't see it today. even though I have had this bed for about 2 years and they were supposed to service it in July but they never came.

I was upset for until my sister got back home about an hour later and I could finally relax as I knew he was gone. I am terrified of him coming back and just walking in my house tomorrow or another day. My sister is furious and tried to call the company but couldn't get through today so she will try again tomorrow. His attitude was really scary as he goes into vulerable peoples homes and seems to think he can do what he wants.

AIBU - Should I have just let him walk in even though I was still just in my nightie and waiting for my sister to help dress me, plus in order for him to service the bed my sister would have to help transfer me to my wheelchair.

Sorry for the long post.

Yanbu. You are in a vulnerable position and absolutely shouldn't have to have an unknown man alone with you in the house if you aren't comfortable with that.
Would your mum not have been able to supervise him? However I can see why you still may not have been comfortable with it given his attitude.

Sorry you got given a hard time, yes its scary that people think they can just enter houses without permission.

Sadly my mum is also disabled so would be unable to help me.

Yeah they usually call but they didn't this time for some reason. My sister is wonderful, thank you.

I would crawl out of the house if I had to but I don't see how a fire compares to my situation.🤔

They didn't call at all. I had no idea that they were even coming out.

I didn't 'let' him come out, I had no idea he was even coming at all.

Thank you, thats what I was trying to explain. I have no problem with them coming out and doing their job, I just ask that they let me know when they are going to come but they didn't.

This is dreadful
behaviour! If you need such a bed what on earth was he expecting if you didn’t have your carer there to help you out of bed etc, and, above all, to make sure a vulnerable person wasn’t left alone e with a strange man. They absolutely had a duty of care to their customers here to ensure you were able to be cared for appropriately whilst their technician did their work. Phone and make a complaint, sounds like your sister is all over that now anyway
sorry to hear you’re disabled, I have recently been diagnosed with an auto immune disease and will slowly get worse, so can put myself in your shoes, on my bad days I struggle to walk around my home and thankfully my bedroom is downstairs, but haven’t been upstairs in my house for about 2 years. Take care

I am bewildered at the number of people making the blithe assumption that the OP's mum was fit to help.

I had this to an extent from council Homecare staff who assumed that my husband could help to move around furniture in order to facilitate the council workmen carrying in a hospital bed.

In spite of the fact that they had all our details, the manager had missed the fact that my (now late) husband had had a stroke and had hemiparesis. In the end, I had to move around the furniture and remove the old double bed myself. To this day, I don't know how I did it.

That is absolutely disgusting!
I also have a medical bed which has an annual service and they always make an appointment. You should make a complaint.

Is it medequip? I had one bloke once that was a really nasty piece of work. I contacted them and asked them to make sure he never came to my house again. They were very apologetic.

And this whole 'you're disabled dont make things even more difficult for the normals' attitude can fuck right off. Right off.

You are definitely not being unreasonable. That sounds like you were in a very scary position and that worker needs to be reprimanded for his threatening behaviour. If possible, I would speak to the company and also to your occupational therapist if you have any appointments coming up.

These companies are often paid out of local NHS funding via adult social care, so it may be worth speaking to your local councillor as well. If the worker is like that with you, chances are he is like that with everyone.

He did not!!!
As I said on my post, I don’t have a porch!
If you are going to be pedantic enough to read my previous post, at least get your facts right!
And as I ALSO said on my post, my safety latch was on, which is why he couldn’t enter.

I still am, but on your thread!!
Why oh why do people comment without reading the thread properly?!
Drives me insane.

Thank you to everyone who replied and voted. Sorry for the late reply, my sister spoke to a woman at the company and she was shocked and upset by the way he acted. She said it was beyond reprehensible and he will be severely reprimanded and they will make sure I get a phone call to book another time for them to come, she has promised that he will not be back at my house. Thanks again for the support.

One of the issues here is the servicing contracts regularly change hands.
It's becoming a cash cow service that companies buy and sell and then look at how to further cut running costs in order to make profits from it.

One of the ways it's achieved is by paying the service agent only for the jobs actually done, not travel time (and sometimes fuel) between them.

It's similar to carers only being paid for time allocated to the disabled person, - (but they don't get a vehicle) and the agencies profit comes from whatever money they can make for providing the clients and insurance and pay roll, to the carers.

