What happens when you call Adult Protective Services?

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2031 Location: Cabo

Anyone have any experiences to share or advice and suggestions on this topic?

New Member Joined: Aug 21, 2008 Posts: 1

i'd aldo be interested in a reply to this question!

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:15 pm Post subject: Re:

In Illinois, what happens is that they tell you if your parent is not a danger to anyone else and she can speak coherently and lucidly to a judge, there's almost no possibility of being granted either power of attorney or guardianship.

Proving self-neglect vs. 'lifestyle decisions" is practically impossible unless the self-neglect is so severe that they're at risk of imminent death. No one cares about the electricity and the sewage and the holes in the floor and ceiling and the animal waste. If she shows up and answers the questions, she'll win.

Active Member Joined: Apr 29, 2008 Posts: 441

I would think each community might approach the situation differently. Worth checking out your local resources. One thing my daughter taught me is if one person gives you the wrong answer, you just keep asking more people until you find a competent one. I would think the Humane Society would at least try to get the animals out of those conditions. And what about the Fire Dept.? Wouldn't they have influence over electric wiring and fire hazards?

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:34 pm Post subject:

VJ wrote:

I would think each community might approach the situation differently. Worth checking out your local resources. One thing my daughter taught me is if one person gives you the wrong answer, you just keep asking more people until you find a competent one. I would think the Humane Society would at least try to get the animals out of those conditions. And what about the Fire Dept.? Wouldn't they have influence over electric wiring and fire hazards?

If you live in a rural area there are no building codes, no fire codes, and no social service except those provided by the state (who generally refuse to get involved). The Humane Society will indeed get involved, but you might find your mother in jail if her animals are in bad shape. Better to work on the animals ourselves than to try to get the Humane Society involved.

Church groups are probably your best bet if your mother is active in a church.

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:17 pm Post subject: Hi

My mother's house was condemned twice. The Social Workers are well aware of her situation. BUT:

~she has an income, worked with the same company for 35 years
~she pays her bills & taxes, but has no insurance (Gawd help her if her house goes up in flames & takes her neighbours houses too)
~she eats well, in spite of having no working fridge or stove (only a two burner hotplate & an electric frying pan)
~she seeks out medical help when/if she needs it (tho she doesn't take the meds she is prescribed ~ too paranoid). Paranoia does not equal incompetent!

There isn't a thing anyone one can do! Until she falls & breaks a hip or dies in her Hoard, she's untouchable (believe me, her neighbours have tried). I have tried......

Sally-Sue

Active Member Joined: Apr 29, 2008 Posts: 441

I hear your dilemma. Even with Alzheimer's my mother fooled people for a long time. She had this normal "act" that was very convincing.

Active Member Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 123

Just called today. I called the senior hotline for abuse and the guy was very helpful but then wanted to know my name, at which he added, oh yeah you want to report anonymusly and I said yeah and could they go check out the situation with out saying it was a family member reporting the problem and he said if you don't give me your name I don't have it so I can't put it on the report. Which was good. He was very sympathetic and really did take an interest in my story. I kept it real basic. Severe self neglect. age 65. Dad does not want to live like this but scared of moms anger, no water, no heat, no electric and one half a bed to lay down on in entire house. He said this was severe and that it was good that I called and wanted to begin a report. He needed their names. "But can't I just give you their address?" I asked. Well in order for them to do the report they must have both parents names. However he can give me the number for my county and I can talk to them directly. So Flash back to when the gas man found out about the house those many many years ago when I was in grade school and yeah I pretty much felt all scared and helpless again. but I took down the new number and said thank you. I called that number. I was on lunch break at work and figured I would do all these calls during the last 45 min of my break. A busy sounding lady answered and when I told her I wanted to speak to someone about hoarding issues she said "about what?" so I rephrased it to about severe self neglect. she transferred me to someone else. To this person again I said I wanted to talk to someone about severe self neglect. She said is does this have to do with an elderly person? I said well she is 65 I don't know if it counts. I was beginning to get frustrated and I was losing my nerve. I blurted out I wanted to report my parent anonymusly and blah blah blah. She said well the person you need to talk to is on lunch, I can put you through to her voice mail and you can leave your name and number and she can get back to you. AHHHH! I said I don't want to leave my name or my number. I said I would just call back. I hung up. defeated. I started crying in my car and felt like such an ass. I had to pull it together. I work with all women and they would pick me apart to find out what was wrong if I even looked remotely like I had been crying. So I opened the windows on the car. Put on fresh makeup and the radio so I wouldn't think about it anymore. I get defeated so easily.

