It looks like a bomb has went off. Years worth of mail just scattered all over the floors. I mean every room. Tools, books, the whole house is a mess. He gets angry and will not let anyone help or clean up things believe me we have tried for years. I have considered calling adult protective services just to come look at the home and help move him out of there. He could well afford to go to a nice assisted care facility, did I mention he has a person come in 5 hours a day but will not let her do anything either except run him to stores to buy more things he does not need, I am at wits end as to what to do. Help need suggestions or an agency I can call for help.
APS will just be the start. If the house is condemnable, it could be condemned and that will leave him homeless--but maybe it would be a little blessing. He will need a lot of help--you may or may not want to be involved.
Moving mother and dad out of their "big house" into the MUCH smaller apartment took us 3 years. Mom cried for 3 solid years, I swear. Losing your possessions against your will is very unhappy for everyone.
Start will APS and maybe have a cog eval done, altho I bet your dad is someone who wouldn't put up with that.
You'll have to get the city involved, you saying "dad, your place is a wreck" is not going to cut it.
Now she has been diagnosed with Alzheimers and is living with my husband and me. Over the last 1 year, 8 months, I have slowly emptied her house. She doesn't know that her precious "stuff" is gone. Oddly enough she has never once asked to go back to her house to "get something". She has not been inside her house since Jan 2017.
I do not allow her to hoard here. She's tricky. I found I have to take the trash and recycling outside or she will rummage through it.
I also tried housekeepers, etc but she would not allow them in.
The behavior you describe could be one of a few things.
1. Hoarder. If he has been this way and it was your mom that kept up the house and now you are seeing the hoarding tendencies.
2. This can be a sign of dementia.
You should schedule an appointment with your dads doctor and have a full workup done, including a MME to begin with.
If he does have dementia he can not make a decision for himself as to what is in his best interest. At that point you take him out one day, when the person is scheduled to come and keep him out for the 5 or 6 hours and let this person do what they are paid to do.
If he does not have dementia and he is hoarding this becomes a psychological problem that is just as difficult.
Moving a hoarder to Assisted Living will not change the hoarder they will still hoard.
Moving someone with dementia to AL will help, for a while until they have to move to Memory Care.
A call to APS will force a change, either to clean up or move. The clean up is just the tip of the iceberg if something else is going on.
By the way to you have POA for your dad?
It might be at the point where you have to take over financially so he can't make purchases he dies not need. What else is he spending money on? Are his bills being paid?
That said, I don't have dirty clothes and/or dishes all over the house and I do my laundry, wash the dishes, put out my trash, etc. I'm 67 and have noticed that a lot of people in my generation are just not "neat-freaks" like other generations.
A dirty house will not take away a single day of my life and a clean house will not grant me an extra day of living. I'm not looking to share my space with anyone now that my DH is gone - and if he could make it to almost 97 in my cluttered home, then no one else has the right to tell me how to live.
P.S. You don't say how old your father is.
Absence of clutter is not being a neat freak. It’s respect for yourself and your home. Clutter and dirt just says “I don’t care!”. I love and respect my home, husband, pets and myself too much to let us all live in chaotic surroundings.
My house isn’t sterile... sometimes there’s pet hair on the floor, dust on a shelf, sometimes laundry piles up. Even so, if I had unexpected company coming, it would take at most 30 minutes to get the house fresh and nice.
No point in keeping what I don’t need or use or love (sentimental value items). I do not keep old papers or bills, old medicine bottles, old magazines. It’s not hard to do if little steps are done every day.
In Canada, I would call the police and ask that he is taken for 72 hours mental health observation to the hospital. Then you can show pictures to the people. They will tell you, and him, what the best options are, and at this stage he is their liability.
Good luck!
Some people are comfortable with a lot of mess and stuff, they quite frankly have better things to do. I used to be OCD about keeping my house spotlessly clean, I was actually a prisoner to the whole neat freak situation. What I realized was that my house owned me and I was sacrificing my wellbeing trying to accomplish perfection. No such thing. When I stopped spending every second worrying about stuff, I actually felt better. I still hate clutter and a mess. But I don't have to oil the baseboards to feel like I vacuumed the house.
My mom is a hoarder, like the kind you see on TV and I was scared that I would be like her, still gives me the shudders.
