The Cockroach Cafe 🪳 Spring 2023

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome! I’ve done a really good clean of the place overnight, and brought in daffodils from the garden to remind us all that spring is around the corner and better times on the way.

Come in when you want to share good news, or to rant, or to ask a small question that doesn't warrant its own thread. Or just to hang out with others who understand what you're going through.

For newbies: why cockroach? Previous long term resident of "Elderly Parents" Yolo's DM attended a 'small animal event' in a nursing home, and was presented with a "small animal with a hard back" the name of which species she couldn't remember. Her ever helpful DB suggested cockroach, and it has become a toast on here. So 🪳 mes amis/amies, and may you all live to fight another day.

I want to look into respite care but don't really know where to start.

Has your mum had a social needs assessment from her local authority? The assigned social worker is one good source of ideas even if she doesn’t qualify for local authority support. Otherwise it’s a case of ringing round local care homes that say they do respite care and asking on their availability.

Something like this? Respite is one of the options

https://www.carehome.co.uk/

There are a few websites like this, I used one called Autunna or similar, but I can’t find it now

@MissMarplesNiece your county council website should have info re adult social care and may offer a helpline for advice or info on their website.
cqc website for local homes with quality reports.
age uk may have advice too.

Hugs and a large drink to everyone that needs it today. Nan has had the carers coming in for almost a week now and it's going well - she likes them and they are helping her with lots of things. A district nurse has been visiting too as she has pressure sores from sitting in her chair all day - we can't persuade her to move very far at all. The carer has said that she feels we are close to the end and I think she is right 😢 we want to make her remaining time as comfortable as possible but refuses to spend any money on herself...She needs these things NOW so can't wait for an assessment tbh. We are going to sit down and discuss it with her again today - she has full capacity so it has to come from her. It's so frustrating- she has the money but won't let any of it go as she says 'it's your inheritance'.

Can I pick some brains please?
We've no POA and are going to have to apply for financial guardianship (Scotland) for DM.
She's currently in hospital awaiting a nursing home place. How do I pay her ongoing bills before we clear and sell her house for fees, if I've not currently got access to her bank account?
I don't have the funds to pay them myself.
Does anyone have a step by step list of what happens and when? Many thanks in advance.

@Justmuddlingalong Has she been appointed a Social Worker? The SW will be best with the list and time line.
Do you know if the majority of DM's utilities and household expenditure come out of her bank account automatically? If they are, then these costs will go on being taken from her pension as before.

If you are still waiting for a SW to be allocated, you could phone the District Council for her area and speak to a Finance Officer who specifically looks after elderly care. They will be a wealth of info as this situation happens frequently.
The Council might take a 'charge' over DM's property going forward with the nursing/ care home and then you pay them back what's owing once the paper work catches up/ house sold.

Yes she's got a social worker, he's been in contact. They're happy to take over her welfare guardianship but we've to do the financial side. I think her utility bills are normally paid cash rather that direct debit.
I don't even have a set of keys (long complicated story) but her neighbour does and I've to collect them from her.
Will see what bills are behind the door and contact the suppliers for advice tomorrow.
Thanks for the advice @Mum5net.

@Nodancingshoes glad to hear care is going well, makes such a difference and peace of mind for you too. Difficult with money situation where she has capacity.

Can I join? Long time grateful lurker on this board. Finally time to offload a bit. Just looking to vent really!

Im an only child, very elderly parents (DF about to turn 95 this week, DM 87), still mobile and living in their own home. I have DH and DS16 and live 20 miles away. Thankfully am recently retired so have more time but volunteer at a local school too. Go to see parents once a week, more if needed.
Situation sounds fine and on the surface it is I suppose but I’m waiting for the car crash.

Never got on well with DM; she has evident MH problems, I had a difficult time with her as a child, she was often angry, I always felt disapproved of. Also feel she has effectively diminished my relationship with my DF who often stepped in to defend/ look after after me when I was a child. I don’t get to spend time with him because she’s always somehow in the way causing arguments and making everything about her. Anyway, have read Children of Emotionally Immature Parents so won’t go on, just to say the relationships aren’t easy.

Biggest practical problem is the house and Mum’s obsessions and hoarding. It’s a tip. I’ve cleaned up frequently, bathrooms, kitchen, etc but returned following week to same state - rubbish, tissues everywhere, random stuff - have concluded she actually prefers to live like that. It’s hazardous for falls and in fact Dad has fallen a lot but miraculously hasn’t broken a limb (used to run, must have strong bones) - he did break his cheekbone outside when he fell on the drive during lockdown, he had vertigo, while other story, he recovered fine. Eg he fell over the hoover tube this week.

