Elderly tenant - moral dilemma

Red-Squirrel_2

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 !

And after that, sane people know they can just stop reading and not miss anything useful.

OP, sorry your thread has been hijacked. Do let us know how your friend gets on, its a stressful situation for her I'm sure.

fishpond

BrassicWoman wrote: »

evicition may be the best thing as he is refusing help, and may need a crisis to sort it out

Either way, renting a house is a business. Business head on and serve notice! to the hospital may in fact be helpful as he will have access to support teams while there.

Also life support.

agarnett

Sorry brassic, but if the OP is to be believed, this is real life, and unless you are saying you don't believe my experience of village life, then that needs to be accepted as real too

...stubborn old folk who will accept no help whatsoever and choose to live in squalor complaining about being all alone?

Isn't that you now, going off on one?

Sanctimonious is a big word which often gets misused. But I am glad you might know what it means and simply be saying you appreciate that there are bound to be morally superior and inferior aspects to a discussion of a moral dilemma :rotfl:

This elderly lady who seems to have been the wife of a farmer who owned farm cottages and other property, and is now in her 80s and seemingly still has some kind of property portfolio - I am basing this on one of the first paragraphs of info in the thread:

Elderly friend rents out a house in the next village, but she now lives two counties away. The tenant has been there for around twenty-one years and is now in his mid 80s. He and his mother did live in one of their farm cottages, but when it was due for renovation this, more modern 3 bed house, was purchased

I have underlined a section because it contains more information than might immediately meet the eye. It implies the landlord and her dear-departed owned a farm. It is of course possible that the farm itself was rented from a bigger landowner, but it seems there was a farm.

As I say, everything is relative. Anyway, on that farm there were a number of farm cottages. May have been only two. Maybe more. The remainder of the paragraph showed that in order to free up the cottage 21 years ago, so it could be renovated or redeveloped or whatever and, we assume, the property as a personal investment better utilised, a further village property was purchased and the existing tenant and mother were invited to move into it.

Is Apoorwoman the only aquaintance or friend or family?

Is the landlord strapped for cash herself? I haven't read that much into the problem yet.

If there is a property portfolio? (as we can also see, there seems to be another house rented out in "the next village")

There is surely much more to a story like this. I would feel more sympathy with the landlord if she was "all alone" with no family and if the few properties she had were costing her her own livelihood, but I get the feeling that others are seeking to impose their own version of morality on what the lady does next.

Beyond saying hold your horses, don't shoot them, I am not trying to say what the lady (and her family if she has one) must do. I am simply stating the obvious.

I've mentioned a usual reason how relationships like this get started in the villages (previous employee / "tied cottage") and been told that's incorrect because the tenant never worked, but there could be all sorts of reasons why the farmer and his wife felt sorry for the tenant. We don't want to pry.

If the landlord easily has the financial means to tidy the place up and help the poor guy, then why stop now? Obviously 21 years ago the squalor in the previous cottage was too much for the farmer and his wife to let their tenants continue with. Is it really the poor guy's own fault he has been discovered living again in such squalor?

Relative to the described 1996 squalor (no bloody bathroom in a rented property????) when the tenant was in his 60s, is the 2017 squalor as deserving of improvement at the landlord's expense as the 1996 squalor was? Why not?

PS And Red Squirrel, I do not criticise the NHS lightly. Unfortunately I have had rather a nasty and relevant experience recently. Some of the big regional hospitals have fearsome reputations amongst the elderly in the villages.

hazyjo

Gawd, what is it with everyone today!


My FIL chooses to live like that - nothing to do with "the breadth of social divide which has crept into UK by the back door". More to do with the fact he spends all his money in the pub. His (council) house is prob worse.


Anyway... just wondered if there was gas at the property? Has your friend had yearly inspections if so?


Jx

BrassicWoman

every day on this forum I thank the ignore list.

SnooksNJ

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.

Even though I heard the beaches are gorgeous in Cuba, I have zero desire to live in that type of economic system.
As for the OP, I think your friend is an angel on earth. She sounds like a decent person and I hope it works out for her and she stays healthy.

JJG

How long was the tenant at the previous farm cottage prior to moving into this one 21 years ago. If more than 7 years there's a chance that he could be on a regulated tenancy which opens a whole new can of worms.

elsien

Going back to the gentleman's physical health, it may be that once medically fit the hospital discharge him to an interim assessment bed (usually for 6 weeks or so) to allow for further assessment and planning.

Although, as a previous poster said, if he has capacity he can choose to live any way he likes. And the landlady can choose to evict him. Hoarding can be a bit of a grey area where it crosses over into safeguarding, but hoarding in and of itself doesn't mean he lacks the capacity to understand what he's doing. Self-neglect to the point of him getting gangene is different, and it is highly likely that the hospital have already raised a safeguarding and contacted social services.
If you wish to share information about how bad the house was, that's up to you, just don't expect lots of information back as he has the right to have his confidentiality respected.

xylophone

There is surely much more to a story like this. I would feel more sympathy with the landlord if she was "all alone" with no family and if the few properties she had were costing her her own livelihood, but I get the feeling that others are seeking to impose their own version of morality on what the lady does next.

It seems likely that the elderly tenant's parent or parents worked on the OP's friend's family farm and lived in a tied cottage - it seems to me to have been a very generous gesture to continue to provide them with subsidised housing after retirement first in the cottage, then in another property and to continue to provide it for the son who had no direct link with the farm at all!

Added to this the fact that the OP's friend continued to visit/feed the son while she was still living near enough to do so, and took responsibility for getting him benefits puts the friend close to the Mother Teresa class?

The friend is now widowed, probably elderly herself, suffering from a heart condition and wants to divest herself of the property if possible -

Friend cannot cope with him returning to the house as frankly he is a danger to himself and she does not need the stress having recently had a heart attack herself and wants to put the place up for auction

that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

agarnett

The friend is now widowed, probably elderly herself, suffering from a heart condition and wants to divest herself of the property if possible - ...

Yes, or someone has suggested it might somehow help? But help how? Out of sight, out of mind? Not this lady. We are told indeed she is elderly herself, but that she has been back to help previously because she was concerned for the tenant.

Do we really think that an elderly lady with a weak but always generous heart would be normally now be thinking in such terms of evicting a tenant who seems almost to have been treated as family, or might even be a family offshoot (who knows?) ... Villages to this day can be brim full of interesting stories just under the surfaces. Tipping of hats to the squire even still occurs in some at summer fetes!

I do wonder about the actual dynamics of such situations sometimes.

Actually just thought of something which I should have thought of earlier when I mentioned harvest festival tins and fruits - the local vicar - many vicars now tend to be unofficial social workers of sorts, and do keep an eye out for the senior parishioners. Has anyone thought to seek their ideas?