Where does being a good neighbour start or stop?

Your reaction is understandable SpinDriftCoastal. You've done your bit for your own family. Keeping an eye out for emergencies seems fair enough. If you or the other neighbour start to cover the cracks in their ongoing care that could prevent them from getting the care that they really need.

How difficult for you as they are your neighbours. I would not be happy to offer any other help apart from just keeping an eye out for them. I would have the daughter's phone number and ring her if there were a problem she must know about.

Ignore the other bossy neighbour's requests

Albeit she has a demanding job, the daughter must involve carers, be in touch with the GP and sort out her parents day to day life. They must have a cleaner for the cleaning. And there are volunteer groups to help with hospital runs which the daughter or bossy neighbour can organise.

You must look after your own health and well being otherwise you would end up in the same position as they are. Of course you can be kind and friendly to them.

Your reaction and the advice fromAveline are exactly as I feel.
We do have an elderly neighbour with no relatives close by, daughter visits about once every 2 or 3 weeks but is in regular phone contact.
We are happy to help in an emergency and we usually ask if the is anything extra she needs at our weekend shop. DH will do little jobs like fix a light bulb or if the TV goes haywire.
Otherwise we are careful not to get too involved. We are in our early seventies and also have DHs 94 year old Mum to keep an eye on.

Nobody minds helping out in an emergency, taking on long term commitments is a different thing, I certainly would not want to take on long term care or transport for non relatives, thats what social services are for.

Yes to the comments already made. By our mid late seventies we have already given years to the care of others and may be reaching the stage where we may begin to need help

You have done the right thing absolutely be Neighbourly if there’s a real problem or emergency
Do not get involved in the more mundane things like tidying cleaning, shopping et cetera et cetera the family must organise that for themselves or get carers, that’s definitely not for you to take on.

You must be firm with bossy neighbour and tell her that, although you would like to help, you have health issues yourself. You could, however, offer to add some shopping for them when you get your own or perhaps just pop in to visit occasionally for a chat but, as others say don’t start doing care or housework etc as that may stop them from getting official help.

It's a fine line between being a good neighbour and taking up the slack that family would do. That neighbour who is suggesting you get actively involved perhaps has lived there for a long time and knows the very elderly person really well. Perhaps the elderly person would be mortified that their care needs was being discussed in the neighbourhood.
I think you can only offer <if> you are prepared to and <what> you are prepared to. That neighbour has crossed a line but it may be because they are concerned.

If the daughter has a demanding job that would go with a good wage, ie being able to pay for help.
But that is by the bye, the elderly couple aren’t getting the help they need.
It is understandable if people don’t enjoy good health not being able to chip in but if your of sound mind and body, why wouldn’t you 🤷‍♀️
I’d chip in with the housework and gardening because I’m very good at that.
We live in a close with 18 bungalows. Only 6 of those bungalows have working households.
We all chip in to help when someone needs help.

No, you are not being unreasonable. On the contrary, you’re being very sensible in prioritising your own welfare.

Taking in a parcel, fetching a bottle of milk, taking out/in the wheelie bins, calling 999 in the event of a medical emergency are, in the great scheme of things, just about as far as it goes………taking on a ‘carer’ role, driving to and from hospital, cleaning etc is a stretch too far IMO.

Some neighbours, and we have some around us, thrive on rallying the forces when someone’s health declines. I have helped certain people in the past who have family close by, have enough money to pay for cleaners, care, taxis etc. only to be snubbed and ignored without so much as a word of thanks even after turning out late on a winters evening to collect someone following discharge from hospital and their family weren’t available “because it was raining” !!!! 😡. To add insult to injury, the family asked me to go back to the hospital the following morning to collect medication that wasn’t ready the night before.

