Running around after an elderly neighbour

I will help anyone but the second I sniff taking advantage THATS IT !!

I will never be direct in saying This has gone far enough and upset the person who is taking advantage because i would find it sad in a way, I know some will look at me aghast and ponder just where the word sad comes into it, but thats my personal take on it.

It’s not easy to say no but I think you have to if someone is laying more and more and more at your table especially if you know they have other help

I suppose this is all to do with strength of character and being able to say no.
It’s so simple but so very difficult also not many of us can do it.

I'm on the Passive Aggressive scale so I'm afraid in these sorts of situations if someone was being a pain and needed my help to fill in forms, do their washing, do their shopping etc. I would make a mess of it. Spoil their clothes, make the form out incorrectly, buy the wrong things. Then they would stop asking. I was once asked/told at work to make the coffee and put biscuits on plates for a meeting I wasn't even part of. It was a way of saving money for the department instead of ordering it from the staff restaurant. I was very angry but didn't let it show. The tables with cups and saucers etc were to be laid out on the table which had a tablecloth someone organising the meeting had brought in from home. Two filter coffee makers were produced with coffee and filters and I was told it all had to be ready for the meeting to start at 10am. I set the table collected the cups and saucers and I duly filled the filter coffee machines with water and coffee, switched them on and went back to my office. Oh dear, we will never know if it was a mistake or not but being unfamiliar with filter coffee machines I had omitted to put the filters in the machines. When the delegates went into the room for the coffee the floor around the table was swimming in grainy brown mess, the tablecloth was ruined and the biscuits sodden. I was told off and I had to admit to having never used a filter coffee machine. It was suggested I paid for a new tablecloth and I said no way Jose (my exact words) and when a claim was put into expenses it was turned down as they should have used the caterers! The carpet always had a stain on it which amused me every time I went in that meeting room. My punishment? I was told in no uncertain terms I would never be asked to make coffee for meetings again. Hurrah! At the time I had been working for that organisation for over 20 years and had been promoted a few times and none of those positions was ever Tea Lady.

Of course its not only older people who can dig their claws in and demand "services".

When I was at uni as a mature student I was friendly with a younger girl (Elaine) who did some volunteering. She was latched onto by a woman in her 30s who was pregnant for the second time and who wanted a great deal of attention - despite having a social worker in tow. She wanted Elaine to come and witness the birth and kept nagging her. She was constantly turning up at the shared house and hanging around whinging. This was Elaine's final year and she was depending on getting a good 2/1 but this woman was sucking the life out of her.

One day she turned up uninvited and began to monopolize the conversation when I had a real go at her. I told her she was an emotional vampire sucking the life out of my friend, who fled in embarrasment to her room. The two housemates waded in as well and she was told to leave. She was stunned and her mouth fell open that someone had seen through her "helpless little me" act

When Elaine finally emerged from her room we three persuded her to go visit her parents for two weeks to let things cool down. I gave her access to all my lecture notes and the housemates withheld any contact information and would only say she had gone to visit her parents. While Elaine was away the child was born and we saw no more of the CF. We assume she got her claws into someone else.

Often physically removing oneself is the answer because the needy person will have to shift for themselves while their "helper" is away. This is a good opportunity to step back and continue to be unavailable (or only partially available) when you return and set up some boundaries.

A former friend took my help from granted too many times.
When I called her a"user", she was shocked.

Eventually the needy neighbour moved to the other side of the city and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Months passed.

Then she rang me needing her DLA form filled up again. So why can your son not take you to the citizens advice who will do it for you? She began to whinge and promised me that her son would give me a lift to and from her house to do it. Like a fool I agreed.

It took HOURS to fill out the form and numerous cups of tea because she kept losing concentration. While this was happening her son sat drinking beer and watching football.

Guess what?

He couldnt drive me back because he had been drinking and I had brought no money with me for a taxi. There was no offer to pay my fare back so I had to call a cab to go right across the city (not cheap) and then make the cabbie wait while I ran into the house for cash (this was long before Ubers or paying by card)

Next day my nephew rang the woman and gave her "down the banks". He told her very harshly that if she or her son contacted me again he would charge them with harassment and send the police around. I blocked her number and have never heard from her since.

Sometimes you just have to be callous.

When I was living in London my neighbour looked out for her elderly NDN and he ran her a merry dance - she spent her lunch hour searching for his 'particular' biscuits, had to use holiday to take him hospital appointments etc. He did have family who didn't visit or seem to care, and she felt obliged . When he died (she found him dead on the toilet,heart attack) the family accused her of stealing money from his underwear drawer. Ghastly.

I vowed then never to get involved with anyone, but when I moved to this bungalow immediately got involved with someone opposite. Luckily she did get carers in, and is now in a home. It is sad so many people have to rely on kind strangers.

yes, something similar. although i have undertaken to do some tasks, i recognise how the adult son is always excused duties, as if he is a child, or just doesn't know how to do things, what to buy, because as she herself says, he's never done those things.
well, quite.
i guess as he is a high status person for her, he is not to be put upon, to bother himself with anything that he finds boring.
whereas i, being only a neighbour, can be inconvenienced and put upon ad infinitum.