COVID19 - Sibling behaving irresponsibly to Elderly mum

[Jellyfish03]

My adult sibling (aged 57) lives with our mum (aged 76). My sibling does not work and basically lives rent free with our mum. My mum has asked her to leave her house as she is becoming increasingly concerned about my siblings behaviour in the current pandemic and the risk she is potentially exposing our mum too. Whilst my sibling is not specifically going against current legislation they are doing things which are upsetting our mum such as travelling by train to another town to attend a Uni course one day a week, using public transport, not socially distancing and infrequent face covering use. I am concerned for my mum’s welfare and particularly how worried she is that my sibling will infect her with COVID19. Any thoughts, advice or comments would be really welcome

Had your sibling ever lived elsewhere? Why do they live with your mum? Had she ever had a grown up chat with them?

Thanks for your response. Yes have the grown up chat all the time but doesn’t take any notice. I have also tried. Life is so much easier by living with our mum. They feel they have no job or money to live by themselves and say they are unable to get housing benefit etc

I mean the travelling by public transport if for an essential journey and going to the uni course doesn’t seem unreasonable. Infrequent mask use and not social distancing is unreasonable.

Its your mums house and if he’s worried she’s within her rights to ask you sister to stay elsewhere. Does she have another place to stay? What did they do during the previous loxkdown?

Your Mum could also say that sibling needed to social distance in the house, so they could use their bedroom, but not the living room or the kitchen, and, if there's a second toilet, they could use that and wash in the the basin, but they can't share the main bathroom. And they need to wear a mask moving through the house. It might get the message across.

Train to uni once a week isn't itself a problem, but it becomes a problem if the sibling isn't paying attention to social distancing hand washing, masks etc.

Assuming it’s your mum’s house and your sister has no formal right to live there then you mum can ask her to leave at any point but I’m not sure where she expects a 57yo part time uni student with no income to go.

I would imagine that it would irrevocably damage their relationship but perhaps your mum is happy to accept that. Does your mum have any health concerns and is she generally happy living with your sister apart from the covid concern.

What would happen if your sibling had to go out to work full time eg in a shop or hospital ?

How is food shopping/medication done online or at the shop ?

I assume this needs to take place
Social distancing
Mask wearing
Hand washing
Change of clothes

Lots of people live in multi generational households

Perhaps compromise on both sides ?