Hi peeps. My name is Emma and I’m in my 40’s caring for my mum and wheelchair user partner.
I enjoy reading on my downtime and love sci-if/paramonal stuff.
I don’t like cleaning but do it. And I have a cat named Sweet Pea.
I’m having problems with stress and this is why I’ve decided to join.
Hi Emma, welcome to the forum. Do you live with mum and her partner? Remember, you are daughter, not slave. If they can’t do any cleaning they need to find someone who can Not you! Have you had a Carers Assessment recently? Have they had Needs Assessments done by Social Services recently?
What three things are causing you the most stress?
welcome to the forum.
Tired brain here, can you clarify; is the wheelchair user partner your partner or your Mum’s partner?
I like reading too when I can. I have a cat called Poppy but have recently been calling her Sweat Pea as a nickname. I’m not keen on cleaning either but also do it … just wish it stayed clean once done!
Sorry to hear you are feeling stressed.
Sorry added to the post. I live with my partner (wheelchair person) and go to my mums to help out with whatever needs doing. I’m happy to do this and my partner does lots at home when he can. He’s a great cook, washes clothes and cleans where he can.
It’s the extra this neighbour is wanting. He does nothing for himself cleaning wise and chucks all his packaging from cooking all other the kitchen. It’s truely disgusting. There’s lots more.
Oh and hi Melly1 and bowlingbun! Thank you for replying
Hi Emma, welcome online. I care for my mum too so know the stress. I love your cat’s name, so pretty.
Thank you. I guess it’s more that I would be caring for three people and the neighbour would take all my time up.
Sweet Pea came to us as a stray so didn’t know her real name. We all just kept saying ‘come here Sweet Pea, Sweet hart’ and so she started coming to that name. Lol. Now it’s stuck I’m not sure we could change it. Lol
Tell the neighbour he has to leave you alone as you have more than enough to do already. Why is he in your kitchen?
His not in my Kitchen. Lol And tbh thank god. I could not live with the grease, dirt build up.
Atm I’m just telling him I’m to busy, which is true most of the time.
He’s a clinger. I did one thing for him and now he won’t leave me alone… I don’t want to be rude as we live on same street but I also don’t want to take his rubbish out (5 bags a time once I’ve bagged it all, including wet inconitinence pants.), take him to very appointment (he drives but wants me to lift his mobility scooter in and out of his car each time. This can be to do a 15 minute shop in a shop I do not shop in. Did this 6 times last time as he went to two places which he moved his car. Go to and do financial stuff with/for him. He’s blocked his bank card (forgot pin) now I’m to go with him.
He’s got a cat that he won’t take to the vet as 1. Too expensive. 2. Too far away 3. Can’t lift the carrier even though I offered to go with and lift thevcat for him. Yet he can clean the cats litter tray out. Doesn’t throw it away.
I wish I had not done the one day job now as he had me to most of the above. Then a week later I through his trash again, nothing else.
He came round the next day asking if I will go appointment with him and then two days later if I would go shopping with him, then rang tonight asking if I’ll go to bank with him. If I went it would be to lift the scooter, go to appointment, sit for two hours then lift scooter again, he drive us home (that’s if he doesn’t decide to shop on way back. 2 x lifting) then home and lift scooter again. Go inside an I would be the one carrying the shopping in. Grrrr… That’s most of my day gone.
He’s a pensioner. Small private pension and going to apply for AA as he says he can’t afford help or a cleaner. I should not know his financial info but he talks.
I have rung adults safeguarding team who have said they will contact SS and see about visiting him. Don’t know when or what will come of it.
I would not mind but I’m not young and have a back problem and already run around after two people. One is CA approved and I get a small amount of £ for that.
Under no circumstances should you be doing anything involving lifting if you have a bad back. It’s time for your partner to step in on your behalf and have a forthright discussion. If he can’t manage anything then he can ask Social Services for help himself.
