In our case it turned into benign neglect, as the house projects haven’t been maintained. I think, somewhat due to lack of money. They have a high net worth for their area, but their cash flow has been very tight. And, I now know of at least three times someone has embezzled from them.
What needs attention?
Landscaping
Heating system
Insulation falling from the basement ceiling
Meters falling off the house
An exterior door, used daily that needed paint years ago and seems to have a bullet hole through it.
Another exterior door that doesn’t lock
One missing shutter
Nests (bees? Hornets?)
My brother is visiting now. I’ll get his report this afternoon. And I’ll be there next weekend. The drive is 6 hours in each direction — and the hotel rooms this summer have been $350 a night. Without getting into specifics, let’s say it is a small city with a SUNY college, not far from Colgate and Hamilton.
The folks are in assisted living (probably almost ready for skilled nursing). SMom is still pushing back on selling the house. Wants to move home at $18k/mo for 24/7.
We are now in the phase of trying to wrap things up, put the house on the market, clean things out, etc. I’m meeting with an Estate Sale manager next weekend. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say!
And SMom texts me in a very passive-aggressive fashion. But she’s always treated me that way.
When it does come time to sell the house, there’s always the option to sell it as is to something like Open Door. That’s what we did when my MIL passed away and it made selling the property a heck of a lot simpler.
We sold both our parents house as-is. One in an estate auction (while my mother was in an assisted living), and one as an executor of the estate with a realtor. We got way more than we expected.
I bet you $$ that the local sibling has taken a step back because of how unreasonable your ILs are being. Everybody gets to decide what their own personal boundaries are. At the same time, sometimes I think when seniors age and get older, they become a lot more rigid in their ways and end up insisting 100% that it MUST be done THEIR way or no way at all.
That’s how you end up with ridiculous demands like “Hey, you need to come here and help us find and install new mesh fabric for our outdoor chairs.” …whereas a NORMAL person probably would just THROW OUT the chairs and buy a replacement set from Target.
Carolyn Hax: Sister calls 85-year-old mom ‘selfish’ for not moving closer to her
One sibling is upset their 85-year-old mom chose her active social life over moving closer by, while the other sibling backs mom.
Gift link https://wapo.st/4cFKDWF
My mil is very opinionated and I think local son has had to put some boundaries in place.
The chairs they bought at a patio store 35 years ago. They are well made but were bought a long time ago and the mesh has been replaced once.
I think that my in laws see things are being fixable instead of replacing. Which is fine as long as they can do the fixing. The problem becomes when they can’t.
The house is in good shape for the most part. They just replaced the tub shower with a walk in shower. I have no idea why they are being such a pain about the fence. I am told that they called once during Covid and couldn’t get anyone to come out. As I said, that was 4 years ago!
My MIL was the same way…very rigid in how she wanted things done. It had to absolutely be her way or no way. She’d also do unreasonable things like call my DH in the middle of his work day and demand that he get in the car right away to drive an hour and a half to “fix her TV” (aka switch it back to cable input mode because she’d pressed the wrong button on the remote). Basically, a whole bunch of made up ‘emergencies’/urgent things that really had much simpler solutions than the solutions that MIL demanded.
DH got sick and tired of being her beck & call boy, so he stepped back from it a lot. In turn, she had to figure out alternate solutions because her son was not willing to drop everything right then and there to do it the way she wanted.
She was so rigid in her thinking on certain things that, for example, when it came to Christmas gifts, for a really long time, she’d refuse to just give the grandchildren money. She insisted that giving cash as a gift was rude and didn’t have any ‘thought’ put into it.
Ok great, so how about gift cards for your grandkids’ favorite stores? Also not an option for the same reason above.
Ok, what about buying something online and having it shipped to the grandkids’ homes? Also not an acceptable option because she HAD to be the one to WRAP the gift herself. Of course, this would also require someone to DRIVE her to the post office or a UPS store to have the item shipped since she no longer drove.
That still wasn’t an acceptable option because she wanted to go into a physical store, handle and touch the thing she was going to buy for the person, buy it in person, then do the gift wrapping and shipping, etc. And all of that would require someone to accompany her due to the lack of driving. Oh and she had, like no stamina because of health problems and could barely walk a 1/4 mile without resting for 10 minutes.
