New pet i don't want

Good luck with your clear out. My Mum and Dad’s house was also a mess and I felt I needed to get it in better shape before we could ask carers to come and work in that environment. Good luck with tackling it. Sounds like you have a plan! We got there in the end and Mum’s house is actually pretty clutter free now!

See every step you take like this as a postive step forward for you too.

Yeah, I can safely say that over the years i have tackled multiple rooms multiple times. It is hard to work up the motivation to do it again though because after all the work i put in it doesn’t normally stay clear for long. i will have to put my foot down this time and stop things creeping back once it’s done. An empty space is not an invitation to get more stuff!

Well, I managed about three hours of clearing clutter before my back started hurting and my grandmother needed to go back to bed. It is so frustrating. I just want to get it done but it’s such slow going.
On the kitten front, my grandmother said to me today that she is getting two new kittens. I told her honestly that it wouldn’t be safe because of the dog and that I couldn’t take the extra work. I think she saw that it was genuinely upsetting me and she said we wouldn’t get any but she won’t remember the conversation and if my uncle pressures her we will end up getting them.
Part of me thinks that if they do get the kittens i should use it as my excuse to leave and get on with my life. I could sort out the house for them, maybe get them some help in and then leave them all to look after themselves. I don’t know if I could really do it but the idea does make me feel a bit better.

If they don’t take any notice of you why bother to stay anyhow? Let them live in their own mess.

It is mainly guilt keeping me here, I think. Before I came home I was travelling,doing hospitality work to fund my travels. I developed chronic pain problems and had to come home and I never doubted that I could move home. They always kept my room available as I left to study, travel and work away. They always wanted me around even when I wasn’t doing everything for them. They do love me, just not enough to put my well-being above their own.
After I had been home a few years and my health improved i mentioned leaving and my grandmother would get upset and guilt me into staying. I don’t like seeing her get upset and I don’t like confrontation so I just stayed.
The problem is now it’s been years since I was in the workforce. I feel a bit too old to be picking up casual live in hospitality work. I have a degree but I never settled on a career so I would have to learn a new, marketable skill.
So, I think my plan might be to learn a new skill, get the house cleared and things a bit more organised generally so that I’m in a better position to leave if necessary. However, if they get a kitten I’ll just say to hell with it and take whatever hospitality job i need to to get away.

Hi Snowhyte
I;m not sure that you have heard about the magical age of 60 in relation to selling the famioly home so just a word of warning . If in time both your grandparents become so infirm as to need residential care their home could be sold to pay for their care needs and with care costing anything from £1500 per week per person it would soon disappear. If all remaining residents are below the age of 60 the fact that it is your home is totally disregarded so please don’t make yourself homeless at the end of your care journey. You may have a get out of jail free card if other residents are disabled but please make sure you do your homework.

My uncle is in his sixties so does that mean the council couldn’t take the house in a worst case scenario?
I’ve always said that if anything happened to my grandparents I would just leave because I don’t want to live with my uncle and cousin and end up acting as a maid because they won’t do housework. Maybe I have been underestimating how easy it actually will be to leave. I’d like to travel again but really i would need to settle in a career that would allow be to be location independent. I was thinking maybe website development. I’ve just been struggling to get motivated because I haven’t been sleeping well, I feel stressed from the pressure of being responsible for everything and the thought of taking something else on isn’t appealing.
I do need to start thinking about my future though. I need to put myself into a position where if something happens to my grandparents I can leave and support myself. It’s quite sad. I spent two years backpacking by myself. I would take random jobs or volunteering placements and just head off somewhere new at the drop of a hat and now I am worrying about having to leave home.

If you have experience in hospitality, then I feel sure that you could get a live in job for a while, so that you could get some mental peace and quiet and think about what you do with the rest of your life. As you have caring experience as well, whilst I’m sure you don’t want to spend the rest of your life caring, just for someone else, it would again give you some “breathing space”. I live in the New Forest where they are crying out for carers due to the top heavy population!
My son has severe learning difficulties, but he has a lovely personality, fit as a flea, loves going out and about, just needs someone to be with him as his road safety skills are poor, and as he can’t read, food planning and cooking is needed. Again, they are crying out for people like you!

