DM, 70, is in a flat only accessible by climbing 40 steps, and doesn't have the money to move anywhere she deems acceptable

[ForCalmGreenCat]

The long and the short of the situation is

• DM is 70, and still in good health but can't / won't walk as far as she once did.

• She lives in a small flat, in the top floor of a converted house, owned outright. There are 40 steps to climb to access her front door, and a stairlift isn't an option due to the shared access. Her neighbours are young professionals, and unlikely to be on board.

• DM doesn't have much money, and never has. She was in low paid, often insecure work until she retired during lockdown.

• DM likes the idea of moving, but will only consider purchasing a two bed house or bungalow, in a nice area of the same city. Unfortunately this city's house prices have gone crazy, and she simply doesn't have the money for what she considers the 'minimum'. If she moved to my city, she could have a nice bungalow that ticks all the boxes within budget, but she doesn't want to move cities.

• DM is also a procrastinator extraordinaire, with hoarding tendencies. She has been talking about moving since around 2004. We are not particularly close, so there's a limit to how much I can push things, but I'm also an only child, so there's no one else. I have an LPA, but she has full mental capacity.

At the moment, the way I think this is going to pan out in the coming years is that she stays there until a crisis is reached - perhaps her falling down the steps and breaking something - and ends up in hospital too immobile to return home but too well for a care home. Alternatively she'll just become a hermit as the stairs become increasingly difficult.

Does anyone know how this sort of scenario pans out? Will the council refuse sheltered housing on the grounds that she's a homeowner? (NB she regards sheltered housing as a threat, not an positive option). Even if she could finally be persuaded to sell up and move somewhere on the ground floor, what happens during the months of conveyancing?

Everything I've read and heard over the years seems to assume a starting point of adaptations being possible, the older person being willing to move, or the person being so decrepit that they need to go into a nursing home anyway.

The council will refuse council housing on the grounds she is a homeowner.

There are sheltered schemes where you can buy (eg mccarthy and stone) but they have their own problems (largely huge fees which you have to pay even after the owner has died until the flat sells).

Usually what happens is the person stays there until there is a crisis and they are physically unable to leave/get into the flat at which point they have to sell it. This usually upsets them.

You can go into rented sheltered housing if you have a home to sell. There may be a waiting list, but the turnover is quite high (for obvious reasons) so that’s a possibility. If your mum at 70, which is actually quite young, doesn’t want to move then it’s in her hands. I wouldn’t offer advice to her, or solutions at this stage.

If she’s so very determined to stay until exactly what she wants becomes available (which it won’t) then it will probably take a crisis to change things. 😕

If it's only a 2 storey house could she put in a lift from the entrance hall to her flat. It would be in her flat apart from when using it.

Wouldn't work in a 3 storey building obviously.

TBF she doesn't want to move and doesn't want to listen so you will have to leave her to it. Although a ground floor flat conversion is on a par to what she has now.

Don’t worry until she’s there. At the moment she’s in good health. If she loses her health she may decide to move town.

I have a 72 year old friend who walks 6 miles per day and dead lifts 45kg at her 3 times weekly CrossFit class.

A stair lift actually sounds like a sensible option and I can't see why it would be much of an issue to her neighbours

How bad is her mobility? My mum (82) has insisted for years that she's better off staying in her home with loads of stairs and says that people get less healthy by not going up and down stairs, which is a fair point, borne out by her so far. My dad had COPD but still managed the stairs for most of his life. They put a stairlift in eventually but he died two weeks later then my mum had it taken out. I can't tell from your post how much of an issue the stairs really are for your mum, but if she's managing with them, she may continue to do so for a good long while yet, until such a point as you can have more influence, or leave it up to the support services to deal with. If she won't listen to you, there's not much to be done, and she's still relatively young and it's fair enough to let her live where she chooses.

You'll just need to leave her to her own stupidity and consequences.

Housing providers will do an assessment based on the person's needs, but if she is still managing the steps okay it's unlikely to get her very far. Does she have any pain on climbing or issues with her sight, if so the GP could provide a supporting letter. But it sounds as if she's dead set against sheltered housing, probably viewing it as 'for old people'. Sounds like one of those scenarios where something WILL happen in the next few years and you'll be in a 'told you so' situation. It's rubbish for you OP. The hoarding is a way of besieging yourself in my experience - oh I'd never get all this stuff packed up, look what I have at this house - my mother was like that. You have my sympathy.

Your dm is only 70, surely its going to be quite a while yet before stairs are an issue? I have relatives in mid-70's and they are fit as fiddles doing weekly gym classes and no issues with stairs?
Is your mum physically fit? 70 isn't old.

You are joking. This will reduce the stair width for all the neighbours. They could potentially trip on the stair lift and this would be dangerous for young children.
It could also impede evacuation for everyone in the event of a fire.

There's no reason to assume she'll fall down the stairs any more than you might fall down the stairs, or any more than she'd fall down stairs in the outside world. It really depends on what her health issues are as to whether this is reasonable concern or might never come to pass.

Thank you for all the responses so far.

To be clear, she's ok at the moment - but I'm very aware that in 5 or 10 years she very likely won't be ok any more. She currently moans loudly if I try and take her out for a lap of the park with my dog, though she can do it.

