On the topic of yard maintenance, sometimes the cost of it all is…well…cost-prohibitive. Our retired neighbors across the street don’t have a boat load of plants in their yard, but they said that having landscapers come regularly to maintain the front yard costs $160/month. And that’s with a yard with no lawn (has rock gravel), maybe 8 bushes and a small tree in the front. Holy moly.
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$160/month! We pay nearly $800/month and our yard is tiny! And that’s just for the basics. If we needed mulch or help planting, it’s way more than that!
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Yeah, I was shocked. I’ve never hired a landscaper because gardening is my thing, so I do it all myself. Plus, I don’t like the “everything is sculpted into boxes & cupcakes” look. When I’m retired, I definitely don’t want to pay all that (probably more) for landscaping. However, if I was living in a condo or townhouse community where all of the common area landscaping was included in the monthly HOA fees? Yeah, that would be ok.
What some seniors don’t realize, though, is how incredibly expensive it can be to pay for at-home care. They sometimes don’t realize how much they’ll end up having to pay for it out of pocket. Something like that can put a damper on one’s plans to ‘age in place.’
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My mom needed a lawn service when Dad was going off the rails and after looking and looking, we found someone to mow our field and most of the yard for $120/month. Former students of Local. The winter snow removal was done by my SILs cousins, who lived over the hill and accepted payment only to pacify my mother. That was $50 for the winter. (Plus a bonus for us – they took Mom’s shovel away when they found her trying to shovel the sidewalk)
Tree limb came down, we asked someone we knew to take the rest of the tree out and they also recommended a second tree ; our neighbors took all the firewood to get it off the property for us. Roofer was never found, buyers got a discount on that account.
All of which is to say, wow, prices are different all over the country. Probably why people should investigate plans sooner rather than later.
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On the subject of hiring.
We got lucky with a few things. But there a different person for every job lol!
Need our bathroom remodeled, she called this week. She can maybe be there in September! We started talking to her in December, had her out in March. Maybe we can get this done in 2026?
Need some tree work done, I’m sure he forgot. My husband will call, he will hopefully come out soonish. Some jobs are more automatic but others require a lot of patience! And multiple calls!
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Yes, on the topic of in-home help costs…my mother is living this now ($2895/week)….doable for months, but not as a for the rest of their lives situation.
As for any other kind of service…we live in an area where there are plenty of people who do various things (handymen, contracters, lawn service, snow removal), but getting someone to actually call you back? Not so easy. At least not for the “small” jobs (like a weekly lawn mow or small bathroom renovation). There are too many huge and lucrative jobs for them to focus on.
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That’s what rollators are for. And electric wheelchairs when walking is too difficult.
Another vote for where I live–bus stop around the corner, subway a few blocks away with an elevator.
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Ideally, we would consider remodeling one or more of our tiny bathrooms, but maybe it would be easier and better to just move to a one-story condo with easy access bathrooms at the point or an IL/AL CCRC. Lots to think about.
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Mom, 85 years old, still lives in the house she and dad bought 40 years ago. She didn’t want to sell when dad passed about 3 years old. I suggested to her to consider looking at a condo after dad passed, but she wasn’t interested then and she’s not interested now. Since dad passed (and in the last 3 years of his life), I manage and oversee just about all matters for mom (health, financial, home repair/maintenance, yard/garden maintenance and snow removal)! It’s definitely a lot of work to run a 2nd household and there are days I wish I didn’t have the extra responsibilities. However, there’s nothing I can do except carry on until I can’t. Mom’s quite budget conscious and just can’t consider paying for things, except lawn care and handyman. I draw the line with those tasks. I handle snow removal because I am worried about the service not coming on time and she’ll slip and fall! She also thinks snow removal is too expensive!
Given that I am the eldest, it’s expected even though she feels guilty about it. Siblings also can’t help due to living out of state or won’t because of lots of dysfunctions in the other local sib. It’s just easier that I don’t battle with the local sib; it’s more work for me but the mental stress that sib instills on me isn’t worth it.
Mom’s driving license will need to be renewed in about a month. In our state, she has to renew every 2 years. There’s quite a bit of anxiety about this from her (she’s afraid she’ll fail). I am also on the fence about it because of her age. I suggested numerous times that she practice using Uber on occasion to prepare for the future. She said she will when she can’t drive anymore. (I know she doesn’t want to pay for Uber.). Part of me hopes she passes the driving test so she continues to drive. She attends church activities twice a week and the senior center 3 days a week. These activities are important for her and keeps her engaged in her communities.
