Hi all, my mum (84) has dementia. My brother (55) moved into my mum’s house 8 or 9 years ago, at the time he walked out of a job and hasn’t worked since. But with the move, he brought all his stuff which fills 4 rooms to the ceilings in her house, we thought this would be very temporary. Things have gotten worse progressively over the past couple of years where he’s started pushing boundaries, leaving huge piles of his his stuff in the few areas that my mum can still use. He has very low standards and is happy to see the place fall to rack and ruin, wouldn’t think of doing any decorating or DIY.
My brother cooks food for her but that’s it, nothing else; he has control of her money, she is his only source of income, he hasn’t even signed on in all that time. She can look after herself otherwise and basically just watches TV all day; she almost never has outside visitors, only me.
Recently, mum’s central heating has developed a fault and she’s using electric fires temporarily. I’m pushing to get a gas engineer in but my brother insists that ‘she doesn’t want the fuss’ and ‘can’t afford it’, this is of course a complete lie. Basically, he doesn’t want to let anyone into the house because they’d have to access all the radiators etc., this would mean that he would have to do something about the piles of stuff everywhere, this would shatter his world!
My mum wants to be in her home because she’s lived there for over 30 years, but due to her dementia, doesn’t realise how bad her environment is getting, she’s not one to complain anyway.
I’m going to keep fighting my corner as sadly, I don’t think he’s acting in mum’s best interests, she currently has no hot water and I believe her heating situation to be inadequate.
Does anyone know what I can do?, can I discreetly get social services involved to make an assessment of her living conditions? Can they force the repairs to be done?
Thanks
My brother cooks food for her but that’s it, nothing else; he has control of her money, she is his only source of income, he hasn’t even signed on in all that time. She can look after herself otherwise and basically just watches TV all day; she almost never has outside visitors, only me.
Recently, mum’s central heating has developed a fault and she’s using electric fires temporarily. I’m pushing to get a gas engineer in but my brother insists that ‘she doesn’t want the fuss’ and ‘can’t afford it’, this is of course a complete lie. Basically, he doesn’t want to let anyone into the house because they’d have to access all the radiators etc., this would mean that he would have to do something about the piles of stuff everywhere, this would shatter his world!
My mum wants to be in her home because she’s lived there for over 30 years, but due to her dementia, doesn’t realise how bad her environment is getting, she’s not one to complain anyway.
I’m going to keep fighting my corner as sadly, I don’t think he’s acting in mum’s best interests, she currently has no hot water and I believe her heating situation to be inadequate.
Does anyone know what I can do?, can I discreetly get social services involved to make an assessment of her living conditions? Can they force the repairs to be done?
Thanks