I actually contacted the authorities about this and I was told that they can live anyway they want, as long as they are not in any danger, hypothetical candles don't even get considered. It must be a real threat, like no outside access, newspapers stored in the oven that is used kind of actual dangers.
So, I have to pick my battles. I don't visit at their house because I am not willing to subject myself to what they are all good with.
Oh, I spent 6 weeks trying to clean their roughly 1000 square foot house. I would sort it out, bag it up and set it out for delivery, she would bring it back in, go through it again and keep 90% of what she said earlier could go. I am talking about worn out cloths, empty jars, ruined or broken items, we never did get through the entire house, we did her bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, yeah, 6 weeks to get to the bottom to be able to clean and the authorities said "Her choice." So, her choice, I have mine.
Best of luck just letting this one go.
He was so drunk the whole 'clean up time' he wasn't even aware what was going on. It took a few days--she put him in a rehab facility. SO he comes out sober and....MAD. She sold the house and put him up in an apartment, she handles his money, takes him grocery shopping but it's impossible to keep an alcoholic from drinking--she doesn't buy him alcohol, but his buddies do.
She hired a house keeper who must be pretty tough b/c she can keep his 1 bedroom apartment clean(ish). NO CATS!
I realize, that what the driving force behind her getting what her dad needed was $$--really, having a budget that allows for this kind of thing (attorneys, cleaners, rehab) makes it easier. Money sure can smooth the way, can't it?
This sweet woman is only 39. She's been dealing with this mess her whole life. She is grateful for the opportunity to watch her dad slowly kill himself, but not in filth.
Yes, you have the right to live in garbage and total disarray. If everyone in the home feels the same. In many cases it's a terrible health hazard and a fire hazard--but people have the right to live as they choose. Some level of organization has to exist or chaos will reign. Nevertheless---if you want to keep the PCH sweepstakes envelopes for the last 40 years, be my guest. Just not in my house.
But there may be a difference between eyesore and danger. If it's "only" an eyesore, there may be nothing you can do about it (unless the mess is spilling out to the yard and it violates a local code).
Different states and municipalities have different rules or ways of determining if a housing situation is dangerous enough for intervention (e.g. declaring a dwelling condemned, or forcibly moving a person out). Maybe a first step is to look into your area's definitions of uninhabitability. If dad's house doesn't fit the definition, then as offensive as you might find it, there may be no way to enforce a change.
It sounds like this has become an entrenched battle of wills over a long period of time. What would happen if you stopped fighting him about it and let him live in his mess? (Just a hypothetical to consider.)
Sometimes letting go of a battle like this is wonderfully liberating for both parties.
Just a thought.
(Obviously, it would also be worth attempting to get a neuro and/or mental evaluation, but that could be a fight in and of itself.)
What is this person doing besides getting paid?
The only difference between our moms, my does keep herself clean. I am grateful for that.
It is amazing how attached they are to junk and garbage. My mom decided to stock up for the famine, with items that get bugs. Oy vey, really mom, the bugs ate all the rice a roni (spl?) Are you really going to eat the bugs! She actually said they are protein. She can't figure out why I won't eat at her house.
Sound mind is obviously a very general term.
I think step one has to be: step back, remember that it is he who is having to live in chaos and squalor and not you, and remember that this junk = his treasured possessions, and it makes him feel just as anxious and insecure when anyone "threatens" to move it as you would if someone started chucking out your things.
So you start from there. The lady who spends five hours a day with him, what does she think? She's the one whom he trusts enough, at least, to let her into the house; so she's the one in the best position to try any new strategies. You can also explore whether she would be prepared to work with you on alternatives such as changing the subject or negotiating delay or checking existing stocks first, rather than just going and buying what he asks her to get. She is not wrong to do this, she is acting on her client's wishes; but without going *against* his wishes (which would be wrong) she might be willing to help him think through what's best.
Accept that this may be a situation where you just have to wait until something forces the issue. Those "somethings" are not likely to be any fun for anyone, but they're not necessarily disastrous. Typical game-changers might include illness, injury, and infestation with vermin leading to fire hazard. Google "Life of Grime, Edmund Trebus" for a true example of a happy ending in spite of everything.
Meanwhile: talk to him. Are you able to spend meaningful amounts of time just sitting with him and talking generally? It may be that you can win his agreement to baby steps, such as boxing up unopened mail so that it is easier for him to see what's there. Reassure him that nothing will leave the house without his explicit permission, though, or he'll probably chase you away.