The house is a 4 bed ex council house with garden front and back and is far too big/ beyond them but they absolutely refuse to move anywhere else - they want to stay there forever. They have odd ideas sometimes but neither has dementia and they still have capacity so I have focused instead on persuading them to make it a safe environment. Thankfully in the last few years they have agreed and I have organised and put in a walk in shower, my DH put up alias of grab rails and we got a stairlift fitted. Dad has a Walker upstairs and he has various walking sticks all over the house. Mum can walk but has bad knees and a heart condition so is very slow and doddery, nonetheless she spends 10 hours a day in the garden if she can, pottering and leaving stuff everywhere for Dad to fall over. Mum has extremely disordered sleep (always has), goes to bed about 2/3am, gets up at midday. Dad keeps same « army time » he always did, up at 7, bed at 9. They practically live separate lives and don’t talk about important things, I have lots of conversations twice.

I now have POA for health and finances for both of them (thank you Cockroaches for educating me 💐) and am currently in and out of bloody Barclays all the time since their local branch closed and Dad doesn’t want me to bank online (slowly winning that battle though as he’s now conceding it means I have to drive 20 miles to do stuff). I have a big ongoing list of stuff to do for them all the time as things they did when they were younger are I obviously beyond them - we recently dismantled their greenhouse, put in a water butt, have to paint their gate, front of the house is cracked etc etc - my DH says it feels like we are managing their house as elk as ours and he has only just cleared his own parents’ house in the last year or so.

Anyway not looking for specific advice and didn’t want to post too long, just - this feels like limbo or calm before the storm. I’m emotional because of my Dad’s birthday and at his age I keep wondering if this is the last one. Once one of them falls/ is ill/ goes to hospital it’s all downhill fast from there (saw it with PILs, MIL now in care home) and I just keep waiting for The Phone Call. Wish they had downsized years ago but they refused - I tried to persuade when we had DS (they have no part in his life, never made the effort ).

just - aaaaagh.

Sorry for typos.
Also, Dad recently stopped driving thank God, scrapped his car in the spring and is willing to get taxis to appointments etc. So that’s good.
But I wish they had a cleaner and they don’t/ won’t - they had one before Covid but she didn’t come back and now they don’t want someone strange in the house. Looking back having a cleaner kept them a bit more orderly as they had to tidy for her to be able to actually clean - now it’s all gone to hell.

@MotherOfCatBoy Hi and welcome…I could have written this myself. Thankfully you have the POA sorted. It has taken me 15 months to clear, get planning permission and finally auction my parents house after moving them in to assisted living. With hindsight, I’d have paid a clearance company to do the dirty work instead, and just auctioned straight away (before the market got so bad). Anyway, it’s done now and both parents have begrudgingly accepted that I need my life back. I give them one day a week of my spare time and try not to budge on that. It’s difficult at times, and I am often sent to sit on the ‘bad daughters bench’ but the help and advice I have received on here has helped me realise that I do more than enough. Sending you so much understanding and strength

@MotherOfCatBoy hope the vent was cathartic! One thing that stands out for me is the “having to” do things like painting the gate. Do you, really? Could jobs like that be the gateway point where your parents would accept someone else coming in to do the work? Presuming of course that the finances allowed. I sympathise with your DH on the managing properties position, we’re like that our respective parents houses. And then there’s the consideration that even if you got someone in to do the work, who does the leg work in finding, scheduling, instructing and paying them?

For me, cleaner and gardeners were worth my time and effort to set up versus my time and effort saved. Mum still doesn’t agree with needing the cleaner but accepts her to keep me quiet. She loves the gardener and talks a lot about how much better it looks now it’s tidy. I think a lot of the battle was her accepting that she wasn’t able to do it any more, a lot of denial about being able to manage.

Try not to worry about the car crash - things will be better afterwards. You’ll be able to go back to being a daughter. They’ve made their decision that they’d like to keep their own life going even at personal risk rather than give up their life for the sake of physical safety. Don’t take on yourself the responsibility of worrying about it.

Consider insisting they call in tradespeople for even small jobs like gate painting.

At least you’re an only! No siblings to argue with.

Look into what the PO can do re banking - paying in cheques etc. And phone banking - recently stopped all Dad’s charity SOs with one phone call to Barclays.

My Dad steadily declined, until falls got too frequent and he was no longer managing medication, and had a mental crash and moved into a nursing home at 96. Until then, yes, he hoarded. Tools, equipment, papers, and oddities like a stack of carefully washed out margarine tubs - the Council wouldn’t recycle them so he was hanging on to them until they would. Still doing his DIY repairs - G clamps a permanent feature. Refusing to throw out rags “those are my working trousers”. Couldn’t keep his house clean, wouldn’t let me do it, and we couldn’t have got a cleaner. Tottered around managing his own business, doing much of his own shopping, with supermarket workers, even a community policeman offering to his bags home with him. Social Services completely unfazed - he was nothing out of the ordinary.

Thank you @WollyParton 💐

usually one day a week is enough … they get tired and can’t do much more than that anyway… as you know it’s the emotional “overtime” afterwards that’s wearing!

@funnelfan think you’re right - there is a Council odd jobs service I think - will have to do the arranging but easier than spending 2 days pairing the gate - rusting off its hinges anyway!

