My loving, sweet, 82 year mom has dementia. She is also a survivor of abuse and still living with her abuser, my step-father. My younger brother and I invoked the help of Adult Services when we found my mother living in filth, her toenails curled beneath her toes, she had not been bathed in months, there was minimal food to eat in their home and she was left alone for hours on most days while her husband was out buying new motorcycles, riding with his friends and having meals out. They have money to work with but he's busy spending it as fast as he can before he kicks the bucket. When Adult Services dropped the ball my younger brother and I hired an attorney to help us appoint a neutral (not a family member) guardian and someone to handle her finances so she could be moved into a care facility. When they learned we were talking with an attorney Adult Protective Services legal council threatened to resist and we were advised to back away from the effort by the attorney we had hired. We were told that this action was based on the history of my brothers mental illness. Question 1: why should that have anything to do with getting outside help? He was not asking to be her guardian. Now, my mother has been moved to an independent living situation with her abusive/neglectful husband. The only thing that has changed is the environment. My younger brother and his wife see mom about 3-4 times a week (I live out of state) and always find her sitting in her own excrement, toenails painfully curled behind her toes, no bath...etc. Her husband is spending money on model trains, a snazzy jazzy scooter for himself - as always - and has not made one effort to provide additional help to my mother. I am livid that Adult Protective Services considers their job done, what can we do now?
I wish you the best. If your mom is lucid enough to describe what goes on, that would help, but it sounds like she isn't capable of that.
Is the attorney still involved?
Good luck with all this.
Would you really want guardianship, even if it were free?
Have you considered consulting a divorce attorney?
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