Thank you everyone for all your replies. I will add that the daughter has tried to put in place all the social services support she can to no avail. The couple drive everyone away and the husband is actually loaded but won't spent a penny on any kind of help. We live in a very old fashioned English village where, in the 60s & 70s, everyone helped everyone. This is what the couple believe should be happening now. Bossy neighbour is also from that generation and she is adamant that we should all be helping out. The village now buzzes with young couples who both work in the city, have children at different schools and live at a 100 mph. We are on our way out in our close of bungalows.

It’s hard, but I do think you will have to be extremely firm about helping only with one-offs/emergencies. If they can afford to pay for help, they need to do so.

I can relate, since we used to do a lot for a pair of very frail elderly neighbours who we’d known for 40 years and were very fond of, but eventually the load did become a bit much and we were still only in our 60s then. In the end their adult dcs did realise and arranged carers, who were wonderful.

But Dh used to have an old aunt like that. Had plenty of money but absolutely hated spending any of it - expected neighbours (also elderly and mostly pretty decrepit) to do it ‘for love’. Often expected dh to help, but we lived a 2 hour plus drive away, and he was still working very long hours. And I had my own mother with dementia to worry about.

Any carers he did arrange for the aunt were soon sent away - ‘Too loud, too ‘common’, you name it. But in truth she just hated having to pay.

Eventually I had one of her elderly neighbours on the phone, almost crying that they couldn’t cope any more.

She did have a cleaning lady, who was wonderful and much ‘put upon’, but the situation didn’t improve until dh finally managed to persuade her to move to a nearby care home. But that took an epic effort of the part of poor Dh!!

Bossy neighbour needs to be avoided, or if she makes pointed remarks about you helping more next time tell her that is your decision to make and you’ve made it based upon your own age and limitations then change the subject.
The couple in question sound as if they very much want to be left alone anyway, their choice no matter what the situation is, nice to just knock every so often on your way to the shops to see if they need anything, and check how they are, but otherwise let the daughter tackle this one, sounds like she is having problems but she just needs to keep on chipping away.

I sympathise with the daughter. I spent a lot of time and effort to arrange care for an elderly relative after he was discharged from hospital as his wife said she couldn’t cope. When care was put in place the carers lasted a very short time as they were sent away. His wife then said it was OK she was coping. I shan’t bother next time.

I agree. Keeping an eye open for possible problems and making sure you have the daughter's phone number so that you can alert her in an emergency is sufficiently helpful.
Or the bossy neighbour who, I am sure, will be happy to rush round to help.

To the bossy neighbour, I just say "I think you can keep all the main bases covered and given it's your suggestion by all means take that on. Due to our own health issues we cannot give any more support other than keeping a watchful eye out and maybe alerting you to any jobs or issues you feel able to sort out on their behalf, bearing in mind they have a daughter who should be consulted and also they may deem any input by neighbours as interference"

Experience of years of seeing bossy women....they often boss everyone, but actually do very little hands on help themselves. All talk and no action.

David49

Nobody minds helping out in an emergency, taking on long term commitments is a different thing, I certainly would not want to take on long term care or transport for non relatives, thats what social services are for.

I agree with this.

It is a shame that as society shifts (as it always has) there are people who did all the things expected of the younger generation when they were young themselves, but who then find that there is no payback when they get older. It's not that people care less now, but that lifestyles have changed. It's also a shame that social services are not really stepping into the breach.

When my mother was young, many women didn't work, so had time when their children were at school to visit the sick, or run errands for their older relatives and so on. Also children played outside for hours, and didn't have numerous clubs and playdates that require lifts to and fro in the evenings as they do now, so their lives were very different from modern women.

My mum was expected to visit her own mother most days, and to call on her way to the shops to see what my grandmother wanted her to get for her. Looking back, my granny would have been in her 50s, and far from incapable, but that was what was expected. When my mum got older we didn't live nearby, and we all worked, so couldn't do the same for her. At weekends we were doing the things we couldn't do in the week because we were at work. My own children live even further away, so we see them almost by appointment - it's too far to make spontaneous visits, and involves sleepovers when we do see them. Each generation has more freedom but less 'connection' than the preceding one, I think, and each way of life has its own pros and cons, but it is tempting to see one's own 'way' as being better than others. I wouldn't have wanted my mother's lifestyle, but I would prefer to see more of my children than I do.

