Cockroach cafe Winter 2025

[GnomeDePlume]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/5360173-cockroach-cafe-summer-2026?page=39&reply=147870717

Here we go. I think we are going to need this

For those reading the thread who are approaching the decisions about care homes, please don’t agonise about it. Once you get them into a (good) care home, life suddenly becomes so much easier all round. They are cared for round the clock and you don’t have to worry about food management and laundry and cleaning and gardening and whether you need to take a day off work to take them to the GP for symptoms that may be something or nothing. Someone else does all of that and you can go and visit and hold their hand and become their daughter/relative again

It’s not the end of the work and worry of course, especially if they own their house and you’ve got to deal with it. But it’s all at a lower DEFCON level where the urgency is less.

DM has been stable-ish but she has developed a small sore at her sacrum because she is so skinny and her skin is so thin and she sits all day and cannot move herself. She has air cushions and air mattresses and the staff move her every hour and check she is dry and clean but it is bothering her. If it becomes infected then this will be the decision point on whether she has antibiotics or not. I’ve been quite pragmatic up to now, but I suspect the actual decision to say no and to let nature take its course will be much harder than I think.

But the COST! £8000 a month? My mother is nearly 89 and fast approaching the point where she cannot continue to stay in her own home much longer. There are some hard decisions ahead.

@funnelfan if I could get both of them to agree to go into a home, I would be all over it like a rash.

But - and it’s only yesterday that DM volunteered that she wouldn’t be averse to going in so still processing - if DF won’t go in and I know he won’t, effectively it doubles the work for us, plus all the financial aspect to be sorted out. I suspect DM is managing most of what little executive functioning DF displays and I have to say the comment about reminding him to toilet yesterday was very worrying. That’s my red line - I will not clean up DFs bodily excretions under any circumstances. But if he is on his own and I have come to visit and the carer isn’t due for another couple of hours - what then? I know I am spiralling but unfortunately the scenarios are fairly likely to happen.

DM has additional pain relief as I phoned the doctors last week and said she slept well last night. She should be some food and drink although I notice that the microwave meals have gone out of date so despite our request to the care agency that the carers prepare DMs food, DF still appears to be doing it - NB this is because he will have bullied them out of the kitchen.

Selfishly I am due to go skiing on Sunday- DH is at home for emergencies- and I don’t want to rock the boat by encouraging any big changes that destabilise things. I am going to leave doing anything until I get back. Hah to a Happy New Year.

Oh and as I suspected DH is losing interest in doing the heavy lifting and is saying that the frequent 2 hour return journeys are tiring - particularly yesterday as we struck traffic and it took a lot longer than that.
My new job is due to start in February and at the minute it looks like things will escalate nicely to crescendo around then.

It is a high headline cost but you set against it pension, any benefits which can be claimed, no longer needing to pay for living costs.

Assets will have to be used. DMiL burned through her assets paying for her CH and DM is doing the same.

It makes it easier for DBs and me that we arent beneficiaries of DM's will. She just left us all the work (cheers mum, thanks for that). The benficiaries (DGCs, all adults) dont know that DM's estate goes to them. So DBs and I are free to spend the money now as needed.

Ouch, where in the country is that? Mine is costing £5200 per 4 weeks, which seems about average in her local area (northern city in England). Her 4x daily carer visits was £1650 per 4 weeks and when I factored in council tax, food and utilities etc, it’s not actually a huge amount more, especially if you took into account my petrol costs and time. Looking at it purely from a spreadsheet perspective her care home is great value for money considering she now has 24hr care.

i do recognise though that we are fortunate that her house, although relatively modest, is worth quite a bit as it’s a sought after area. Enough to keep her comfortable for a few years. If she was at the mercy of the local council she’d have been sent home from hospital with the 4x carers again and probably pinged between home and hospital until a major crisis. Which, again looking at it from a spreadsheet perspective, must be more expensive for the taxpayer in the long run and puts unnecessary pressure on the NHS.

What happened to the idea for a National Social Care Service? I imagine the price in setting it up meant it was shelved, but I’m convinced that in the long term it would cost less for the public purse to have vulnerable, elderly and/or disabled people cared for properly in publicly owned facilities if they are at the point they can’t live at home any more. Using the NHS as the ultimate safety net just isn’t working, and the for-profit private sector works only for those with the assets to pay.

Did you sell her house to pay for care? My mother’s house is in trust so we couldn’t draw on the funds to pay care home fees. She has savings but they wouldn’t last forever.

£8000 a month is high and would be for someone with higher needs, not just residential.

But bear in mind that £8000 per month works out at about £11 an hour for 24/7 care. There is someone available 24/7 to help them if they fall, all heating, utilities, council tax, house maintenance and meals etc paid for. Facilities are set up for the elderly and infirm - no steps, wet rooms, hoists etc. None of that to organise for them (as would happen if they were still living at home). Someone else organises GP and district nurse visits, the prescriptions are delivered.

