Mother (92) reported son to Adult Protective Services to continue to spend big $ on things she doesn’t need. We want to walk away. Advice?

Thanks for all the comments. Adult Protective Services has backed off after seeing the beautiful senior living arrangement she has. Being 630 miles away, I simply ignore rants for new phone, mattress, clothes. Have to leave this to family only 4 miles away. Catalogue issue is challenging. Have cancelled more than 50 catalogs but she keeps getting them. Have POA but cannot control her buying unless it requires a family member to accompany her. My spouse has always been supportive but she has always hated her and now Blames her for her lost investment income. She worked on Wall Street. While I understand how dementia affects the mind, I’m *** sick and tired of her complaining to family members about my spouse who has been more understanding than I ever would be. Please dont tell me she raised me. I walked on eggs due to my parents Dysfunctional marriage. Agree with comments on standing firm despite mean.comments.

92 years old and acting that way, surely you know that she is not really understanding her spending habits although she maybe aware of her financial assets.. Who is in charge per say what rights do they have when taking care of her needs? Don't they have oversight of her business affairs and her assests? Are they in charge of her spending. Perhaps let her know that each month she has a limit to her spending and leave it at that. While you others who support her monetarily why do you continue buying things she don't need. Sad to say maybe the problem lies with the caregivers or overseerers of her estate or financials.

Just say no. Stick to your guns. Pay for necessities and nothing else. It sounds like she needs boundaries set. Notify the catalogues to stop sending them. Leave her with no extra funds. Pay her bills for her. Have the bills sent to you. Take the credit cards. Walk away if you feel the need. Or take turns with her if you feel you need a break. Alert protective services of the situation.

Has she been watching HSN or QVC? It is pretty tempting to order from them.

Has she been determined to be incompetent? Does anyone have medical or financial POA? What sources of income does she have? Does she live in her own house or an apartment?

Without POAs, you will have a difficult time "managing" either finances or medical issues. Your profile mentions dementia, but how far into that is she? Is she really safe living alone, regardless of how close by her son is? If she won't sign any POAs, you may have to either set up guardianship or cede that to the state. If you cede, you have no say in where they place her or what they do with any remaining assets (you said she blew through finances, but the house is another story, if she owns it.) Dementia will only get worse, so planning how to address her care and finances needs to start yesterday!

The state she lives in may have filial laws, but generally these would only be invoked by a facility for non-payment, not so much the state (but you would want legal advice on that!) If her income is only SS, you *could* sign up as rep payee. If approved, only the rep has access to the funds and they must be used for her housing, food, care and other necessities. She would have no access to the funds, so those could be used to pay her regular expenses. It does require keeping track and reporting once/year, but the report isn't difficult if you keep track and can be done online. If there is other income, such as a pension, you would have to contact them to see what, if anything, can be done, esp without POA or guardianship.

If she truly did contact APS, it might be best to contact them (either you or her son) and discuss the issue(s), esp since she has dementia. It isn't likely you'll get much help from them, but letting them know what the real issues are might ward off any investigation of the children of this woman. I wouldn't recommend either of you just "walking away." That would be frowned upon by authorities.

You can likely get a short free consult from an EC atty (naela.org using zip codes to find local ones to chat with.) Get several names and make contact about a free consult. Have questions ready before consult. They can address your questions and make recommendations. IF you have to hire them to get control over this situation and IF she owns the home, more than likely once she is safe somewhere and the place can be sold, you should be able to get reimbursed, but make sure that is on your list of consult questions! It isn't cheap, but in the long run it might be less expensive than subsidizing her.

If you decide to do rep payee with SS, call the local office (or use their website if no office hours available.) Calling the main 800 number will likely result in a long wait on hold.

so what are the children paying? the bills for stuff she doesn't need?  how is she ordering stuff?  Is there any way someone can get the mail before she does and throw away those catalogs?  No one else should be paying her bills with "their" money.  When she gets a bill, show it to her and ask her how she is going to pay it since she now has zero in her account.  Maybe its time to get a doctor to fill out a form or whatever indicating she is not in right mind to make decisions and check with an elder attorney and get guardianship.  good luck

“She doesn’t comprehend the seriousness of her charge.”

That is a classic sign of your enabling behavior.

Please look up enabling an addict.

Seems like hoarding. Stop paying the hoarding part of the bills.