I know, I know… Lol
Seriously though. I’m looking into options to help with this as I am the only mostky fit person around. Shopping isn’t too bad and I practice good technique. There are very little options when it comes to day to day activities. My partner has a device to help him stand up from bed for instance.
I know I should have said no to the neighbour the first time (been on same street for years and talk regularly, which usually is all it is), but I didn’t know he was going to get me to get the scooter out multiple times. I should of said no as I guess he’s latched onto the fact I can do it.
He has had occupational therapist in to see what they can do for his bungalow. They gave him a list of cleaners but he says he can’t afford them. Doesn’t like microwave foods and wanted traditional hot food delivered to his. And of course there’s this shopping lark. Won’t learn how to have stuff delivered so goes himself in his car. (Won’t let him on bus with the scooter).
I guess I just made it worse by making it too easy for him and he now wants it all the time. I know it’s not my job and I have now said I too busy and I know I need to say something like ‘it killed me last time and was laid up the next day’. Not true but might get him to stop.
As far as I know SS only provide carers for personal care not things like going shopping or cleaning. They are useless.
I know it’s his problem to find someone to do this with him but if I’m at a loss as to how to get help in that way then how’s he supposed to at 78 and no knowledge of the internet. Heck he wanted me to do all his ringing of things like his bank and utilities so he wouldn’t have to. (I told him no as I am not allowed to.)
So it’s gone from doing the technology and sorting of appointments to physical stuff.
I am too soft and I feel guilty as I know there’s very little help for the things he’s asking for to angry that he plays on some things. He made out once he got to the shop that he couldn’t get off the scooter and reach up to pick up something on a higher head height shelf for instance. He’s not paraplegic, just puffed out on movement of more than say 10 meters.
I know in the far future I’m going to have to pay someone to help do our shopping/cleaning. Hopefully I’ll find a charity that has volunteers or a company that I can hire a person from. There is just very little in the way of help out there for this yet they say they want people like him to stay in their own homes.
Welcome from me too Emma.
You HAVE to disengage from your neighbour. You have a lot on with your partner and mother. I agree that the lack of community support is horrendous for the elderly. My mother is in a similar position but lives 2 hours away and I do not drive so thankfully I can disengage. She has a lovely neighbour. I have suggested various things to make it easier such as online shopping- neighbour is internet savy and also a cleaner but to no avail. I am the Carer of my 85 year old husband who hates my mother so no way can I get involved and as an only child this has been difficult at times.
I would write to your Neighbour’s GP and say how worried you are and that you can no longer help and support him. They have a Duty of Care. I would send the letter special or recorded delivery and maybe CC it to Adult Social Care. TBH this is what I have suggested my mother’s neighbour do as she is 75 and has just had a hip replacement so I am not happy that my mother expects her to take her shopping and then just points to the lower and upper shelves if she sees thinks she wants. I do not want to sound hard but in today’s world, we seem to have to fight for just about any kind of care for family and friends and neighbours.
On a lighter note, I am a cat person - failed breeder of Norwegian Forest Cats as all the kittens stayed . When I gave up breeding I had 20 cats and 4 kittens.!!! Sadly over the years I have lost some of my oldies and am down to 14. They are indoor but I have enclosed the garden and put in climbing frames. They are quite literally the reason I get up in the morning. My husband is a very difficult bitter old man.
Hello Emma,
That’s far too much for one person to be dealing with. I know it’s difficult when you are kind and helpful by nature, but the neighbour is not your responsibility. If you find it hard to stop helping completely in one go, take a massive step back - the obvious one would be to say that as you’ve got a bad back you can’t do any heavy lifting, so you can’t take out his rubbish or lift the power chair in and out of the car. Your family are your priority, not your neighbour. While he gets the help he wants from you, he is much less likely to be open to help from other sources.
The letters to his GP and social services are a good idea.
