Elderly tenant - moral dilemma

Apoorwoman

Please, please stop this, I came on here for advice which I have kindly received.

agarnette - please do not talk such rubbish when you do not know the facts. This man never worked on the farm, in fact nobody can recollect him having worked anywhere all the time they have known him. He and his family just rented an old farm cottage that was very isolated. It had no bathroom, a tin bath used to hang on the wall. What the toilet facilities were I have no idea. The mother was becoming elderly and couldn't walk to the shop (over three miles and no public transport). Hence friend's OH suggested they move to the village with all its facilities and they jumped at the chance,

Following his mother's death, my friend visited him at least twice a week with homemade meals he could just heat up. This she continued to do until she lost her husband and subsequently moved away,

She came back for a week a few years ago to organise social services and to make sure he was getting full benefits. After a couple of weeks he decided he didn't want them coming to his house any more.

He has ample funds to live on but will just not spend it. In fact one of her worries is that he has hidden money all around the house as that is one of the things he would do.

She has subsidised him and cared for him over many years, so please do not judge her.

xylophone

only heating he appeared to be using was a very old electric fire which he brought in himself.

:eek:

Tested for safety? If safe, fireguard fitted?

Does he move it about? Trailing flex?

If he fell onto the fire, or tripped over the flex and overturned the fire......results could be too painful to contemplate.

Mee

agarnett wrote: »

I
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?

It is indeed very sad, but definitely one for social services and CAB etc.
However, Mr. Alfred Garnett - folk have been blaming migrant casual labour since the middle ages. The owners of the means of production will try to hold down their costs come what may, migrant or no migrant (remember 1381!)

In the case of this lady she has done what her husband wished and more besides. It is now time for her to look after her own health and future security.

xylophone

to make sure he was getting full benefits.

He has ample funds to live on but will just not spend it.

It is possible that he is no longer entitled to full benefits?

Mee

xylophone wrote: »

It is possible that he is no longer entitled to full benefits?

There are certain requirements for HB

agarnett

LadyGMadameToThee wrote: »

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.

Ah yes, the National Oldies Euthanasia Service - I'd almost forgotten about that! Luck of the draw as to which hospital he's in, but it's a Bank Holiday weekend so chances are extended !

Seriously people, how do you think people get into such a state? We think of ourselves as a caring society and we point to individual acts of generosity and rightly applaud them, but we are far far from a society that is truly caring and which is balanced.

We are totally out of balance. No-one pays more than £400 a month to rent a house like that in a village more than 5 miles from the big city in the country where I am sat right now, which is much less than 1,000 miles from most people reading MSE, yet the minimum wage is around double what it is in UK, there is no enormous financial services background to the whole economy, the distribution of wealth means that CEO's rub shoulders with refuse workers and slap each others' backs at parties, the free national health service seems to work much better than ours, almost no person pays no tax, and most people are proud to pay significant tax, and the pensions are probably the best in the world!

Of course I am not so naive as to think that there will always be some that fall through the net, but I do think our UK net is pretty threadbare and rotten because too many finding wealth coming out their ears have been encouraged to think sound investment is about their wealth getting bigger rather than Great Britain around them getting greater.

How have we got it so so wrong over generations now?

And as for Apoorwoman, you said you had a moral dilemma to discuss. Indeed you do. You just didn't want to hear the other side to it and it seems now you are trying to diss the poor fellow because no-one can remember him working, and because someone has judged he has hidden money around the house which he should have spent on caring for himself.

As I say, they shoot horses don't they? What's the alternative? Your friend's family and friends could visit him in hospital and promise to rally round, clean up the house, and take care of him for ever, which might for all we know be what your friend's husband would have done if alive? But there's always a limit isn't there? Hence the dilemma.

So instead of shooting the horse, yes maybe its time for the state to be encouraged to come and collect it and take it away at taxpayer's expense.

Don't blame me for emphasising the other side of the dilemma - the word could be said (and has been) to mean "a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives."

I may come across as undesirable too, but don't start thinking you need to shoot the messenger whilst you've got your gun out, please!

Mee

agarnett wrote: »

Ah yes, the National Oldies Euthanasia Service - I'd almost forgotten about that! Luck of the draw as to which hospital he's in, but it's a Bank Holiday weekend so chances are extended !

Seriously people, how do you think people get into such a state? We think of ourselves as a caring society and we point to individual acts of generosity and rightly applaud them, but we are far far from a society that is truly caring and which is balanced.

We are totally out of balance. No-one pays more than £400 a month to rent a house like that in a village more than 5 miles from the big city in the country where I am sat right today, much less than 1,000 miles from most people reading MSE, yet the minimum wage is around double what it is in UK, there is no enormous financial services background to the whole economy, the distribution of wealth means that CEO's rub shoulders with refuse workers and slap each others' backs at parties, the free national health service seems to work much better than ours, almost no person pays no tax, and most people are proud to pay significant tax, and the pensions are probably the best in the world!

Of course I am not so naive as to think that there will always be some that fall through the net, but I do think our UK net is pretty threadbare and rotten because too many finding wealth coming out their ears have been encouraged to think sound investment is about their wealth getting bigger rather than Great Britain around them getting greater.

How have we got it so so wrong over generations now?

Somewhere in that rant there is an element of truth, but you do yourself no favours.

agarnett

Mee wrote: »

Somewhere in that rant there is an element of truth, but you do yourself no favours.

Of course, and I am not here to do myself favours, but to highlight imbalance in our society which far too few of us are prepared to acknowledge.

BrassicWoman

agarnett wrote: »

Of course, and I am not here to do myself favours, but to highlight imbalance in our society which far too few of us are prepared to acknowledge.

That's nice, but not at all what was requested by the OP. I think mad rants belong in discussion time.

Perhas you can come back after 20 years of dealing with stubborn old folk who will accept no help whatsoever and choose to live in squalor complaining about being all alone? It's not up to anyone's "family and friends" to "rally round" and help someone who has been offered assistance and refused it. It's a fool's errand.

Please stop spouting sanctimonious twaddle that in no way applies to real life.

lincroft1710

LadyGMadameToThee wrote: »

Nice party political broadcast there from the Momentum Labour Party

As the TV Alf Garnett was a lifelong Tory, either agarnett has made a bad choice of username or is trying to discredit the Labour Party with his misguided ramblings.