My mother passed, but

[duck]

My mother passed away in her sleep Friday morning. From what I understand, her bed has been the couch for a while now. Not sure if before or after my Fathers passing. She’s been having health issues and, in a way, I believe she was ready to go. 

 

While she was my mother, she was not a great mother. SHe treated other kids better then her own, to say the least. The house she lived in, and that i spent the majority of my childhood in, since 1975 is a hoard. The toliet broke in 1979 and was never fixed. Water was supplied by a well, but the last pump went out long ago and was never replaced. This house was a small farm house, small describing both the farm and house. Built sometime in the 1860’s, it has four rooms up stairs and a bathroom, pantry, kitchen and two other rooms down stairs. At one time there were nine of use living there. In it’s current state, it needs to be razed. The last time I visited, I could not believe how bad it was. My brothers tried over the years to have her, and my father when he was still alive, relocated to assissted care. She refused all efforts to improve her and my fathers life. She also refused to allow any health care professionals see the conditions they lived in.  The place is bad. Trash is packed into every room. The floors are not visible. The yard is overgrown and filled with trash, furniture and goodness knows what. 

 

Now this mess falls into our hands. I am not in any kind of financial situation to get this messed cleaned up. My wife and I are leaving tomorrow to go help where we can. I’ve started a gofundme page to try to raise the funds to get this mess cleaned up. ANy and all help is gretaly appreaciated. 

http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=NHOkGrDLOAaDCI80WAVIg8k9WH7D2504PCZjFQA%2FwSXn%2BrB%2Buv9Cd3Sg0ExCdn8MkemP3HEfroXybUxoptlUvYzpMkMRyiiBFOzbSK3op5FdiJHkM8XpKw%3D%3D&G=21&R=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gofundme.com%2Fmothers-remembrance%3Futm_source%3Dinternal%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_content%3Dcampaign_link_t%26utm_campaign%3Dwelcome&I=20180518194041.000000e7d9e8%40mail6-71-ussnn1&X=MHw3NzY2NjI6VEVNUElEXzQ5MDQ7MXw3NzY2NjM6UVVFVUVJRF8xMjkzNjQxNjgwOzJ8Nzc2NjY0OkRPTUFJTl95YWhvby5jb207&S=vYHfZlcaLzlTnJRd40BM8eJmA4fK8k1Ci8qPwMmRSbA

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by duck
Spelling

[southwestforests]

Oh my gosh, Duck. Sorry that life had to be like that.

[Murph]

Sorry to hear that, my condolences.

 

Regards,

Murph

[Don]

Thoughts and prayers to you and your family.

 

.

 

Don

[FluffyK]

You may be able to refuse the bequest.  As far as I know, there is no law compelling you, or any other heirs, to accept the house or any other assets.  You may want to consult a lawyer in Colorado (where I assume your mother died) to see if you can get out of a bad situation. 

[duck]

It’s not so much being legaly compelled, more like therapy. 

 

[Scott Smith]

Duck,

  I'm not too far from the same situation.  Dad did stay on Mom while he was with it.  But about 10 years ago my brother relocated to the other side of the state.  About a year later, Mom & Dad packed a suitcase and moved next door after buying two houses.   They left the old house looking like they day them left for many years. 

 

Dad passes, brother pulled some underhanded tricks and sold the old house after calling in the junk guys to haul off everything.

 

Fast forward, brother is out of the picture now due to his underhanded tricks. But I had to move Mom out of her new home and into assisted living, and deal with her hoards. She's now 83 years old.   Mostly QVC  crap, kitchen gadgets, Tacky yard decorations, lawn chairs, etc.   She's paying $200 a month storage fees for complete crap or duplicate kitchen appliances.  To make matters worse, out of sight, out of mind, she keeps ordering more of the same thing off TV.  So far we have counted 4 air fryers, 3 kitchen aid mixers, 3 or 4 hand mixers, 4 food processors.  Every closet in her tiny apartment is slammed full of QVC boxes.  I try not to remove them, but open all the doors when I visit so she sees her quantity.

 

One of her biggest downfalls is the hoarding of junk mail.  She will fill QVC boxes full of junk mail to the point where she's now falling because her walker gets hung up and won't move.  I've had strong discussions with her about this junk mail issue, but she insists that she has to either read it all, saw something in one of the magazines and she wants to save it, or shes afraid to have her name and address in the trash.  One excuse after another.   When we come over, she spends about 30 min in the bathroom getting ready for us.  I usually take this opportunity to quickly grab boxes of junk mail and run out the door with them.

 

Now she wants a bigger apartment on the other side of the complex they just built.  Nope, no way will I help her have more room to fill up with garbage.  When she passes, its going to be one hell of a yard sale to shut down the storage units.  Probably will take a rental truck and 3 months of weekends to even start to liquidate.  The rest will go to Goodwill or some charity.