Cease enabling STAT. That's rich for her to report her son to APS.

Warkap posted "Well, she took care of you when you were very young. She provided food, clothing and shelter."

I know there are members who feel this way and I feel that is "all" we owe them. To be safe, fed, warm and sheltered. And however we need to do accomplish that. Living with us or a facility. But we don't owe them our lives or support if they spend what they have on things they really don't need. If my Mom needed money to make ends meet, I would gladly give it. But we would also look at the house she lived in was too much to handle anymore. The money she used on taxes and upkeep would offset the cost of a nice apt. Selling the house would have meant living comfortably with no worries.

Now my MIL, she was always joining those clubs for books, VCRs, Cassettes, CDS, DVDs and nicknacks. When we cleaned out her house we found loads of these things unopened in drawers and cabinets. Nick nacks stuffed in her china cabinets. I am talking thousands of dollars. Then she would complain that she was on a limited income. We found food in the pantry way passed expiration dates. Now get this, she asked me how much I tithed the Church. I told her and she said "I can't afford more than $5 a week" I felt like telling her she could if she stopped buying "junk". Yes, when we visited we would leave her money on the dresser. TG her spending never got her in debt. If she had gotten to that point, we would not be supporting her.She did get 1k out of BIL for a pump. I asked him why, he said she didn't have the money. Told him she has his Dads insurance money in CDs. When she died, after 20 yrs of being a widow she had 48k out of 60k still in the bank.

I realize that hoarding and overspending is a mental thing. But we shouldn't have to support the habit.

I get so tired of hearing “she took care of you when you were young” because throwing guilt into the mix is not offering a solution and one really does not know that to be a fact. Family caregivers sacrifice as much if not more to care for aging parents than the parents did. When parents wanted to go out they got a babysitter that they could afford because they worked. Many family caregivers give up salaries and careers to care for parents. Stop with the guilt. There is already plenty of that going on already.

When dementia starts to affect the elderly they can become rude, disrespectful and STUBBORN so it’s important to watch for this and adjust where necessary but not at the expense of your own well being.

sorry I can’t give you advice because I never had that problem.

good luck
Sabrina

The A.P.S. worker will determine if the son is spending money for what he wants someday or if mother wants it. The social worker can help son how to "place limitations" and it usually has to to do ..."you only have this much" this month. Mother know you and...have a deep pocket. Get tough! you and her other source meet with her face to face and you only have ....for personal needs each month. You understand "you must walk away" financially. It is tough, but get tough! She will wine and cry. She still needs you to have regular visits. Set up a schedule for all involved. It will take time but she will adjust.
.

Well, she took care of you when you were very young. She provided food, cothing and shelter. This is really a tough issue. The catalog purchases will end if you do not pay for the items. Just do that.

Stop the money. Immediately

I have lived the catalog problem. My mom ran up huge bills on credit cards, that she then could not pay. Of course, we hid and trashed all the incoming catalogs. Of course we took away the credit cards. What we did not know is that she got calls every day, offering her a NEW credit card. We also found out that she would call the catalog companies and tell them she lost her card. Since she was a ‘loyal customer’ they would let her buy more stuff. She would hide boxes that arrived. She would never return anything.

Right now, since cleaning out most of her house, I have 30 LARGE (LARGE!) boxes filled with nothing but her clothes in my garage. There are things with price tags and original packaging. My car hardly fits. (Of course I am giving this all away, but the boxes are heavy so it takes time)

if we tried to talk to mom about this, she would scream that she deserved new things. That was the argument — that she DESERVED all this crap. Even now, in memory care, when I FaceTime her, she tells me she needs a new sweater or pants or nightgown. The large closet in her memory care room is PACKED and the dresser drawers are full.
How can anyone be so needy?

Why not have her mail forwarded to your house or a p.o. Box? That way, you can trash the catalogs before she gets them. Have utilities deducted from her account.

Dont walk away

Run away

Dont give her another penny

I agree with Kimber. Stop giving her money!! No more!! Stop enabling her!! My 95 year old mother is a gambling addict. She blew through all of my fathers retirement money. Every. Last. Dime. Now all she has is her small social security check and a small pension from my father. My father died back in 1998. She can’t afford anything anymore. She blew through all the money!!

Why on earth would you keep giving her money?

