Elderly tenant - moral dilemma

teddysmum

Gangrene and operation suggests an amputation. If this is a leg, he would be unable to safely live in a house, especially one hugely cluttered.


Social services put my father in a care home, without seeking family permission ,as he was regarded as unsafe in his bungalow (left the gas rings on, where the cooker was an older one without safety cut out)

Apoorwoman

teddysmum wrote: »

Gangrene and operation suggests an amputation. If this is a leg, he would be unable to safely live in a house, especially one hugely cluttered.


Social services put my father in a care home, without seeking family permission ,as he was regarded as unsafe in his bungalow (left the gas rings on, where the cooker was an older one without safety cut out)

Yes teddysmum, it does not sound good. Apparently his foot was completely black and it was spreading up his leg.

Redd-Squirrel - we did take some photos.

theartfullodger

Easy to decide what to do. Do what you'd hope any Landlord of a relative of yours would do in similar circumstances

agarnett

It is a very sad story but it indicates the breadth of social divide which has crept into UK by the back door. The first post explains that the poor guy is one who worries he has no money for heating or telephone.

There are many still living in villages who used to be employed on farms, but who were often made redundant or retired early after hard manual work lives. Many lived with aged parents, themselves associated with farming or "service at the big house". Most have no pension except State Pension (farmers of a generation or two ago, were not renowned for offering pension schemes to their workers).

Farmers in villages like this often felt a responsibility to their past workers - a little like putting worn out horses to green fields to see out their days. No-one of course imagined we would all start living so long. Many retired farm workers didn't get far into their 70s let alone 80s. I grew up in one such village, surrounded by others. I worked on the farms as a teenager. My father worked the first half of his working life on one starting at age 14. No pension from that, but his last 25 Years were with a national company working manually in a warehouse. With a final salary pension scheme! My parents net income in retirement as a result was £1,900 per month! Sensibly they had bought their village house at a large discount as sitting tenants. That's the other side of the labour story. My Dad worked bloody hard in the warehouse, but nowhere near as hard and long as they worked on the farms.

I detect some of what has happened here is to a degree normal in villages, which at the other end of the social scale can command rents of £1100pm because they have become commuter villages with City folk attending the churches, and the harvest festival fruits and tins get distributed once a year to the poor without anyone actually "caring" in a bigger sense.

I had a neighbour in London who was younger but in a similar state. Like this case, his landlord found out in a non-routine visit about the state of the place (also modern) after banking the rent for years as it was funded by a charity.

The landlord sought evidence from neighbours to try to suggest the tenant was generally bad, saying that the intention was to evict. The tenant got wind of it and changed the locks but that didn't stop the eviction taking place. Around ten assorted authorities turned up one morning and knocked the door down but he'd already gone. I have no idea what happened to him. Probably died in a cardboard box somewhere.

We kid ourselves that no-one has to live like this anymore.

A re-distribution of the nation's wealth is necessary to redress the balance. Sorry to say, that whilst the OPs friend is elderly herself now, I have little sympathy. There is far too great a gap between people who live in the same streets and villages but scarcely meet. In cases like this, it is especially telling, where it may even be so that the OPs friend's departed husband even toiled in the same fields alongside the tenant for long hours at hay time and harvest time years ago. That's why he cared enough to give them the house on the terms he did. He was nevertheless probably a Tory voter!

Unfortunately though, Torys generally do not these´days respect labour (if they ever did!). It is one reason why we have to keep hearing now the stupid argument that we need European migrants to keep our lettuce picked.

If we didn't have such low wages held down by migrant casual labour, and if farmworkers had been given decent private pensions, then maybe the story might have been different in the dark corners of our villages where so many of the old farmlands have been absorbed into much bigger estates and the peripheral farm cottages and old black barns have just become part of someone's property portfolios.

All very sad, but how are we going to change it?

Red-Squirrel_2

agarnett wrote: »

Re-distribution of the nations wealth is necessary to redress the balance. Sorry to say, that whilst the OPs friend is elderly herself now, I have little sympathy.

That's unfair I think.

The OP's friend has kept the rent low at about a third of what they could be charging and has honoured her late husband's wish to let this man have this as his home for as long as he wants.

Hardly the actions of a greedy landlord who only cares about cash.

gld73

Does the gentleman have capacity? (Capacity as in the legal term, whether he is capable of making and communicating informed decisions himself). If he has full capacity, understands what he is doing and chooses to live like that, then that's his choice - so if you want him out and he doesn't want to move, he would need to be evicted under the legal process of whatever type of tenancy he is covered by. Or if he agrees he's better living somewhere else now, that suits everyone.

If he doesn't have capacity, then certain professionals (doctors, social workers?) can intervene in the best interests of the patient. Patient confidentiality means a doctor or hospital will not be able to discuss much with you, but you can give information to them or the social worker about the living conditions to help with their assessment.

agarnett

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

me wrote:

Re-distribution of the nations wealth is necessary to redress the balance. Sorry to say, that whilst the OPs friend is elderly herself now, I have little sympathy.

That's unfair I think.

The OP's friend has kept the rent low at about a third of what they could be charging and has honoured her late husband's wish to let this man have this as his home for as long as he wants.

Hardly the actions of a greedy landlord who only cares about cash.

It may sound unfair, especially to those who have no idea of the history of typical village life and relationships, and how it has evolved ...

So you are saying that the farmer has done enough ... or his wife has ...

It's all relative, isn't it?

They shoot horses, don't they?

Red-Squirrel_2

agarnett wrote: »

It may sound unfair, especially to those who have no idea of the history of typical village life and relationships, and how it has evolved ...

So you are saying that the farmer has done enough ... or his wife has ...

It's all relative, isn't it?

They shoot horses, don't they?

What do you think she should do then? Let him die in there alone?

LadyGMadameToThee

Nice party political broadcast there from the Momentum Labour Party

LadyGMadameToThee

This may all be a moot point - having an operation under anaesthetic in your 80s is always going to be a risky business. May be best to wait a few weeks to see whether the poor guy even makes it out of the hospital.