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Ereppond Asked February 2020

Home or nursing home?

SIL is morbidly obese, bed bound, unable to rehabilitate due to non-compliance. She lives with our daughter and her family. Our daughter works full time as home health RN and has three active children and husband. SIL deliberately buys stuff online with no regard to the bills she should be paying. Overdraws her bank account every month. Owes seven years back property taxes and doctors bills but still spends her social security check without paying the bills. We are paying for her sitter and home health care out of our pocket because no health care companies take her Medicare Advantage. We are running out of money. And we are running out of patience. She expects us to make all doctor appointments, call insurance and social security. When we tell her to do it herself she makes up excuses.


Can we just put her in a nursing home?

Ereppond Feb 2020
Thanks everyone. We are in the process of changing her back to regular Medicare because the Advantage plan she has covers home health etc. but no doctors or home health companies accept it due to slow pay.

She has Tennessee Medicaid but the choices program that handles home care is not available since my daughter lives one mile across the Tennessee Mississippi state line. We will have to make the appointment and take her to her house for the health assessment. Then when we get the TN Care choices reinstated we can move her back to her house.

As far as the back taxes she is paying in them but it will be sold in tax sale in May if the taxes for 2013 through 2016 are not paid. After that if she hasn’t done what she needs to do we will just put her in a home if we can find one that will take her that quickly.

Geaton777 Feb 2020
Ereppond, yes to a deadline as suggested by Daughter, and yes yes to having your husband on board (at the very minimum) or maybe even spearheading this effort. If he shows leadership and SIL sees she has NO allies, she might actual get going. I'm suspecting hubby is the #1 enabler. Don't let this happen if at all possible.

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CTTN55 Feb 2020
"My main concern about my SIL is her personal hygiene, lack of interest for cleanliness. She is not cleaning up after herself or her two dogs. The last issue has caused her to fall and break her arm in April because she slipped on poop."

And she has two dogs, too, that she doesn't clean up after!

Since this is your SIL, I hope your H is also on board with having her placed somewhere (at least removed from your D's home).

Daughterof1930 Feb 2020
I’m sorry your family is being used this way. Please stop making any appointments, stop paying for anything, and unite with your daughter on getting her moved out of the house. Present her with whatever options you find and a firm deadline for the move. Geaton gave you several options to try in finding help, look up whatever is available for her to move and make it happen. It’s a sad but true thing, often help doesn’t help, it hurts. Everyone in this is being hurt. Your finances, your daughter’s home, and your SIL’s needed independence are all being hurt. I wish you the best in changing this

Geaton777 Feb 2020
Ereppond, if she is mentally competent you can't force her to live some place she doesn't want to but if she's living in your daughter's home your daughter can certainly force her to leave. Everyone can (and should) stop enabling her and making yourselves go broke. Like DollyMe suggested, you should help facilitate her leaving and being independent by telling her what the options are and how she can find financial help. If she lives with your daughter, what is going on with her home that she owes back taxes? Why isn't she living there? Can she live there? She has what's called "learned incompetency", which means she knows that if she acts incapable someone will do things for her. Kids do this. She obviously has some sort of mental issue going on but that doesn't mean she can never get better. At 68 she's quite young for anyone to have to care for her, especially at her weight.

Your daughter may have to go through an eviction process if your SIL is her predictable passive-aggressive self. SIL will maybe qualify for things like section 8 housing, Medicaid, etc. Contact social services for her county where she lives to see. Also check out her local area's Council on Aging for their many resources, as well as Benefits.gov and BenefitsCheckUp.org. Good luck!

anonymous912123 Feb 2020
Have her apply for Medicaid, and place her in a nursing home. Do not pay her bills for her, set your boundaries and enforce them. You have to take control of this situation, she is taking advantage of you. Sending support your way!

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