[SBARC]

My condolences.

[sierrascale]

On 5/22/2018 at 3:04 PM, Scott Smith said:

Duck,

  I'm not too far from the same situation. 

 

Some advice for both of you from going through this myself with my mother back in 2004.

 

She won't get better on her own, only worse. You will not be able to reason with her and get her to change. It won't happen. Dementia only gets worse, not better. The things you will have to do will be very hard. You are used to being a son and she is your mother. But, trust me, you have to take charge. You have to get a power of attorney to get control of her bank accounts, take away her checkbook and cut up and close her credit card accounts. Then start selling everything off.

 

My mother was a very difficult, loud, demanding Italian-American narcissist. Mean as a snake. Beat us when we were kids. I hadn't seen or contacted her in years, but, as the last remaining son after my brother died in '04, I had to drive up to Pennsylvania and sell off all her stuff, sell her house and move her down here eight hours away to assisted living. Had to do all the things I described above. My wife hated her, so had do it all on my own. She was not happy and tried to jump out of the car on the long drive down here. Very verbal dramatic person, loved to yell about everything. Visiting her in the assisted living was awful. Accused me of everything - stealing her money, etc. Said I was her worst son.  At doctors offices, she would racially insult the other patients. My wife threatened to divorce me over all the time I had to spend on all this. On and on. I survived it, but barely. 

 

Suggest getting an attorney that specializes in elder law to get the medical and legal powers of attorney, and will sorted out. 

 

Good luck.

 

Bob in Louisville

Edited May 28, 2018 by sierrascale
clarity

[duck]

So far the cause of death is listed as sepsis. No one has received the remains back from the creamatorium yet. We don’t know why it’s taking so long. My fathers remians were back ina few days, not a week plus.

We’ve had a distant family memeber, a third or fourth cousin from mom’s side, offer to take over the property, bury the waste 12’ down, remove all the teash for recycling and work on restoring the house. That will depend on what the county and EPA has to say tomorrow, the 29th. The shingles are asbestos, so bulldozing the house makes it a hazardous waste cleanup. 

More to follow.

[Scott Smith]

Hey Bob,  already have the Medical authority and Durable POA. Only thing I didn't or won't do is a conservatorship over her.  Basically because my brother started all this process and that's when we had the discovery of him stealing from the trust and setting up a situation where he put her in AL and took her home and moved into it. 

So far, biggest issue I had was her sending money off to those mail in games where they promise her big winnings.  They took her for $7K.  Could not convince her it was a con job. 

[sierrascale]

21 hours ago, Scott Smith said:

Hey Bob,  already have the Medical authority and Durable POA. Only thing I didn't or won't do is a conservatorship over her.  Basically because my brother started all this process and that's when we had the discovery of him stealing from the trust and setting up a situation where he put her in AL and took her home and moved into it. 

So far, biggest issue I had was her sending money off to those mail in games where they promise her big winnings.  They took her for $7K.  Could not convince her it was a con job. 

Good, glad you have a handle on the POA. Shame about the $7K. My mother would donate to any cause, any charity, anyone who called. 

 

[duck]

Back from PA and mostly caught up on what needed caught up on. 

There was no will. To do anything with the estate, for lack of a better term, requires a will, but since there is noe, we have to probate one. One of my cousins volunteered to probate the will and act as executor for the purpose of demolitioning the house. The taxes were up to date and we had the county come out and re-asses the propertys value. It went from 10,500 to 500. Yes, that bad. The house is not so much as condemed as we will jot allow anyone to live in it. The sole brother that was living there is being put up by his church until he can get his own place. The dogs my mother had, but neglected went to Blue Chip farm animal rescue and are available for adoption. 

 

The problem now comes doen to clean up, clean out and demolition. Nothing more can be down until the probate process is finished. The lone sister who has nothing to do with us might not sign the papers surrendering claim, just because she has nothing to do with us. If not signed within 30 days of notice, its the same thing as signing them, just takes longer. We had a contractor come look at the house. He believed he might be able to salvage it. However, the roof is giving way, so now there is extensive water damage to the south side. The west side is covered in wisteria. So much that its causing structural damage. Add to all this the lack of maitenance, accumulation of tradh, rodents, and waste, human and animal, its too far gone. Compounding the demolition is that the siding is asbestos shingles. 

 

I still have the gofundme going, but geared towards dealing with the costs for the cleaning and demolition.  If you can give, please do. If not, please share. 

https://www.gofundme.com/Cleanup-and-Demolish-the-House&rcid=r01-152859924241-dca6201ba1d143f8&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

 

thanks