My mother is 87 and lives by herself in a house that is way too large for her to manage but she will not move to be closer to her children. She purchases items daily on HSN and QVC with her monthly bills running over $2300. Last year, I put parental controls on her TV to combat the constant purchasing and she didn't talk to me for 6 months and ended up calling them to purchase and eventually got the TV company to correct this. She doesn't even use the products and orders 4 or 5 of the same item (blenders, vacuum cleaners, makeup products, clothing, etc) She is also a hoarder and never gets rid of all of these boxes and her home has become a real safety issue. When you talk to her, she is fully aware of the days events, the news and more but there is a part of her that can not see and fully understand the problem with her spending sprees and her financial safety for the future.
My siblings and I are at wit ends. We have even discussed legal steps to take a hold of her finances but she would be livid if we did this.
What can be done???
I’ve learned the hard way that your elderly parent cannot be deemed incopitant for their ‘bad choices’! Who defines if it’s a ‘bad choice’ or dementia or ???...doctors remain uninformed and too busy with complying with the legal details- it’s a very grey area that must be explored.
We also had to unload an apartment that was crammed. Am an only child so it was up to my husband and myself. There are still issues I deal with 5 years into this but financial is much better but it took alot of brow beating.
I’d suggest that you take photos of the stacks of crap in her home & in detail. Photos to show fire hazard & no emergency egress. Shots of bathrooms and kitchen - open cabinets and refrig too. Shots of any vermin signs and mold. Tell her it’s for insurance
My mil had mold on oodles of clothing, shoes. A science project in types of mold. Mold embedded into seams. No redemption. I threw everything not 100% cotton out. She complained about it loudly & to the point that her old living out of state friends (none of these had visited her in years) wrote letters to hubs about how awful it was for him to allow his wife to do this to his mother. Fortunately I had taken photos of everything; hubs sent copies to them along with a photo of her at the beauty shoppe in her NH and that she had been declared legally blind but would so love for them to take a trip and visit her. Found out she hadn’t told them any updates to her life or health in over 10 years.... My point is that your mom may try to find an audience that believes you all are taking advantage of her, so taking photos helps show the deplorable situation she has placed herself in.
We are very concerned for her health and well-being and you are very right, we either take the proactive approach and she hates us or, she will injure herself and end up in the hospital. It usually takes someone to spell it all out.
Thank you so much.
What your mom is doing is unfortunately common, my mil did this with clothing off of HSN and 2 clothing companies that do monthly mini catalogs and they would call her. To me the only way around it is too take away &/or cancel their credit cards so no way to pay = no way to order. It seems that you’ve attempted that & she works around you.
Either you’ve got to just become super bad witch in this (& all your siblings & thier spouses agree) and find an atty so you can file for guardianship & so what if she’s peeved, livid, violent, whatever. If none of you want the job of guardian, have the atty file for it to be a court appointed guardian.
OR
You all wait till it’s a crisis situation and she has a fall and gets hospitalization. It’s gonna happen..... Then someone goes over and clears stuff out in a massive 2 day purge & has power disconnected as she’s going into a facility as you all clearly let the hospital discharge planner know that her home not liveable & has no utilities and none of the kids will be coming to pick her up. What will likely happen is if she can’t finangle someone to take her in to thier home then SW will find a facility for her under an emergency ward of the state order with a state appointed guardian taking over all.
Guardian sells house, $ used to pay for her care and if, just IF there’s $ left it goes to heirs. She sounds like a tough, old bird. I’d bet she going to outlive her $ and will go onto Medicaid. There won’t be any $ left.