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:27 pm Post subject: Re:

Bluanjel75 wrote:

Just called today. I called the senior hotline for abuse and the guy was very helpful but then wanted to know my name, at which he added, oh yeah you want to report anonymusly and I said yeah and could they go check out the situation with out saying it was a family member reporting the problem and he said if you don't give me your name I don't have it so I can't put it on the report. Which was good. He was very sympathetic and really did take an interest in my story. I kept it real basic. Severe self neglect. age 65. Dad does not want to live like this but scared of moms anger, no water, no heat, no electric and one half a bed to lay down on in entire house. He said this was severe and that it was good that I called and wanted to begin a report. He needed their names. "But can't I just give you their address?" I asked. Well in order for them to do the report they must have both parents names. However he can give me the number for my county and I can talk to them directly. So Flash back to when the gas man found out about the house those many many years ago when I was in grade school and yeah I pretty much felt all scared and helpless again. but I took down the new number and said thank you. I called that number. I was on lunch break at work and figured I would do all these calls during the last 45 min of my break. A busy sounding lady answered and when I told her I wanted to speak to someone about hoarding issues she said "about what?" so I rephrased it to about severe self neglect. she transferred me to someone else. To this person again I said I wanted to talk to someone about severe self neglect. She said is does this have to do with an elderly person? I said well she is 65 I don't know if it counts. I was beginning to get frustrated and I was losing my nerve. I blurted out I wanted to report my parent anonymusly and blah blah blah. She said well the person you need to talk to is on lunch, I can put you through to her voice mail and you can leave your name and number and she can get back to you. AHHHH! I said I don't want to leave my name or my number. I said I would just call back. I hung up. defeated. I started crying in my car and felt like such an ass. I had to pull it together. I work with all women and they would pick me apart to find out what was wrong if I even looked remotely like I had been crying. So I opened the windows on the car. Put on fresh makeup and the radio so I wouldn't think about it anymore. I get defeated so easily.

Nah. You did good. Think of it as a practice run. Next time you call you'll know what to expect and you'll be ready when they try to brush you off. We call that the drive-by...you make a run past it, and then the next time you can actually go in.

Eventually you'll find someone who can at least tell you who you should be talking to. And someone was telling me today that maybe if you can just throw the threat of exposure out in front of them, they may be motivated to cooperate more.

Good job, and good luck. Bravo!

Active Member Joined: Apr 29, 2008 Posts: 441

Blueangel! You did GREAT! It's the people you were talking to that blew it because a. They aren't that bright and are put there to field phonecalls or b. They are inadequately trained. NOT YOUR FAULT and I for one, am proud of you!

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:58 am Post subject: Good for you

It was tough for you to make the initial calls, but please do call them again. If you are not comfortable calling, could you write a letter, outlining the situation and send that anonymusly? You could get the mailing address and the name of the person you should send the letter to, then you can mail it. Just a thought if you aren't able to muster up the nerve to call again!

Whether you call or write, you are doing the right thing!
applause!

Sally-Sue

Active Member Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 123

Thank you everyone, I will try again but i think I need to brush up on what it is exactly that I want to say. The first guy I talked to said that the other people (second number he gave me) can coordinate services like help with repair, temporary place to stay and counseling for my mother which sound promising. I do NOT want to go through another winter wondering if tonight will be the night they freeze to death or burn their house down with the spanish candles (see photo album posted on Yahoo group under annamomma) Thanks again for the support!

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2031 Location: Cabo

Bluanjel,

You are brave and you are a GOOD DAUGHTER to care about your parents like this and plow through your fears to make those calls to see how to get them simply comfortable with the basic necessities.

I like what LabGeek said about it being a first-run...a drive-by. You are gathering more courage as the minutes tick by I bet.

You are taking charge and it's the right thing to do under these circumstances where the threat of bad things happening to them is very real.

If I was allowing myself to live in conditions like this and going winters without heat, running the risk of burning the house down,etc., I would want a daughter like you looking out for my well-being...caring enough about me to try to help.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 8:07 am Post subject:

How frustrating to get the courage up to call, only to be thwarted by untrained/disinterested people. Don't let it stop you from your goal! What about calling back the first person? He seemed very sympathetic and might be able to bolster your courage to give it another go. Maybe that type of beaurocrasy (sp) is commonplace in that line of work and he could encourage you to try to not take it personally.

I would be chicken to call again unless I had every single thing perpared to say in response to anything, but it's unreasonable to think you can anticipate it all, so please try not to worry. You did great!

Active Member Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 123

Thank you again everyone for your support. I like the idea of the inital call being a drive by. UALabGeek, sounds like you have been there many times before! You are a great daughter for contiuing to bail out your mother like that!

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:59 am Post subject:

Bluanjel75 wrote:

Thank you again everyone for your support. I like the idea of the inital call being a drive by. UALabGeek, sounds like you have been there many times before! You are a great daughter for contiuing to bail out your mother like that!

LOL...Boy, I'll bet my mom doesn't think so today! Yesterday was her church day, so I hired a guy to bushhog the head-high weeds that cover 2 or 3 acres of her property, including the entire driveway that was once gravel. I took my chainsaw and cut up the downed trees while he mowed, and we moved the mountains of garbage with the bucket of his front end loader. I had already told him that she would go ballistic when she got home, so we worked fast and had it all cleared out in a little over 2 hours.

Then I flagged down my buddy with a tow truck and he hauled away her Winnebago motor home that hadn't run in 10 years and was stuffed to the ceiling with crap. In fact, he could barely crawl in on his belly, surfing across the top of the crap, to put the thing in neutral so he could tow it. He said "where do you want to take it?" and I had him drag it to my property and hide it behind the garage. I'll call around this week and see if anyone will take it for scrap.