My mom blew through her SS check each month on stuff she didn't need - then would call in a panic - she needed money for her senior apartment, car insurance etc. I would tell her she needed to stop spending her SS, give her funds, but the cycle never ended.

So i stopped - i could not change her behavior so i changed mine. I held firm - in spite of the crying, yelling, threats that she would kill herself, etc.

So she tapped my sister - who was then mad at me because i make more money than she does. I told sister - stop giving her money. Finally she stopped.

it took my mom almost getting evicted from her senior apartment to stop wasting money. I told her in no uncertain terms she would not live with me if she got evicted.

It was hard - the vitriol i had to take, she even got other relatives to call and chew me out.

But - she covers her own bills now. But still tries to get more money out of me for things "she deserves".

You can not change her. You can only change yourself. Stop giving her your moeny.

I would stop the "gravy train" right now.
If she can not control her spending that is on her.
I am guessing she is competent, (she called APS on her own and made a report) so she can understand a conversation where you tell her you will no longer fund her purchases.
I do hope her Independent Living facility is paid for before she goes through her money monthly. If not she may be looking for another place to live.

I would stop financially supporting her bad choices.

If she is competent enough to call APS she is competent enough to deal with the consequences of spending her money for non essential items.

People tend to need to have some pain before they willingly make changes. She sounds like one that needs a painful dose of reality to get the point across.

If it doesn't work, you are by no means obligated to financially support her. Let APS deal with ensuring that she is fed and cared for, she has shown you where she is willing to go to get her way, believe her. Elder abuse allegations are not something to take lightly or set yourself up for.

(sigh). When my late MIL said she would report her son (my DH) for "elder abuse"--he told her to stop smoking because she had COPD), he walked away.

Said "I can't afford a lawyer and if she threatens to disinherit me (she was on Medicaid), well, that's done, isn't it."

You CAN walk away from this mess. Sometimes that's what it takes for elders to get what they need from social services.

Yes we have POA but may need to consider guardianship. It’s difficult in her state to declare incompetency. APS hasn’t gotten back to us yet. She doesn’t comprehend the seriousness of her charge. Really want to turn things over to another family member as I have been trying for 20 years to deal with this from afar with many trips in between.

If she has dementia, as diagnosed by a physician, psychologist, licensed social worker, neurologist, or other trained geriatric specialist, she may well be at the point when she’ll need protective management and care.

If her behavior is different from when she was actually able to live totally on her own, someone will need to oversee her. Her lack of “appreciation” for your efforts may also be as the result of increasing cognitive failure. She may not realize that her spending is not under her control.

Why do you feel as though it’s in HER best interests to be backed financially? Her behavior is not appropriate, nor is her ability to respond to reasonable limits.

Telling her that she has no money left and the family will no longer paying her bills may be a litmus test for her and for you; she will either address the fact with some sort of appropriate accepting response, or will protest, possibly tantrum, and your
option then becomes moving forward with an assessment of her mental status and documentation which will low you to remove her identifying information from credit cards and any other payment sources that she’s using.

Did APS actually accept her version of the report that she was being mistreated?

This is where a POA worked wonders for us. We filed the POA with the County Clerk's Office. We then sent a letter to each company that requested name removal off their mailing list based on the POA filed in AAABBBCCC County with a file number 123456789 and indicated it was not to be added back on. While not perfect, it reduced the catalog flow by over half.

In addition to working with the companies one-on-one to stop the catalog flow, I'd talk to the children to cut off her additional funds. Pay necessary expenses direct (utilities, phone, etc.) and only give a minimal allowance for any other expenses. Again, the POA worked great for this. If a POA isn't available, getting one is recommended.

Those catalogs are so tempting for elders - for whatever the reason. I know exactly the type of thing you're talking about. When I was a kid, my mom used to call them "junk catalogs" when we would find them at my grandmother's house. Call them individually (phone number on the catalog) and tell them to remove your mom's name from their list. In my experience in doing this for someone, I learned the company may need a number from the mailing label so have that handy as well. If you want to go a step further and explain your situation to them, maybe they can remove her name permanently & she can't just call them to have the catalogs sent again. If she's getting a whole bunch of catalogs (as many elders are) it'll take her a while to notice that they are tapering down in number. This is not going to solve your entire problem, but it's a place to start. At least she will not have as many temptations to spend money.

I know someone who spent $100K and claimed not to know what she spent it on!!