Lori and AnnR

I assure you I have tried to talk to the neighbors, I have had a drunk call me up and call me rather nasty names. I have discussed things with the neighbors prior to this and they do not seem to want to work with me or my daughters. I had given them all my home number and mine and my daughters cell phone numbers, offered to pay them to do a couple of things for my mother and no one would. I have told the social service worker that I have had these problems and what I have done to try to resolve them and the social worker said I have probably talked to the neighbors to much and it is better that I answer any thing they call me about with, saying thank you for your concern, I certainly will look into it and take care of this, social services is handling this. Thank you. and say a polite goodbye.

I do not think the neighbors are concerned for my mother, the things they say and do, do not show any concern. One neighbor mentioned my mom came to her and asked for help with unlocking her door and the neighbor said she told her no she would not. Mom walked home and after a bit got her door open herself. I found out later that the lock was sticking, got it repaired and now it works fine.

The next door neighbor mows up to my moms garage where the property joins because she mows about everyother day and uses her riding lawn mower to go over the lawn until you cannot see any clumps of mown grass in the lawn. She has never offered to mow any more of moms lawn than the 4 or 5 foot strip that goes between her property line and my mothers garage and driveway. I have nothing against her doing this accept she is the neighbor who wants to get my mom for trespassing and has filed a police report on her. This same lady use to get my mothers daily newspaper from mom the same day as it came out, as mom would look at it and take it over to her. This lady did not want mom coming over, so I told her if she didn't want to interact with mom, then she should be not taking moms newspaper to read, as it was giving mom mixed signals. This made her mad, perhaps I should not have said anything about the paper, but I felt my mother was being treated badly and did not appreciate this happening to her.

I agree aneighbor who has problems is an inconvenience, but there are people out on the streets that are worse off than my mom behavior wise and they are many times accepted in their communities. The social worker agrees these neighbors are not easy to deal with and a great part of this can be attributed to one neighbor inciting the others.

OK, it's settled then, they are just JERKS!!

Well then give us their address and Lori and I will go take care of them. Better yet, maybe Nancy, who lives in WI would be willing to take them out for us. What heartless human beings they are. So sorry you're having to deal with this on top of everything else.

Lori, polish up your sword!

Ann

OK Ann I'm ready. Sound the charge.

You know, the more I hear about them, the more it's clear that these "neighbors" are just really petty people. They sound like very selfish people who obviously have no relatives who are ill and definitely no parents they are taking care of. They obviously have no manners either, because I know I was always taught that if you knew you had an older person on your block, you should do things like take out trash, shovel, cut grass (and NOT be paid to do it) because it's the right thing to do.

It's a shame. I'm sorry you're going through this and I'm really sorry your mom has to have people like this living around her.

Thank you all for your care and understanding. I do realize it is hard to deal with a person with dementia and I have tried to reach out to the neighbors, like I said it is one person who has incited the others, plus one police officer, who in my opinion is not a good one. He likes to add his own opinion unto police reports. The police cheif has been decent to us for the most part, but he has had to deal with the spiteful neighbor also. The rain incident with mom, ok it is not something everyone does, but it was a warm rain, I have walked in the rain, as have others. I have a 36 year old daughter who has walked barefoot in the snow, I think there are some that may find this strange, but she is otherwise normal, do I put her in a home? I guess what I am saying, lets look at this realistically, if your lucky enough to live past 80 in a lot of places in this country, you are not allowed to do anything. Don't walk in the rain, you might slip and fall, don't walk in the snow, you might slip and fall. don't walk up on decks or porches, you might ???????? There are a lot of mights in this world and I at 65 might do any and all of the above, so might 20 year old, or a toddler. I am for trying to let a person have the end of years to live as close to humanly possible the way they would want to, this includes taking the chance of dying, because no matter what, that is a part of life. I had written on another board, I was mis-understood, and I was verbally accused of not being a caring person, beleive it or not, just recently one of the posters e-mailed an apology to me. The one phrase I used was one a lawyer told me, I at first did not understand it and thought it strange, but he said "Your mother has a right to fall". I think it means, you cannot stop someone from living, to keep them from dying. I see this board has so many good caring people, who honestly take the time to actually read and digest what is written and I appreciate you all realizing I really am trying to do what I feel is best for my mother. In a NH she is the type of woman who would plain and simply lose her spirit and I hope I can find a way to at least give her that.

Blessings to you Judy. I'm sorry your mom does not have nice compassionate neighbors. We had a dear lady right next to our rental property who was in her 90's, and either me or my husband used to shovel her walk if there was snow, set her paper on the porch, he trimmed her trees and the fence row, and I'd take her leftover warm meals from Church luncheons. Sadly she did finally have to go to a nursing home, but she got to the point it WAS necessary. But her family left her in her own home until it was not safe anymore, then they had to do what was best for her, and I agree. But she did fine up to that point. If more people would be kinder to others wouldn't the world be so much nicer than it is now?

The biggest thing I have learned in the AD journey is never to assume my way is the right way. That goes for caregiving too. I think that's the big difference about this board, if someone asks we can give suggestions and/or empathize with the situation, but I think all of us "get" that each LO is different and the caregiving experience is different for each one.

I am still hating her neighbors today!

I am grateful to the posters on this board, I have been upflifted by your responses, your understanding of my situation, the fact that I have not been put down for trying to keep my mother in her home as long as humanly possible. I know there will be a time and it maybe sooner than I'd like, that mom will need to go to a facility.

Here is another twist, my mother is supposed to have someone in for an hour a day just to kind of keep her company, this was part of the court proceedings when I was made her guardian, no work involved, just someone to socialize with. Social services are in charge of getting this set up, and social services and I determined we would start out to see how it went with each day an hour visit. So they are sending people in daily to keep her company, we have cameras and they are aware of this. I have been watching at the scheduled visits and have noticed a couple of times, the hours were somewhat short, so I told the caseworker about it. I was told they only need to stay until their task was done. These services are done by an independent company that social services uses, but they are to do as is requested by the client. The request was for an hour. The only task they have is to sit for an hour and socialize with mom, so how can the task be done in a half hour? I am told that these people get paid for an hour whether they stay the hour or not. I get so frustrated at what is happening, in order to stay in her home, the court has ordered this, it was ascertained that an hour would fit the requirement and would be adjusted to longer as needed. If I would not have had the cameras, I would not know that mom was not getting the time with supervision she was supposed to have to help to keep her in her home. This is supposed to be to calm the neighbors by keeping mom occupied, which, in a sense is silly because an hour doesn't cover the other hours of daylight that she can be out and about. Even so, if this is what the court wants, then I feel this is what should occur. I must say the social worker is in agreement with my stand on this.

I know Social Services set up the visits, but are you allowed to call the service and talk to a supervisor there about the visits being less than 1 hour? Or if you can't call them, can the social worker call?

Howdy2u,- from one Judy to another

I am going to do more calling tomorrow and make sure things are on track, the caseworker from social services has assured me she would take this up with the provider. So I will keep on them to do what is right for mom. I just wanted everyone to know that if it weren't for the cameras I would not know this is happening, so how many times does this sort of thing go on and you think a loved one is being cared for and the person that is being paid doesn't do their job. I do know there are good paid caregivers out there, but mom got two that weren't doing their job. I am so grateful for the cameras and I will also be able to know mom is not being harmed and can suggest things that would help to make life better for her.