Running around after an elderly neighbour

Fortunately my experiences with the CF neighbour (the one with the idle son) happened before there were smart phones. While these machines can be useful they are as much a curse as a blessing. People forget that they have a block function. In those days there was a "caller display" function and I often did not answer when I saw her number.

Nowadays I have a VIP list on my landline and if your not on it then you dont get through. You dont even get to leave a message because I disabled that function. I can never understand people who readily give their phone number to neighbours. When mine was cheeky enough to ask I told them my phone number was for close friends and family and not for randoms (another wondferful Mumsnet phrase)

My experience has been that if you make it really difficult for people to get in touch with you (and I am a past mistress in the art) their will either do it themselves or get someone else to do it.

A ring type door bell really is your friend here. You can monitor who it is and simply not answer the door to unwanted callers. Not having a car can also have its advantages. If they cannot see a car people dont know whether your home or not. And if you dont drive then you cant get to akward places to service others.

I just say ‘ no’. Never had a problem with it.

How is the person asking for help going to know it is done grudgingly if the person asked keeps saying yes.

If you do not want to help then say no.

DiscoDancer1975

I just say ‘ no’. Never had a problem with it.

Me too!!

Elizabeth27

That is precisely what i think, its sad that the person thinks it is no trouble whatsoever to ask for A, B & C to be done, unknowing that it doesn't sit very well with the person who has been asked to do A, B & C.

Really sad.

I have been in a situation many, many times when someone has asked could i do blah, blah, blah for them and i have done it without so much as a nanoseconds thoughts BUT i have always taken on-board if i have known they have very good family that I CAN help, no problem whatsoever but i have made a mental note that the persons son, daughter grandchildren, niece nephew is very much 'around'.

I couldnt be two-face..... no way am i implying anyone is, im just adding my bit to this discussion that I personally couldn't be two-faced

Everyone needs a bit of help now and again....

My moto BE KIND

There’s another side to this. A lot of very old people live alone and find everyday tasks getting impossible, they might have memory loss and their family have abandoned them except when they want money. I know of one lady exactly in that position, she wanted to go to a retirement home but her son said no you're not ready for that yet, we will help you stay where you are. She cannot drive now as has early dementia, she looks so frail, she’s not eating, her son does not visit for more than the. odd 30 minute visit, so she is a prisoner in her home and keeps crying. Social services contacted the son who said I do visit she can’t remember. You try reporting it and it flies back in your face, they put the problem on you and it makes it worse. Other option Age Concern, failing that the police. I don’t think a lot of us do what we should before it gets to an emergency situation and end up very needy and frightened about things that didn’t use to bother them once. That’s where neighbours get to pick up the pieces as well as dealing with their own problems and after a while it becomes a burden on them.

A neighbour I thought of as a friend had to have a mastectomy and her husband was in a wheelchair so unable to help. I've had a mastectomy myself so I knew the score, and that she wouldn't be able to drive for a little while, so I rang her to see if there was anything she wanted, and she gave me a short list which was fine.

This opened the floodgates and she rang me every morning for something - a birthday card that had to have elephants on it - something to be posted - more food shopping, etc etc. At first I did all of this willingly but as I am juggling far more health problems than my neighbour, and I am older than her, often I was having a bad day and didn't feel like going out.

The last straw came when I had dragged myself out to run one of her errands and when I came home she was sweeping up leaves!!

I didn't answer the phone the next few mornings.

A year later I had heavy duty 'flu and my fridge was empty. I felt she owed me so I rang her to ask if she could get me some basics from the village shop, and she said she couldn't until next week!!

I learnt my lesson.

In my case saying 'no' wasn't an option.

My neighbour rang me and said she had been in agony all day, the doctor had only just phoned her back for a telephone consult and was sending a painkiller prescription to the chemist - and they closed in 30 minutes. Her daughter lives an hour away. I couldn't say no, but wondered what the next 'emergency' would be. Luckily her other friend collected and delivered the urine sample

Allsorts
Social services is failing this lady, who is screaming for help and they choose to believe the son.

As this lady seems to be in full faculty of her mental health (for now) and she is not asking for any other people to support her wishes, why not go to a home?

as for saying yes to requests, it gives a partial picture.