I'd sooner her deal with all this while she still can, so that she can make her own choices (e.g. going to viewings) and choose the least bad option for her. Unfortunately if I have to make the decisions, I'll get the blame for not finding the perfect unicorn solution.

I'm self employed and we have huge, inflexible seasonal highs and lows (think seaside tourism). If she were to have a crisis at the start of busy season, during which I work 7 days a week, then it could be 5 months before I can dedicate any time to sorting things out. I don't really want to have to choose between DM's health and my own livelihood.

There is quite a high level of ostrich behaviour here - burying her head in the sand. I don't think she believes she'll grow old - her parents died young - so in her mind she'll never have to deal with it...!

@AInightingale you've hit the nail on the head there!

I get that you'd rather she dealt with it sooner, but 5 or 10 years is a long time and it may be that she'll stay in that flat until her final move into a care home or six feet under rather than needing another property in between. She likes the city where she lives and can't afford the kind of property she'd need there, so I can't blame her for not wanting to move away now at age 70 when she's doing okay. If she can manage the stairs fine, that's the main thing. Whether she wants to do a lap of the park with your dog isn't really an indicator of poor health.

I had all kinds of similar worries about my parents, wanting to get them into a bungalow/more appropriate older person property but the bottom line is most people don't see themselves as old and don't want to change their ways until they have no choice. As it is, my worries have been unfounded so far and I hope you find the same with your mum.

I think the simple answer is that adults can make their own choices and it doesn't have to be in their best interests. The chances of you getting a hoarder to move are nigh on impossible. It would be too much letting go of any of their stuff, or even sorting through it. I have noticed with my parents and their friends, they all find downsizing difficult at the point they are still fit and well enough to manage everything.

All you can do is smile and nod and hope for the best.

There are plenty of things to fight about. This is not one of them.

Perhaps you can help her look into shared ownership.
https://www.sharetobuy.com/guides-and-faqs/older-persons-shared-ownership/

She could buy a share of the property with the money from the sale of her flat then pay rent either from her income or claim help from benefits if she is on a low income. The shared ownership for older people often has no rent to pay if you own 75% of the property.

To look for Shared Ownership homes on Right Move you can select the filter “Buying Schemes”.

It's unfortunate that no one on here really seems to know what will happen if I do sit back and let her make her own choices, and then the likely scenario of a crisis and her not being able to stay living there comes to pass.

I get that letting her make her own decisions is realistically what will happen in one shape or another, but I'd like to understand the practical consequences of that pathway, so I am at least mentally prepared.

Thanks, that's really useful, I'll have to look into that scheme

She could get an over 60s retirement property for cheaper

You could try ringing Age UK OP just to talk through the different options if something happened

www.ageuk.org.uk/services/age-uk-advice-line/

How far away are you (eg would dropping in shopping one day a week be feasible) and does she have helpful friends or neighbours nearby?

If you're not available to do anything and there's a crisis the hospital just deals with it, and in my experience, the local friends have to step in. This might be disastrous, if they're not very capable or don't have a door key or she's never considered they might need to do this.

Once crisis resolved and discharged, depending on what condition she's in she'd either get sent home with carer visits, and probably wouldn't be leaving the flat, or she'd be assessed as unable to manage there and go into something like reablement if they're felt mobility would improve, or a care home (the flat would have to be sold).

It didn't get that far when I had to do it (was unable to travel when there was a crisis and sibling couldn't be bothered to do anything) as was discharged straight home from hospital and the friends did some shopping.

Be prepared for plenty of emotional blackmail (see username) from hospital staff and her friends if they have your contact details about why you're not doing the things they think you should!

Ultimately though, it's their decision to make. Mine had chosen to live near friends rather than family members so couldn't realistically expect us to drop everything and rush to assist from a distance.

Turns out, it's really difficult to plan ahead for old age for anyone except yourself 😔
My mother was not quite in the situation you describe, but nevertheless at 85 being very much in denial about her lack of mobility. She had a lifeline, but didn't like to wear it, so when she did fall, had to crawl the the main box ( with a fractured hip) so help was delayed for sometime.
A couple of falls later she agreed to have some assistance, but still insisted on negotiating areas not safe for her lack of mobility. Various hospital stays where they deemed her to have mental capacity.

Cue some discussion on these threads about the daft decisions people can make, family members being berated for trying to keep our loved ones safe and the fear of being held accountable if something goes wrong.

Mine had a stroke finally, went via hospital to a rehabilitation unit, and now her next place of residence is under discussion. A rehabilitation staff member went to assess her home and according to my sibling was 'aghast' at some of her strategies for getting in and out of the bathroom, for example. But...mum had 'capacity ' and wouldn't listen to any of us saying it was dangerous.
The stress of being constantly on high alert worrying about her yet her not allowing us to help was exhausting!
Anyway in answer to your question we were recently invited to a multi-disciplinary meeting with mum to discuss what's next. She's self funding so can choose either home with live-in care, or residential care, but they said if she was funded, adult social services would be finding her somewhere safer to live as she's unable to be left alone, particularly at night.

Tl:dr - in some cases you have to wait till the wheels fall off and then the adult social services will scoop them up, though you do have to brace yourself for the pressure to look after them yourself.

Good luck - it's a tough one to navigate!