My father is late eighties and staying temporarily with my brother who I have no contact with. He needs lots of support that my brother is unwilling to give.
He has assumed the role of house finder for my father who is downsizing but has told my dad that I’m not to have anything to do with it. My father has refused numerous large and expensive properties and so my brother eventually showed him a smaller property and my father had an offer accepted.
My brother has since changed his mind and has now decided that he wants nothing to do with helping my father with the house purchase. He now barely speaks to my father, doesn’t check in on him, comes and goes erratically. This makes it difficult for my father to ask him for help and for me to get access to help him (as I need permission to go round).
The tumble dryer (in the room my father sleeps in) is broken and so the room gets damp. My father is having to pay for someone to fix it next week when it’s my brother’s responsibility.
His dehumidifier gets emptied if my father sees him and remembers to ask him to do it but it doesn’t get put back on unless I am there.
He has accused me of trying to scratch paint off his front door which is completely bizarre when the whole house is in disrepair and I am focused on helping my father in the limited amount of time that I am allowed to spend there. My father sometimes thinks it’s best if I don’t go round to visit him in case it upsets him.
He doesn’t work (inherited a large sum of money from a distant cousin he befriended) and is very well disposed to his neighbours in a close knit street in the house that was my mother’s.
When one of the neighbours died, he commented to my father that he was surprised that she hadn’t left him any money in her will which is typical of my brother who is obsessed with making money without working.
Today as I was helping my father to walk outside, I spotted a neighbour across the road staring suspiciously at me and at my car parked on the end of the road on double yellow lines in a residents only area. There is literally nowhere to park and I usually have heavy shopping bags to carry into the house and often have to take my father to appointments.
I found this really upsetting and unfortunately I turned back to comment on how rude she was and something along the lines of her being one of my brothers minions but I couldn’t help myself.
I’m now stressing over the fact that my brother is causing trouble for me in the wider community because I am supporting my father to downsize which is preventing my brother from moving him into something bigger.
Any advice would be appreciated and also some reassurance that I’m not some vile lowlife relative that I think the neighbours must think I am. I’m just trying to support my father.