How about the body language? The tone of the reply? Waiting to reply for some time vs right away?

A cheerful "sure, what do you need" is very different compared to "ok, what do you need?" with flat or annoyed voice

When we moved house I was very wary of new neighbours because of what we left behind.
Their son had never been friendly to us. If his mother came for coffee he would phone for her to go home . When she came for us and said her husband was ill. We went and found him dead. I sat and cuddled her until the ambulance came but the son would not swop seats with me .Within a few months he had her certified and in a home without telling us.
When we moved the lady next door asked who we were and very curtly told me that the dividing wall was hers and not to touch it.She also said she was expecting a retired .......obviously I did not look like ones wife.
Later I was told I shouln't shop in Sainsburys as she had opposed it being built. Hints started to about joining clubs where it was obvious I was going to taxi.
DH said to say no but give no explanation in my" yummy mummy", car as she called it. I knew she had lots of family near and made my mind up to say No to everything. It is hard and often I regret saying it but once bitten twice shy and we have a quiet life.

why do you regret saying it; she sounds like someone to avoid.

welbeck

why do you regret saying it; she sounds like someone to avoid.

You have just cleared my conscience welbeck thank you she is someone to be avoided ,we are lucky the ones on the other side and opposite are lovely and made us feel very welcome. I can sleep easy on that score.
Unfortunately we have just heard a family friend is on the front line in a trench in Ukraine.

I can see how very tempting it is to ask people nearby to help out, particularly with medicines as the chemist is nearby and only open when the AC are at work, however, we don't. The tea and coffee scenarios are amusing to me as back in the dark ages when I was first at work I used to think if they want to pay me to make tea and coffee fine! then women's lib came along and I knew differently!
Yammy thinking of your friend.

The posters who say never get involved with financial matters in case relatives (who suddenly appear out of the woodwork) turn on you are wise.

During the first lockdown I worked as a "telephone friend" with a local charity ringing several people during the week for a chat. All these were elderly people who lived alone and part of my job was to pass onto the charity any requests for practical help such as shopping, etc. Some conversations were quite short, simply a "check in" to ensure that the recipient was well. Others wished to chat and obviously looked forward to the conversations. One (I will call her Grace) I got quite close to and found out from her that she lived in a nearby street.

Of course I never went there as that is forbidden in the rules. I phoned this lady twice a week for several months. One day a strange voice answered and demanded to know who I was. I explained and the other replied rudely that she was Grace's daughter. She told me that I did not need to call again as she was now there to look after her mother. She used phrases like "Your the busybody whose been bothering mum" and so on. It was obvious that she was not at all glad that her mother had a confident all those weeks that she had never been around.

What alarmed me was that Grace was a charming lady, very well spoken. From her accent, things she had said in our conversations and the area where she lived I knew that she was probably from a good middle class background. The woman who claimed to be her daughter had a very rough regional accent from another part of the country. She did not come across as the kind of person who would fit in to the same social group. In short I was suspicious of her claim that she was Grace's daughter.

When the rude woman ordered me not to call again I said that I would like to hear this decision from Grace herself, but she slammed down the phone. When I reported this to the charity they instructed me not to call again as they were going to send a worker around to the address to find out what was going on. I never did find out what happened except that Social Services becae involved so there may well have been a safeguarding issue.

Hithere

Allsorts
Social services is failing this lady, who is screaming for help and they choose to believe the son.

As this lady seems to be in full faculty of her mental health (for now) and she is not asking for any other people to support her wishes, why not go to a home?

The trouble is, people who really do need help, will all too often tell SS that they don’t, and/or refuse to let them in at all, so unless the person has been officially deemed to lack capacity, there’s nothing SS can do - until/unless there’s a real crisis of some sort.

Probably not so much the case now, but some elderly people used to be very wary of SS, thinking they were going to interfere and pry into their private affairs, or force them into a care home ‘for your own good’.

My own mother (born 1918) was certainly of the firmly fixed opinion that SS were only ever needed by the feckless/improvident, and before dementia really took a hold would have been aghast at any involvement from them, though thankfully we were able to manage without.