Thanks Bowlingbun, that does make me feel a bit better. I know I’m not totally without options but it’s the employment gap and dated references that were worrying me. I do have things to offer an employer and if references are a problem I can always do some volunteer work. I need to focus on the positives more.

If grandparents own the house then yes the house could not be sold if uncle lives there and is over 60. You mentioned the council taking the house- if granparents are council tenants then completely different rules apply but if you ment social services taking hgte house to pay for care then it should be protected if owned privately and uncle over 60.

The house is privately owned and my uncle is over sixty so that is one less worry.

I had 7 years out of the events industry an managed to walk back into work reasonably easily. I am at a lower level than I was, but I can’t manage a higher level positio with caring, so it suits me. You will find something. Defintiley think about retraining if you want to. There is a whole world out there for you.


If I was you I would certainly be out of there if the kitten arrives. But I would also be getting a route out anyway There is a whole life for you to live. xxxx

Hello Snowwhyte. On return to this forum after a short absence I picked up your thread. Firstly I would say that you are to be admired for the way you have coped and supported your grandparents so far with these difficult circumstances. I have also seen some very good advice from many contributors to this forum.

You say you do not like confrontation. I don’t think any of us does. But you clearly don’t like your current lifestyle either. There are times when we must be assertive to the point of risking a confrontation. Better to have a short-term bust-up than go on living long-term with a bad situation.

So let us examine the subject of this thread - a new kitten or two. It seems to me that it is your uncle that wants the kitten. Grandad clearly has the sense to see that this would bring problems. Uncle is bending Grandma’s ear because he is playing the numbers game; he is looking for backup. She is not mentally in a fit state to make a sound decision on this. Her expressed desires for a kitten are probably based on her happy memories of pets she has had in the past. She won’t see the potential problems now, let alone be expected to deal with them.

To bring a kitten - or, worse, two - into this situation must be an absolute NO, NO! You say your dog is aggressive. Consider also that dogs are territorial animals. You dog happily accepts the cat that has been its resident companion for years, but is likely to reject a newcomer.

So tell your uncle what would be likely to happen if he got a kitten. No ifs or buts or conditions. No “I’ll leave if you get one.” (You can leave anyway, but probably not at a moment’s notice; it takes time to find new accommodation.) Tell him that if he brings a kitten into this situation you’ll report him to the RSPCA. And be prepared to do it if necessary. Bringing a kitten into this situation will almost certainly warrant such a report.

Speak to him calmly and firmly to make your point. If he flies into a strop, walk out on him and give him a couple of hours to cool off. If he is as lazy as you suggest, he is probably too lazy to put up much of a fight if challenged. However one advantage of his living there is that if your grandparents were to go into a care home, the council could not sell the house to pay for the care.

Next you need to consider how to make a gradual and organised exit from this situation. As others have suggested, take “baby steps”. Take a fortnight off for a holiday, so that your uncle must cope, and maybe your cousin will cope better than you expect. It is certainly not too late for you to build up a career. But leave it another ten years and it will be more difficult, and you will have ten fewer years of life left.

Then there is the question of the will. It seems unfair that you cousin should get the entire house, when you are just as close a relative and have done so much in looking after your grandparents. I do think that letting your grandma die intestate is a better option than the one she proposes, though better-still options could be worked out. I agree with you that it would be simpler if all were sold and the proceeds divided up. Shared houses, other than by married couples, can bring problems. What happens if later one person wants to leave and others want to stay put, but are unwilling or unable to buy out the intended leaver’s share of the equity. You could find yourself in this situation.

Best of luck in the coming weeks but definitely NO to that kitten.