@MereDintofPandiculation sounds just like mine. I think it’s the war generation - they were born in 28 and 36, both remember the privations and rationing, don’t think it’s unusual for that generation to hoard. To some extent I admire the waste not want not, but this has gone too far and they are living in decay and waste.
On the garden, it’s almost impossible unless all cut back - very overgrown but Mum won’t le let me cut back flowering shrubs etc - also they have the weirdest way of leaving plastic everywhere - they put plastic and cardboard down “to keep the weeds from growing” but of course they grew anyway and the plastic (like old compost bags) is now embedded like a layer. Tubs and old tuna cans everywhere, Mum tries to catch slugs in them (don’t ask), unidentifiable containers of god knows what fertiliser and weed killer - in short it’s a hazard. Sometimes I look at it and think, I’ll just wait, and one day I’ll get a skip and deal with it that way. I fantasise about skips..

@MotherOfCatBoy I take it you're not a gardener? Putting down black plastic or cardboard is a standard way of suppressing weeds. The cardboard is not a problem as it rots and adds nutrient, but plastic is a problem if the weeds start growing through holes and let it get away with you. Catching slugs is a better way of removing them than using slug pellets, although there's never a satisfactory way of disposing of them, which is why I don't do it. So it all seems quite rational to me.

But of course I'm just post war, so still in the "make do and mend" mindset. I think you may be a child of the 60s or 70s and things were changing by then. But your parents seem rational to me, just finding that they can't keep up now they're older. They've done really well so far! (Everyone will be reading this and feeling sorry of my DC )

Ask very familiar here too! DF was ‘32 and mum is ‘39. The garage is an Aladdins cave of “useful” stuff. Enough kitchen roll to see mum out and halfway to see me out too!

I get the logic of the plastic (even though hate plastic) and it was fine 20 years ago when they could manage it. But now it’s embedded everywhere and rotting away in layers, and the stuff under the undergrowth isn’t predictable, it’s all a fall/ injury hazard. It’s totally beyond them, but they won’t let me touch anything or change it. The only reason they allowed us to dismantle the greenhouse was because a storm in ‘21 had lifted it off its brick base and moved it an inch or so, resulting in shards lethal shattered glass everywhere. Like that for two years. That was a fun job.
This is why I just want to hire a skip and nuke the lot. I could cry though, they used to have the most beautiful garden. They still could but they want to fiddle around the edges rather than make it safe for them to still enjoy it.

Really hard to explain. I get what you’re saying @MereDintofPandiculation and I wish it were like that - but imagine a hoarder’s house - now transfer that to the garden, and it’s more like that. Random stuff, chemicals, plastic, rotting things. And they won’t touch it/ clear it. Beyond logic.

i know I can’t control it so there are many battles that end before they’ve begun, I just shrug my shoulders and concentrate on what’s really important that day. So I’m not arguing with them about the garden unless I think it’s unsafe (like the greenhouse). It’s just sad. And a big sign of decline.

@MotherOfCatBoy Yeah, I think I understand. Indoors, my father went from lots of stuff in cupboards, spare rooms, roof, but living spaces still immaculate from habits formed when my mother was alive, to lots of stuff everywhere, things (eg cupboard doors) beginning to break and left like that because he wouldn't get someone in to do a job that he (in his younger years) could do himself, his garden was OK because he didn't see himself as a gardener so I did it. But I know my own garden is beginning to lose its edge and I'm having to reconsider how I do my garden so that I can still keep on top of it, Difference between me and my dad is that I will get a gardener.

I do understand, I suppose what I should have said more clearly is that you can have a logical foundation but as your energy dissipates with age, everything takes so much longer, and things that should have been dealt with are left until they can no longer be dealt with.

My father wanted to move to be nearer us, but was planning to get his house in good nick for the sale, repainting all the windows, repairing the ht air central heating he'd installed 40 years ago. But he'd slowed down so much, and eventually he decided it was time to move we found a house he liked. He then was imagining 6 months to actually do the move. We had to be quite brutal. Downsizing cleared quite a lot of stuff, but a lot still came with him.

What I find most infuriating about this kind of situation @MotherOfCatBoy is that you (general you to include me) know it will be up to you to get it sorted in the end. And if you tackle it now it will be easier than leaving it to deteriorate further. But our elderlies don’t seem to join the dots up to the point of “yes if we let this get fixed now it will make our families lives easier”. I see this rationale played out often with my mum, and I haven’t had the problematic relationship with her that you have with yours.

@MotherOfCatBoy My nans house is the same - rugs everywhere that she could trip over, tissues, the backing of plasters, blankets, tubs full of old batteries and pegs...I clear up where I can but she won't let me throw anything other than the actual litter away. It's a nice flat but it would be much much nicer (and safer) if we could do a proper clear up.
She has grown to expect our everyday visits now even though things have settled down slightly. I think we may have made a rod for our own backs unfortunately.