With equipment servicing, the service agent may have to cover fuel and /or they find themselves having to do one two hours driving for free, (or NMW) in order to only make a small amount of money (or better money) on a quick service.

The biggest obstacle to cost cutting is disabled people expecting to have appointments, so servicing agents can be expected to find ways of managing the users in their area, so they can do them all at once, or they find themselves earning little money for the day.

The actual user then gets seen seen as the caretaker for NHS owned equipment that someone else needs to make money from, standing in the way.
Rather than as a disabled user in need of equipment and a service to keep it running, and that's where the anger and aggression comes from.
Especially when they can see a key safe, but a locked door, or someone's in the bed.

Just as many carers demand the user chooses between help washing, or getting up, or help eating. They're being paid only for the half hour in the property, including their record keeping. Most find ways of managing, but some who are being exploited, pass the exploitation on.

In both situations someone in the office massages the reality to the end user.

Sorry, not wishing to worry you, but it's unlikely the service agent will be permanently blacklisted from servicing your address, more likely they'll send out someone else for this service to calm things down, but area guy will warned about not incurring a 2nd complaint from that address in future.

Long term I'd suggest a key safe, and a mag lock fitted to your door, you can then control if it's (over) locked or not from your bed.

Wow… you think being disabled is a… choice? I’ll tell you what is a choice, how you speak to people. You’re making a bad one.

You don't think disabled people have autonomy? Wow.

Here, disabled people who are given hospital beds at home, are automatically individuals who can't independently get themselves in and out of bed, either all of the time, or a significant amount of the time, including if their bedroom is on fire.

The level of their disability isn't a choice and they don't suddenly have autonomy because their life is under threat. HTH

I would personally ring the police and report him! He was aggressive and telling someone that he would be coming in their house whether they wanted him to or not?!! Police would take a very dim view of that!!!

Are you equating autonomy with physical ability?

Maybe the person's mother doesn't have the strength or height to get her daughter up, dressed and into her wheelchair or a chair! Her mother may be elderly or unwell or both.

@vivainsomnia It sounds to me as if the worker to service the bed just turned up expecting to be let in/expecting someone to be home and did not follow through with the prior arrangement of calling in advance to let this person or their sister know of which day/date and time they planned to arrive in order that day/date and time suitable. This person is bedbound and very vulnerable. It is inappropriate for that servicer worker who is also male to just arrive unannounced and expect to be let into the home by a very vulnerable disabled female it appears and unacceptable for him to have started being aggressive with the mother outside and actually making threats of what he was going to do. I would not have someone like that employed in a company I owned. Especially when their employment position involves them being around very vulnerable individuals with significant health/disability issues. Tact, respectfulness and sensitivity are essential for anyone in an employment role such as his as is patience and tolerance and a calm understanding nature. I would fire him if everything stated by the mother/daughter and employee was discovered to be completely true. Company or servicer worker employee should have called in advance arranging a suitable day/date and time. If there was a fire in the house when the sister was out I am sure their probably a water sprinkler system in place that would set off and the mother would probably try to get her daughter out to safety if she has a key because usually that door is locked by her other daughter, the woman's sister who cares for her. It wasn't her mother's place to just allow someone into her daughters home. Not without her daughters consent. Though the mother could have knocked and gone in the home to speak with her daughter and made arrangements with the man for him to return later that day when the sister was finally home, or return another day. 30 or 40 miles is nothing really when in other countries it could very well be 100-200 miles or more travelled by an employer or employee to do a job.

I don’t understand why your mum
didn’t come over? Especially if she’s just across the road.

@GummyBearette Though I have to slightly disagree about how people speak to others is a choice because it really isn't choice always. People can speak badly to others because they have underlying issues or disability such as disturbance/mental health problems/a condition/brain injury/brain damage/a certain medication or treatments side effects. It isn't always choice of how we speak to others. Someone with dementia is not making choice of how negatively and or disgustingly and threateningly they are speaking to others. It is absolutely awful and horrible and very upsetting but they are not making choice to speak the way they do. It is their dementia or whatever problem underlying that they have. Though this servicer worker male just appears as if he was making choices to be horrible and threatening. Though who knows his underlying issues that may just cause him to behave/speak that way. I don't know, do you?