Just an update to my situation - I posted yesterday with the question "how do you put up with a nasty sister and brother in law?"
Got mom's bank statement this morning. Sis wrote checks out to herself and had my blind mother sign them for $1800 in less than 30 days. Paid $708 for a storage facility for her own things. Mom had $5637 in deposits, and they did 64 transactions totaling to $10,514 in one month. Yes, I called Adult Protective Services. Charged $1000 for rent AFTER she wrote $800 in checks to herself.
Yes, I'm going to offer for Mom to live with me, and NO, I won't charge her rent! Mom is 82 years old, barely weighs 100 lbs, no way could she need that much spent on herself in one month. Grrrrr!! I'm embarrassed I'm related to my sister.
Were you not able to talk to Sis about the financial transactions?
Maybe Sis is exploiting Mom, and maybe she is just not very good at handling record keeping for someone else's money.
How do you happen to know that the $708 for a storage unit was for your sister's things? And isn't it possible that Sis had to move some of her things out of her house in order to make room for Mother's things? Is that the charge for a month, a quarter, a year -- what? What was the $1,800 for? Certainly it would be better if the checks were made out to, for example, the painter who came and painted Mother's room, or the plumber who put in a taller, ADA approved toilet for her, but if she used the money for Mother, that is poor bookkeeping practice, not exploitation.
Oh, wait a minute. Of that $1,800, $1,000 was for rent, and only $800 is unaccounted for? That really is a different story, isn't it?
I'm laughing my head off at the comment about her being 82 and weighing 100 pounds so she couldn't need that much spent on her in a month!! :) What on earth does her weight have to do with her expenses. When I put in two handicap-friendly toilets for my ill husband, the contractor did not even ask for our weights when he wrote up the bill! Husband weighed not much over 100 pounds at the end, but I didn't notice the expenses of caring for him getting smaller along with his weight.
Maybe your sister is exploiting Mother. But you say in another post that Mother seems content. Yanking her out of a situation where she is content may just be a different kind of exploitation.
I don't know about your mother, but the month my husband was on hospice dying I didn't exactly do a good job in keeping up with my bills. Does that $10,514 include catching up on past-due bills? Did Mother charge the funeral and now is paying that bill?
You know the numbers but without knowing what is behind the numbers, it is really hard for an outsider to jump to the conclusion that Sister is the evil spendthrift, gloating over your Mother's money.
I hope APS investigates thoroughly enough to determine whether there is true exploitation going on, or just a need for better money-handling practices.
I think it is a serious mistake not to allow elderly parents the dignity of paying their own way to the extent that they can. It sounds like your mother can well afford to pay rent. What your sister is charging is a fraction of what Assisted Living would cost her.
What have you been doing to help with your mother's care since your father died, besides spying on her bank accounts?