That’s true.

I worry about what would happen when the money runs out. I think it’s inevitable that DM will need to go into a care home and the sale of her house and savings together with pension would probably fund five or six years but I reckon she’s good for another 10.
I think we’re exceptionally lucky in Wales at the moment as if Social Services are willing to fund carers then the maximum charge for 4 visits a day is £400. DM currently has two but I’d like at least one more.

Care home costs vary greatly depending on where you are. The one I have priced up near my DPs is £1800 per week for standard care and that’s cheaper than some others. We’re in Scotland where at home care is free so DM has the max 4 visits per day and DF has one or maybe it’s two now, plus district nurse comes daily to administer his insulin as otherwise he would forget or double dose.

Not yet, we’ll look to sell this year. We used up mums savings and now I’m paying, and I’ll get back what I’ve paid when the house is sold. DB knows and agrees so all above board.

A light hearted story to end the year.

BIL went shopping for MIL at the weekend and bought her a brand of butter that she doesnt normally buy. When we went round on Sunday and MIL complained that BIL had made her a sandwhich with the horrible new butter and she couldnt eat it because it tasted so bad.

We took the offending butter away and I have just gone to use it and found that its unopened so MILs sandwhich was made in exactly the way she normally has it!

Happy New Year all, hoping that 2026 brings some easier times for us all 🎆🎇🥂🍾🥂

Happy New Year everyone. Just up to run DS and DIL to the airport.

Happy 2026. I hope this new year is kind to us all. We deserve it.

That did make me smile. They can be crotchety old buggers at times can’t they?

Happy New Year all! 🍷Santé! (Although I was in bed by 10 last night..).

@BestIsWest Im in Wales too, I didn’t know that - is that £400 per week or per month?

DPs are still doddering on but they are both beginning to forget things much more frequently. They don’t remember things or conversations from a few days ago, and there is a lot of repetition and the same questions. They have done pretty well til now (97 & 89), but I can see a slide coming and we will have to talk about outside help at some point. They don’t want anyone in the house, of course. And if we do get a cleaner: carers, there will have to be a massive clear up first, which DM resists fiercely because she is a hoarder.

I think this year I will start taking Dad shopping every week; he has been using a taxi but sometimes he has to wait in the cold and recently he keeps mislaying his walking stick when out.

@MotherOfCatBoy it’s £400 a month. In DMs case she had 6 weeks free after being discharged from hospital and then Social Services decided she needed it permanently. If we’d engaged private carers we’d have had to pay the full whack.

I think the fact that she was getting confused over her medication and double dosed one day was a deciding factor as they took that over completely - they order and collect her prescriptions as well.

And HNY all. A good start as DMs neighbour called to say she’d seen a strange man coming out of the house. No answer on the phone so I dashed up - it was the carer leaving. Good to know they are looking out for her but caused me a bit of panic.
I’ve ordered new phones for her as this is the third time in the last few weeks that the phone hasn’t been working. I just hope she recognises the new ones.

BTW does anyone have experience of this Doro mobile. Thinking of getting one as an emergency backup but it does seem expensive.

https://shop.alzheimers.org.uk/products/doro-leva-x10-mobile-phone?variant=45790279401626&country=GB&currency=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20351887084&gbraid=0AAAAACSOf9lyvJ01j25usQZxGOEiYpBoO&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI87XooLDqkQMVD5dQBh3A0x8xEAQYBCABEgJtI_D_BwE

@MotherOfCatBoy could you get an online shopping order sorted for them instead?
DF not allowed to drive anymore and has lost the ability to do an online shop. I would happily do one for them but he enjoys the outing which takes forever and can be triggering for me as DF has a tendency to shout at other drivers in the car which I find hard to cope with whilst driving.
As their core requirements are reasonably set I had thought about trying to make this an online shop but DF likes the trip out and DH still has some enthusiasm to do it for him.
Trouble is once you start something you have to continue doing it - or it feels that way - and something you did to be nice becomes an ongoing chore to add to the list.

I am putting off contacting my DPs. I know I should phone or at the very least text to say Happy New Year ( although for them it isn’t really) but I know if I do there will be more demands to do things, DF will have forgotten we went there a day ago and he has a full fridge full of food and ask when we’re coming again.

@MotherOfCatBoy i second the suggestion to do an online shop or find another solution. You are making a rod for your own back by committing to a weekly shopping outing. Keep talking with them about their future needs. They may handwave away your concerns with an airy “we’ll manage somehow”, like mine did, but it may start to sink in.

Mine forgot how to use any cordless phone, it’s like she didn’t recognise them as a telephone any more. We had some success with this one for a while as she still recognised it as a phone and she could remember that all she had to do was press the button with my photo. https://amzn.eu/d/1hvunox

@BestIsWest my Mum has a Doro - personally I am not impressed. My Mum never got to grips with it.