DH refused to take her out shopping in person. As a result, she ended up agreeing to writing the grandchildren checks or sometimes she’d get cash out and put the cash in a holiday card or birthday card instead…which was the most ideal option all along anyway. It took her about 4 years to finally come to that conclusion. Very frustrating along the way, so I totally understand where you’re coming from on this.
My MIL fell, a lot. Their biggest youngest friend called us to say he thought they needed to be in AL & he was going to stop responding to calls to pick up MIL. He felt he was enabling them to stay in their home longer than was safe.
You and your BIL can do the same. Tell them no more help because they need to move. Maybe it works, maybe it does not.
How many chairs do they need? Patio furniture is on sale now around here. I’d toss the 35 year old chairs…and get some new ones. Yes, they will sputter, but it’s really a better plan.
I definitely have ordered things to be delivered to my parents without asking or without approval and then they just accept it. Try it as the chairs are a low risk low cost item.
I can tell things are going to get harder with my dad. He really needs a caregiver to stay with him most of the day now. I think my sister has found a wonderful woman for the daytime, 7 days a week! Her references says she never misses a day! Sis also found someone for a couple of hours each evening, Monday through Friday. She still has to find someone for weekend evenings.
She’s a little frustrated that Dad expected her to keep going over to his place every evening with no end in sight. That wouldn’t work! I’m glad she’s found some good help.
It sounds great to us. And makes sense.
But when you hear that the patio set was really special as a first big purchase in your parent’s marriage and customized for your parents with special painting (not now but back then) it takes on a new meaning. And that set is/was/has been the setting of family gatherings and memories over the last 50 years then you look at it a bit differently with new respect.
My mom has agreed to switch primary care doctors; her facility has recommended one who isn’t known for her warm and fuzzy demeanor but is more responsive and interested in her geriatric patient families. The pcp she (and my father) have had for about a decade could not possibly be less interested in patient care, timely response, or paying attention to details and we have had enough. Mom , I think , does not much care either way and is only concerned that the previous doctor not “be mad at her”.
The previous doctor and her AL admin both asked Local Sibling, who has POA, to come sign the release forms to move her (considerable) medical records to the new place, and that seems odd to us. She’s perfectly capable of deciding this on her own.
Her 3rd UTI in as many months seems to have finally gone for good. She is clearly much more herself and it is such a relief. I wondered how everyone else is doing these long days of summer heat.
I’m thinking that before too long, I need to help Dad and SMom get their ballots for voting. They still own a house (going on the market soon).
I’ll need to find out if they use the Assisted Living address or their home address for the ballot. (Any ideas here?)
I’m also trying to get SMom to (agree to) move her prescriptions from local pick up to delivery at the AL.
Although I’ve been quiet (really, I have) things haven’t been smooth. I’ve just been too busy to post a full update.
Last week I was home for 2 days between trips and this week, it will be four days.
Once the house sells, I’d like to be compensated for my time at $150 or $200 per night, to cover the time I’ve spent cleaning out the house and organizing for the real estate sale. I don’t know if my POA brother will agree. He’s done a lot from his home office, but that’s not the same as driving 6 hours to haul trash.
I don’t need the full amount I spend on a hotel, meals, gas, wear and tear, but something would be helpful.
I think you should register them at the AL address and request their mail in ballots from that address. Voter registration laws are state dependent, but generally it is easy to change your address within the same state. You will need to do change of address for all of their stuff anyway, so you might as well get this done and over with.
My in laws registered using the address of their AL facility, because that is where they lived. The AL staff worked with residents to make sure that they were registered & received absentee ballots (they were there for the last presidential election). MIL lives in a different town now, and I doubt that local sibling helped her register … the truth is that she has no idea what is going on, much less who is running for office. If MIL indicates an interest in voting, I’m sure it will be handled for her; I honestly doubt that she will bring it up, though.
Ask the AL how to handle this address change for voting. Do it soon. I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone has moved there and needs to change their address on the voter list. The AL will know how to proceed. There IS a process for address changes for voters…and it needs to be followed.