I have frequently seen shop staff or helpful customers lifting stuff down for disabled customers, so if he says that again tell him he should ask staff for help. Do not feel guilty you were not there to assist, I’m yet to see someone struggle for long in a shop without help from someone already there (not saying it does not happen at all, but most people will help if asked).
Another place to try for information on help available, might be Age Concern. I’ve not looked at their website, but if I had an elderly neighbour I was worried about, that’s one of the places I would look.
Just checked, it’s called Age UK. They have an advice line, which you could try. I notice it also talks about various local services available for help with benefits, carers etc, so maybe you could get the neighbour in touch with them if it’s phone/face to face, and not online.
Age concern should also be able to arrange for someone to teach your neighbour how to order online. The older he gets the more he is going to need this. I’ve used Tesco, they can even set up a list of things ordered regularly, so it’s really not difficult. I have a sneaky suspicion that he enjoys your feminine company? Age Concern could also do a benefits check for him.
Unfortunately or fortunately I don’t know who/where is GP’s is.
I might try Age UK/concern and CC. I think if they approached him he would take it up but as he has to ring/sort them he won’t do it.
If he has lived on the street for a while, maybe talk to some of his neighbours. Or are they all fed up too?
He lives in a bungalow (staggered row). We’ve been neighbours for around 6 years. He was here before we moved in. When I first met him he was physically ok but wanted help. At the time he was going out with a wheelchair bound lady of a similar age and getting her to do all his bills even though she didn’t live with him. I’m guessing she pulled away because she couldn’t put up with all the ‘do this for me, do that for me, I’m useless and can’t’. I can understand why now.
Everything was ok as I left him too it and he’d pop round for a chat now and again. (On the doorstep. Didn’t mind that).
Now his health has gone downhill and quite fast. I. E needing a plugged in oxygen machine to breath in while sat at home and a tank when out and about, he’s grasping at anyone that says hi. Constantly ‘can I ask a favour?’, ‘would you go with me?’.
It had been at least a year or more since he’d asked me if I would go with him to an appointment and last time that’s all it was. I went and didn’t do anything more after. Was to get meds and wanted a witness incase it turned out he couldn’t understand the instructions. I wrote them down in easy language and that was that.
This time instead of just that one thing he’s gone on to ask over and over for me to do stuff.
No one minds doing a one off job for someone, but I know he’s seen me and knows I’m kind hearted and is taking advantage. I’m not letting him and he was rather short when I said no. He was like ‘well, you know I can’t do without my scooter’.
Guess I’ll just have to p*ss him off and hope he doesn’t talk to us anymore.
If he has an oxygen tank at home then he really is poorly, and should have a Needs Assessment from Social Services. His choice is either accept carers or go without. You are not an option. However soon there may be no other option but residential care. The sad thing is that the more official proper help he gets the longer he could stay in his own home.
Don’t know if he’s asked for an assessment. Carers wouldn’t be worth it for him as he can dress, clean himself etc. Slower than normal but
he can do it and that’s exactly what he’ll tell them.
It’s things like emptying the bins and putting it in the bins outside, cleaning, shopping ect. All the things that aren’t covered. They don’t care if you live like a pig in dirty, unhoovered environment as long as you dress, smell fine and eat anything you want as long as it’s food. My gran was living of cold cans of beans cause she could no longer cook and her place stunk but they kept saying to her ‘but you can manage can’t you’ and of course he’d say yes. My father pointed around the flat and at the cupboard and the two cans of beans and forced the issue to get her sorted.
I know he’s really ill and I feel sorry for him and that’s what hurts the most. But I know if I did it all I would be a mug. Could easily be a full time job.
Don’t think he’ll every accept that he needs to go in a home. Likely he’ll die before that trying to stay out of one. Likely no one will know as he has the oxygen and does sound perfectly fine when sat at home. They don’t see or wanna see how he’s not coping in every other way.
“Maintaining a habitable home” IS covered by the Care Act. Help with appointments could be covered by a voluntary driver, or similar scheme. If he needs help with benefits, it’s available too.