I've been telling her all summer that this day was coming. I own the property she's living on and I pay the taxes on it, so I'm legally allowed to do the maintenance. However I've seen this all before, so I know she came home from church, saw her yard mowed, her boxes of crap gone from the yard, and her motor home missing, and wept and wailed like her children were murdered.

The bushhog guy had to stop his tractor a couple of times to look around in amazement and tell me to put her in a home. She's got two trailer filled to the ceiling with junk, a storage shed, and the motor home. She had mountains of trash in the yard, including a great big pile of asphalt chunks that she must have picked up along the side of the road when she was walking her dogs.

I was proud of how fast we worked and how good we did, but I spent the rest of the day sick with dread that she would show up at my door and continue her weeping and wailing in front of me.

I'm going to give her a couple of days to cool off, then go back and remind her that that was only the beginning. The next step is to haul off the worst trailer and get her power back on.

She keeps saying, "You can't do this!" and I keep telling her, "It's too late. I already am."

Active Member Joined: Apr 29, 2008 Posts: 441

Except for your "sick with dread" comment, your post is very cathartic!

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:18 pm Post subject: .

I'll bet it felt sooooo good to be cleaning up the mess!

Congratulations!

Active Member Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 123

I agree, hearing your success with your productive day put a smile on my face! Great Job!, how you gonna get by the crazed pits?

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:11 am Post subject: Re: .

Bluanjel75 wrote:

I agree, hearing your success with your productive day put a smile on my face! Great Job!, how you gonna get by the crazed pits?

I took yesterday to congratulate myself, then brainstormed with my family about the next step. She's got three deranged pit bulls, one three-legged lab with a gentle disposition and a smallish white dog that seems pretty well-socialized. I kept trying to think about how to get the pits out of there, but my daughter came up with something smarter: take the lab and the white dog, then call the Humane Society. They'll take the pit bulls and blacklist her from any more adoptions (she's on their list as a pit bull rescue person). After the pits are gone...give back the lab and the white dog and tell her that if she neglects them the way she did the pits, I'll call the Humane Society again.

After that, the next time I see her I'm going to remind her that we're not done...I'll be arranging to have someone haul off the second trailer, the one she uses for "storage". My family (that's my partner, kids, and ex-husband. Yeah I know...we're weird) reminded me that no one will even attempt to haul it away until it's emptied out, so the next time I have extra money we're going to have to make an arrangement to have it picked up, then get in there and pitch that shit out into the yard and burn it, and have it towed away the same day. I figure that if she hasn't had any reason to touch any of it in the last 10 years, there's nothing in there that she can't live without.

I'll leave her actual home alone. Even though I know it's unbelievably awful and squalid, it doesn't affect anyone but her. If she gets tired of it, she'll say something. If it collapses under the weight of her crap and the rainwater getting in, she'll say something then, too. Otherwise, it's not my business, and it's not my problem.

It still scares the crap out of me to do this...she screams and cries and threatens me and throws herself around like the Death Squads have come and wiped out her village...but I don't think that being scared is a good enough excuse for not doing the right thing.

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:55 am Post subject:

Great work! I was smiling the whole time I was reading , she someday may understand what a burden you have taken off her shoulders!

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:37 pm Post subject:

hejira33312 wrote:

Great work! I was smiling the whole time I was reading , she someday may understand what a burden you have taken off her shoulders!

LOL...I doubt it. But it makes me feel a lot better. I actually believe that she'll be pissy and resentful for the rest of her life, but I combat that by being obnoxiously cheerful and optimistic every moment we spend together. She can't figure out how to have a fight with someone who's so irritatingly pleasant. hilarious

Then I go home and bitch to my partner all night. Guess who's getting the best end of that deal?

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:57 am Post subject:

UALabGeek, That's AWESOME! Sounds like a "JUST DO IT" commercial!

Active Member Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 123

Quote:

take the lab and the white dog, then call the Humane Society. They'll take the pit bulls and blacklist her from any more adoptions (she's on their list as a pit bull rescue person).

WHAT??? YOUR MOM IS A PIT BULL RESCUE PERSON??? I think your daugher has a lot of smarts, good for her! Its awesome that your whole family has pulled together for you this way, its great to not have to shoulder the burden alone.

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:01 am Post subject: Re: .

Bluanjel75 wrote:

Quote:

take the lab and the white dog, then call the Humane Society. They'll take the pit bulls and blacklist her from any more adoptions (she's on their list as a pit bull rescue person).

WHAT??? YOUR MOM IS A PIT BULL RESCUE PERSON??? I think your daugher has a lot of smarts, good for her! Its awesome that your whole family has pulled together for you this way, its great to not have to shoulder the burden alone.

LOL...Isn't that a fun kind of irony? That people give her dogs on purpose?

It has been very awesome that my family has been so supportive. It sort of cuts down on the amount of time I spend thinking, "What business is it of mine how she wants to live? Why am I so interested in controlling the behavior of another adult?"

But, sometimes...I still do. Banging head against wall