Years ago I worked as a market researcher and when I asked older people (in one popular survey) what they feared most it was often "loss of independence".

I would never want to get involved with SS. I regard them as busybodies and would not let them into my house. Rather than go into a care home I would kill myself, And yes I do mean that because I keep more than enough tablets to kill me 10 times over. I dont want to spend the remainder of my life parked in front of a TV with a bunch of senile incontinent old biddies. My choice.

Its easy when you live alone. You just tell people you are going away for a few days and not to call.

Thank you Luluaugust for your thought. He is English but lives in Ukraine with his Ukrainian wife. He is in the southeast where the fighting is heavy.

Our next door neighbour asked my husband if he would mind cutting her lawn while she was on holiday hubby pointed out she had a sil who was more than capable of doing it she never asked again

This thread made me think of a colleague whose neighbour refused to so much as take in a parcel as she was a housewife and felt anyone who chose to work should make alternative arrangements. When she went on holiday she expected my colleague to keep an eye on the house water plants and feed the Tortoise as "everyone has holidays"!

biglouis

Years ago I worked as a market researcher and when I asked older people (in one popular survey) what they feared most it was often "loss of independence".

I would never want to get involved with SS. I regard them as busybodies and would not let them into my house. Rather than go into a care home I would kill myself, And yes I do mean that because I keep more than enough tablets to kill me 10 times over. I dont want to spend the remainder of my life parked in front of a TV with a bunch of senile incontinent old biddies. My choice.

Its easy when you live alone. You just tell people you are going away for a few days and not to call.

Let’s hope you don’t get dementia then, because if you do, you will almost certainly forget a) that you ever had such a plan, b) that you ever had such a stash, never mind where you put it, not to mention that more than likely you will be unable to remember at any given moment that there’s actually anything wrong with you.

My mother still genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with her when she could no longer even make herself a cup of tea.

What does down the banks mean?

This is going to sound horrible but no I haven't. I used to work as an Occupational Therapist before I retired and had seen it happen too many times to get caught.

I've loved being around my 80 yo neighbour through lockdown. He's had a few parking tickets, traffic fines (should he be driving - not for me to say). As he doesn't do computers I've been able to sort, and it's lovely, we've got quite close - 18 previous years as neighbours has been a wave and "hello" and little more. And he's always thankful and has never ever taken the pee.

However - I can see I'm getting sucked in right now by someone (in their 50's) who I believe is trying to manipulate me ... it's a really sad situation but I (and many of my confidants) are seeing red flags for the future! I've enjoyed those assertive refusals - and will be using those! So thanks!

Not quite the same but I am a carer for my mother alongside her aging partner. I find that in addition to my Mum, I am often in the position where I am doing things to care for her partner even though he has an adult son. If I say, "Why don't you ask your DS?" the response is that he is very busy and Mum's Partner doesn't want to trouble him. I did write to his son who told his Dad that he wanted to be troubled but this has made no difference. I find I can get quite resentful that my time and trouble is perfectly acceptable to use. I try to balance it with telling myself that he does care for my Mum (although only the jobs he wants to do) but that doesn't always comfort me. My husband says that I should just avoid helping but I feel guilty. I would like to think that if my husband needed help, my children would step in if his children couldn't. Sometimes life just puts you between a rock and a hard place!

Witzend, my Mum is the same. She can barely stand, hasn't entered the kitchen for 10 years but when Social Services come, she tells them about how she went sailing a couple of months ago and she is perfectly capable of making a cup of tea. When they ask her to show them, she just deflects with a monologue of how to make a cup of tea and says she doesn't feel like showing them. It is so frustrating.

biglouis, I have been amazed at how wonderful adult social services have been with both my Mum and Carer. I was quite sceptical about involving them but they have been really helpful. My Mum has too much money to pay for carers but they provide us with 4 hours a week for somebody to sit with her so we can have a break. Not much but better than nothing. They arranged a 2 week break (unfunded of course) when we were on our knees. They chase professionals to get things done and they help determine when she has capacity (it fluctuates) when she or I have to make important decisions. They can only offer help, they can't force you to take it. Even if you make unwise decisions that put you in danger, they can't drag you off kicking and screaming. They can only advise you.