The more I think about things the more complicated they seem. On the will front, if there is no will i would get a 6th share of the estate which would probably be enough for a deposit on a little house. However, my brothers, who are both addicts would get the same amount and probably spend their money on drink and drugs. My other uncle who didn’t bother visiting for four years would get a third. I don’t like to dwell on what is fair because if you go through life expecting it to be fair you will definitely end up resentful and disappointed but things won’t be fair. It’s probably better to accept that now.
I have given up five years of my life to take care of my grandparents and I didn’t do it with the expectation of receiving anything but I sacrificed 5 years of earnings and pension contributions and I will definitely be worse off than if I hadn’t. If they did leave me a share of the house or the land then that would be a tie that might make it harder to make a break and move away. If I can retrain and earn enough then hopefully it won’t matter to me what happens with the estate. My concern about that would be in possibly delaying too long and also the possibility of health issues. I moved home in the first place because I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I did get better so that was great but there is always a niggling worry that I will become ill again and be unable to work.
I feel like I’m rambling a bit but concentrating on some positives i managed to get some more work done on the grandparents bedroom although there is still a long way to go. I had a second conversation with my grandmother about the kittens since she doesn’t remember the first one and my Grandad said he thinks the kitten order has been cancelled. Hopefully, that’s true. Third positive, my grandparents are paying for me to learn to drive and will probably buy me a little car when I pass my test. That will allow me to get out more.

I think understandable to worry about being unwell again. But it might also not happen. Don’t get too hung up on this.

And you are definitely right not to get hung up on life being fair. It never is, is it? You sound young enough to make your own life for yourself. You have given up 5 years, so no guilt in needing to look after yourself now and make your own way. What is it you would like to retrain as? I think being a full time carer give you so many transferable skills (empathy, patience, organisation, negotiation, people skills, budgeting… I could go on and on). Definitely have a think about these when you apply for any job or course. Don’t play down what you have been doing for 5 years. Be proud and shout about it and think about what it will bring to whatever you are applying for.

But also good for you looking to the positives, it really does help. Glad you are learning to drive. It will open up job choices too.

And massive well done on the clearing. Every little helps…

If money wasn’t a consideration i would like to travel and do conservation work/ wildlife photography. It’s hard to make a living at those things though so more realistically I thought website design might be a good way to utilise my particular mix of creative and technical skills. I could start learning the necessary skills online and see if it might suit me before investing in an expensive course. I do want to find something that I can do that won’t tie me down. I always said that I wouldn’t have kids because I didn’t want the responsibility, the mess or the noise yet here I am living in a noisy, messy house responsible for nearly everything. Still, it’s one thing to move out it’s another thing to go travelling for years or to emigrate which I would like to do ideally.

I love travel and wildlife too - tho am rubbish photographer! If you are interested in conservation work how about volunteering with somewhere local to you? Again, you would be building skills that would be transferable if you do want to move eventually.

Web design also sounds great. Could you start to build some skills yourself by building your own website about your previous travels/photographs? Could be a project away and a useful chance to build up skills to see if you like it before committing to a course?

Mainly, don’t give up these dreams. They sound wonderful. Now those baby steps to making them a reality as Denis suggests.

I am somewhat constrained at the moment since I live in the country and there is limited public transport. Once i get my driving license i might be able to start doing some volunteering. I’d like to get my bird ringing licence or do some residential volunteering with the RSPB. I did that when I was younger and really enjoyed it.
As for the website development i have an idea for my first website, I bought the domain and hosting and have been watching videos on web design but have been struggling a bit to get motivated because I’ve been really tired lately. I am starting to feel a bit better though so will try and get stuck into the research and content writing.

I’d be inclined not to dwell too much on wills. I have always been a believer in earning my way through life. Anything that comes my way through a will is a bonus. Of course, in time, my own will will be passed on. I have had investment brokers ask me, among other things, what I might expect to receive in the form of a will. I tell them I don’t want to have a discussion down that road.

I suspect this largely applies to you, Snowwhyte. You clearly have skills and ambitions. You need to move gently towards a situation where you have more independence but at a controlled proximity to your relatives. Keep your gran informed of your intentions so that she can gradually accept your plans.

As for fairness, it is ultimately up to your gran to decide who benefits from her will. The intestacy laws are as fair as possible in a general way, but they cannot account for individual circumstances. There is unlikely to be a “totally fair” deal.

. . . Third positive, my grandparents are paying for me to learn to drive and will probably buy me a little car when I pass my test. That will allow me to get out more.

So there you are - there are some positives. Better the benefits that lie immediately ahead than speculation about the dim, distant future.