My parents have been living with us since September 2018. My parents and brother are a morass of dysfunction. My depressed alcoholic father (89) has been complaining about me to 3 different cousins since he reluctantly moved here. He says it was the biggest mistake of his life.
The 3 cousins are all 10+ years older than me and I haven't seen nor spoken to them in 25ish years.
I've heard my father speak (he is deaf) to them and have heard his complaints. I had texted one cousin telling her to take what he tells her with a grain of salt and that he is an abusive alcoholic.
They recently wanted to come get my parents and take them away to a beach house 6 hours away. This is all by text. This was a gathering of extended family/cousins. Of course I wasn't invited because it was obviously an opportunity to assess him. I told them this is not possible, my father is very frail, my mum has dementia. I stopped responding to their texts afterwards.
Yesterday APS knocks on the door.
She was here for about 2 hours. Says she has to conduct a full investigation. She was very nice, she could see there was no abuse going on. I told her you are welcome to take guardianship of them if you want.
No news was good news. When he returned he closed the case, nothing whatsoever found. It takes awhile when there is no case because unfortunately there are plenty of cases that require action, the elderly being abused or exploited in some way.
Good job to cooperate with them. Not doing so increases their suspicions.