However, a part of me hopes she fails so the state denies her driving privileges. She’s an ok driver and really only knows how to drive to her activities, to my house, and a few errands. She recently got “lost” a few weeks ago because she made the wrong turn and she does not know how to use a navigation program. Unfortunately for me, if she can’t drive anymore then I will have to be her “Uber” driver. She also said a couple of days ago, that she will be better off dead if she can’t drive anymore.
There’s really no point to sharing this, but to vent a bit. Some days, I feel like my H and I can’t really plan our future until she’s gone.
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My FIL needed to stop driving years before he needed to stop walking to his favorite spot for tea and to read the paper. He was able to still do this every morning until about a year before he died. But drive? No…that was not a good idea! His reflexes just were not the same.
My dad gave up his drivers license and gave his car to our nephew at least four years before he died. It was his choice. Unfortunately, he didn’t live where he could walk to much. It would have been nice if he had been able to walk to a few places, and he certainly was capable of doing so.
That’s why, if we move, I want to be able to walk to some things.
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We have a fairly small yard. We like the guys who have been mowing for us the past 8 years or so. It used to be tricky on vacation since we’d leave a weekly check for payment (in ziplock bag) under the door mat. Now it’s Venmo bill, $45 each time they mow (includes front yard and back yard… with trimming). Easy Peasy. Sometimes we hire them to do something special like do lawn aeration, clean gutters or do fall cleanup. We feel fortunate to have a team we trust. I think there is somebody different my husband uses for blowing out the sprinklers before winter. I’m thinking we should create a consolidated list of the various contacts.
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My aunt had a restricted license in her state. No major roads but allowed her to get to grocery, church and nearby club within a certain radius of her home.
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I’ve not heard of restricted licenses. My in-laws both still drive but most of us feel he should not be driving. His doctor suggested he only drive in town and not drive 45 minutes of highway to the city with more services. He still is driving and my MIL won’t say anything to him. He wants to take her on a trip that would mean a 3 1/2 hour drive each direction through a major metropolitan area. She doesn’t want to go, but we will see what happens.
He is mentally much more with it for the first time since his hospitalization in the spring. With that comes boredom and makes him dangerous. Thus planning trips they shouldn’t go on. He’s even proposed a camping trip where he would drive their huge toy hauler. The camping won’t happen since I’m the reservation person and I won’t make it.
Both my in-laws are much more tech savvy than many in their age group. They both use smart phones and IPads. They are having more difficulty figuring out email. Their inboxes get out of control. My MIL also can never remember where she saw something, she isn’t sure if it was a text, Facebook or email.
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I want to be very careful about how I’m saying things.
Does your mom know that taking care of all that you do is hard on you? Did your dad take care of most of this when he was living?
It’s easy to be in your house when someone else is doing the heavy lifting. Especially when she gets to tell you what she should be paying.
Now my husband is doing a little more for his mom. But since we are out of town, it’s not even every month. Local is close but does not do any tasks. He hires out his own stuff and is not willing to do things he pays for. My mil takes care of her own bills. Has a lawn service. The things my husband does are more handyman things that she could hire but H does what he can.
I am definitely not throwing stones at a glass house because I know how hard it is. I just am hoping that you are taking care of yourself too.
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We live in AZ, too, @sbinaz. That $160/month is quite reasonable. My 90-year-old dad (in Surprise) finally gave in to twice-monthly yard service at $130/month. (We pay $140 for twice-monthly.)
He also engaged his neighbor’s long-time house cleaner to do their house as well, so now he and his seriously-ill wife only focus on grocery shopping and simple meal preparation on the days they don’t go out to eat. He drives them to their medical appointments. I’m happy that they’ve finally gotten house/yard help, but she is declining rapidly, so I think it’s only a brief matter of time before he’s going to be faced with what he wants his life and living situation to look like after she’s gone. After moving out of AL this past November, he says he’ll never do that again.
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Yes, dad did everything when he was alive. She is very aware how much I do for her and how much she depends on me. She does feel guilty and is grateful but she’s not going to change her situation until it’s forced on her. I can’t do that to her.
Fortunately, I do care for myself and I receive a lot of emotional support from out of town sib and my H. He also helps with heavy lifting things like moving 7 yards of mulch last year and trimming back decades old shrubs that I couldn’t manage alone. Mom only gets lawn service ($20 per week), the landscape/garden maintenance is me. I can do most of it since that’s my interest and I enjoy gardening. To do 2 properties at times is a lot, but I have learned to pace myself.