It's not reasonable of the older couple in the OP to expect people (particularly newcomers to the village) to conform to the norms of years ago.

Doodledog Your childhood experience is one way that families worked in your childhood, but I think you are generalising from a sample of one.

I am a war baby, My grandmother lived with us for 5 years because her house was destroyed in the bombing, my other hrand parents lived a couple of hundred yards away. i saw them on Sunday at church and we woud walk part of he way home together, but only went to their house for family events

Then my father's job took us to another part of the country, so trips to grandparents were a big event that happened in school holidays. I knew very few people who had grandparents living locally. One of the links my best friend and I had at school were that we both had grandparents who lived in south London. As a child as a parent and as a grandparents, spontaneous visits to grandparents were not even thought of, for me, my children and now my grandchildren, visiting grandparents has meant a journey, by bus, by train, by car, and a stay over of several days to make it worthwhile

I am not suggesting that my experience was the norm either. I think there were/are many ways the relationship between genrations was /is worked out in the past as in the present.

SDC you need to put yourself and husband first. Neighbours aren't your responsibility.

I looked after my husband,parents and mother in law until their deaths. My husband died in 2004 aged 47 and mom last to die aged 90 in 2017.

I was born disabled and have visible and invisible disabilities plus heart condition. After mom's funeral I felt worse just thought it was my body telling me to rest . Turned out I had jaundice but I couldn't see I was yellow ..It was caused be long term use of 2 tablets . Took me a week before I had to call the GP and was admitted straight onto the acute ward.

I didn't realise how much looking after others cost me in physical and mental health. You can understand that as you say you have looked after relatives.

Neighbours are their families responsibly and social services. Not yours .

Look after yourself and husband you both come first. 🌹

No. You're honest not unreasonable.

Bossy(s) may do as they wish, you do what you wish.

Your response was perfectly reasonable. Not your situation to deal with.

When my neighbour was diagnosed with cancer and had chem and two major operations I helped by caring for her cat, watering her houseplants, getting her shopping, etc. That quickly escalated into doing her housework, her washing and ironing, changing the bed, cooking, etc. She was grateful to start with but became demanding and critical. To be fair her health is poor and chemo has left her with many problems. We are both in our mid seventies. I should add that she has a daughter who has done very little to help.
She has a lovely garden with lots of pots and shrubs. I am no gardener so I did nothing in her garden which started to look neglected and I admit I knew it needed attention but chose to do nothing. The crunch came when she criticised me for not looking after it and demanded that I sort it out. It would have taken hours. For the first time I found the courage to stand up to her and said no.
I pointed out that she was now able to do more and that her Attendance Allowance should be used to help. She now has a cleaner for a couple of hours each week and has persuaded another neighbour to tidy her garden, though she complains that he doesn’t do a ‘proper’ job.
The worst thing though is the way she comes to my house and then offloads on me. There is never anything positive and she never asks about me or my family. I understand she has had a very rough time so I try to be patient and kind but it is so draining and leaves me feeling thoroughly depressed and, shamefully, resentful.
So, my message is don’t let yourself be used. It’s so easy to be pulled in but very difficult to extract yourself. Set firm boundaries and stick to them.

I don't think you are being unreasonable, especially as the man has money but will not spend it on himself.

I am in my early 80s with no living relatives, but I try to ask little of the neighbours 2 doors away. I have a cleaner, pay for grass cutting as and had my small back garden paved to cut out gardening, had 10 year light bulbs fitted, do online shopping, you get the drift. I would never ask for a lift now that I have stopped driving. If I am offered a lift, fine.

I am partially sighted with mobility problems but if I have the money, I will spend it. You probably gather I am independent.

At our age you have to look after ourselves. You have done more than your share in the past, enjoy your own life and keep an eye out, but please, no more.