Please don’t think I am an angel of any kind. I do what I have to do. There are times when my patience is very thin with mom. Afterwards, I feel so guilty that I was short with her. The guilt is so much harder than the physical work.
There’s just a lot of dysfunctional family dynamics with the other local sib so making any changes to mom’s situation will be met with full blown out of control venom that is just not worth deal with….
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NYT: The Pain of Caring for a Parent Who Abused You
gift link https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/15/magazine/elder-care-parent-abuse.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rVA.HsVV.6y-KzEnXfOLe&smid=url-share
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This story is posted above.
I do not doubt a mean/abusive parent or parents have estranged children and many/most will not have anything to do with them. I don’t doubt the statistics sited in the article.
”Andre had some savings from his decades of working as a newspaper typesetter, but he refused to spend anything on his care. He said he didn’t need it. And while his doctor agreed with Carole that her father clearly had some dementia, he told her that she couldn’t force him to pay for caregivers or cleaners or anything else. So that was that.” – It is the distance between being of harm to himself or others. I definitely would have an animal exterminator scheduled and have her dad pay for that! Then you can also document rat infestation as a safety to him issue.
“When it comes to funding long-term care, we are “one of the worst” countries in the world, says Howard Gleckman, a fellow at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and policy research institute. Many Americans are startled to learn that Medicare doesn’t cover long-term caregiving at all, that it mostly pays for acute medical care — hospitalization after a broken hip or an infection, say — and a short period of rehabilitation afterward.”
People do learn with their parents, as well as preparing their own situation so that it will be easier for the next generation to oversee situations that can develop.
In some ways, it is learning the paradigm - just as one learned to navigate/guide college or trade school for their high school kids and how to pay for education. Some plan well, some cash flow, some choose options that are cost effective.
In the article, rats in the ceiling - ugh. And this fellow at 93 - the situation was not going to be long-lived. When she saw he fell in his garden hitting his head on the security camera, she could have called 911 and had paramedics take him to the hospital. Then she could get documentation/medical records on his safety living alone. “see her father, who was gardening, fall straight backward, deadweight, slamming his head on the concrete before sitting up, seeming to have a seizure and falling back down again. She took him to the E.R. that time, and every time he fell after that.” At some point, Andre might end up in hospital then skilled care and won’t be able to return home. “But Andre thought he deserved it all, and for someone else to pay. He never even offered to cover her gas.” – all the more reason to call 911 and not run him to the ER.
”“We never asked about the relationship,” says Pat Berry, a retired hospice nurse who has studied family caregiving.” - well her head had to be in the sand or not very intuitive with body language and other cues in communication. Also, Hospice nurses often are in and out a short time unless one is in a hospice facility. I worked in skilled care and rehab as a RN/BSN, but I also have a double major in psychology, have worked a lot in psych, have psych situations in my own family.
”In therapists’ offices, though, these caregivers were presenting themselves. Many came to talk about setting boundaries. Given that they had to be caregivers, how could they bear it? What should and shouldn’t they do for the parents in their charge? Others came just to talk about the trials of caregiving — and sometimes, they said nothing at all about their abusive pasts, for weeks and weeks. “Oftentimes, caregivers do have this dissociation,””
My husband is often surprised at how people will open up to me and tell my quite intimate details - but I think some of it is being available for a person to open up with a person they consider is ‘safe’.
The article was great with this “the older adult was legally free to make his own choices, and he made imprudent ones. In elder care, scholars speak of an older person’s “right to folly.” Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to resolve things was to “precipitate a crisis.” Carole could wait for something bad to happen to Andre: a fall, a broken bone, something serious enough to get him admitted to a hospital. That would place him inside the system, at which point it would be the hospital’s responsibility to treat him and ensure his “safe discharge.””
nearly two years after the call from Andre’s eye doctor…. “The neuropsychologist concluded that Andre lacked the capacity to make even basic medical decisions. From now on, Carole would make them for him.” “he was probably too much of a narcissist to even recognize himself as an abuser.” - she is spot on about that! Carole IMHO did well by her father - you absolutely don’t know if it is denial or dementia about not remembering but Andre knew he was dependent on his best situation because of Carole looking out for him.
In the past, there were multigenerational households, and this is happening some as well - an addition/suite onto a home for the grandparents. Grandparents moving close to where their children live.
Yes, there were numerous times & places where the abused younger person could have just called 911 and had someone else or “the system” handle the aging elder with all his/her issues. The younger person has to make the choice(s) that will work with him/her long term.
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