https://www.facebook.com/reel/1439556318033683
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1810790536775229
There's a few updates. The organization helping them and their animals are looking for volunteers to help them both clean.
This is another story of disabled and elderly people living in an apartment or house that has gone into complete squalor. There does seem to be some element of hoarding here but squalor is the main problem. Read through the comments too, and the outrage expressed on there. Most people are angry, and see the son as very lazy, they blame him more than the mother who is very disabled and had a stroke. We are seeing cases like this cropping up all over.
There are definitely health problems, mental problems and worse. I don't write the guy off automatically as "lazy", that could be depression, chronic fatigue and other illnesses. If his hip hurts enough maybe he can barely stand. Pain can do weird things to people. The weeks when I have muscle and joint problems, I can barely make it to the bathroom. Washing dishes while sitting on a rollator only goes so far. My husband does even more during those weeks. When you can't stand to move [I can walk okay for me this week], life gets very scary. Things go to pot fast.
They probably could both use rollators. I wish he could help his mother more if he can, but somethings really wrong with that guy if he's not taking showers. Part of me is angry thinking someone should have called APS to get help, but as maybe they know how the social services system works. Maybe they did ask for help and no one came. It wouldn't surprise me.
The son mentions being poor, "we run out of money midmonth". The outside world will say you suck at budgeting, but if you have no money or the bills are like Jaws sucking down every dollar what can you do? It does run out. America sucks now with all its expectations, and no money or resources to meet any of them. The more money there is, the more life quality improves. They have made money so short, now many people can't even function.
I see their situation and think, "Well you need to give up the animals, you killed gerbils letting them starve to death, the dogs aren't happy living in a mess either! Start scrubbing little pieces. Go and clean your mother's wheelchair wheels off! " However, I understand the other side of it. The overwhelm, the too much crap, the hours spent trying to get it clean, but it just never goes far enough and there's always a piece of dirt left. It's like rolling a rock up a hill. Sometimes I scrub and scrub my sink, it's stained, the stains won't come off. It feels like madness. When your body doesn't work, even a few simple movements brings pain.
You can tell there's a giving up. The son hasn't even showered in months. Does he fit in the shower? How many people with high stage Lipedema like me have told me they can't shower anymore because they can't step over the tub. My tub is lower so I can still get in it. I have to shower because of my skin conditions.
You can see in one of the update videos, the son is covered in caked on dirt. That can't be comfortable. He looks like he is 450lbs or there a bouts though it is hard to tell since he is sitting down. He's not far from nursing home obesity where you can't get up anymore and they got to get the Hoyer out. His weight probably has been affected by his immobility. Hey I got very close. When I was 700lbs I was still young. I'm not judging him. He needs help, whether it's mental or physical combined.
People give up. They get depressed especially if lonely, poor, sick, and disabled. He looks like he lives for the TV and that giant shelf of DVDS. They escape into fantasy land. They get addicted to the internet. I face internet addiction too. There's a lot of book reading and making of art in my household, but why are we both spending more times with screens than other humans? I get in these conversations with my husband, "We need to go outside more, we need to find a church--I really can't afford one and I think my dream of finding a church of fellow poor people has died, we need to live life off these screens more"! There's always the practical end. Just leaving the apartment costs money. There's no place to "hang out" except maybe the library, and even our local library got rid of all its magazines and newspapers, I think they are in trouble, so that's not much of an option. We went to the library yesterday for me to print color copies for art projects and get some books. The place looked almost empty.
Some would say "Get out into the world more!" I want to, it costs MONEY. This one good friend treated me on my birthday, I bought a book, browse some small shops, and got to eat out at a place with waitresses, it was a great day, I felt almost human. It's weird I think a lot of people take doing that kind of stuff for granted. The friend didn't realize how much joy he brought me that day. You can tell these two haven't been anywhere or done anything in years. There's probably no money to. They probably don't have the mobility to make anything happen. That gets depressing. There may be character problems in refusing to help the Mom, but we don't know what she is like. Is she one of those hoarders who yell if he tries to clean anything? How much pain is the son really in? Is he able to make proper judgements, if you aren't able to bathe yourself at all, you're in bad trouble, whatever the cause.
Cleaning is so hard even when you do it, you never get it clean enough. Fear motivates a lot of my cleaning. Remember I have people come in here all the time, if it gets too gross, house call doctors could report it. A foot doctor, house call doctors with a nurse and sometimes x-ray technicians and other scanners come in here. We just had maintenance in to fix the sprayer above the sink. You think I want stuck in some home? No way! One told me years ago, a lot of places of the elderly and disabled aren't very clean, and my place is not bad in comparison.
Old and sick people aren't getting the help they need. I don't get the help I need. My husband does what he can but has health limitations. In this case, they don't have enough to live on or to hire people to clean it. The cleaners want so much money. Only rich people can afford the cleaners, that some of us need even more. We are hitting the point because the billionaires are so damn greedy, the basics of society aren't functioning anymore. Shouldn't a first world nation, maybe it's third world now, more on that later, help the disabled and old clean if they are unable to? Do churches help them? It seems like no one does.
One thing that troubles me in my own situation is I do little bits and pieces, but it never adds up to being completely clean. I can get it to a non-embarrassing point with the toilet cleaned and the kitchen put together, but it's not sparkling clean. We have to clean for days when those inspections come. Two weeks ago, I spent 2 hours cleaning this one book shelf, and made an entire trash bag from it, and threw some books in an Aldi's bag to take to thrift, so that section got cleaned but it's only one piece. When you are poor you live in small places where there's no room to put anything away, there's no storage areas. You have to get rid of stuff you later miss, because there's no room for it. There's no nice furniture and bins to hide stuff in. These people seem to have a very large apartment or house, they do have more room.
I'm spraying bleach cleaner and wiping the toilet at least once a week, and under the tub mat to keep the mildew gone, just to keep friends from getting grossed out and me getting asthma from it. All the cleaners make me wheeze some even that one. Many of us who suck at housework, it's hard, maybe some think we never clean, but living the way those folks do all the smells alone would kill me, so I have no choice. We go through tons of trash bags. Just cooking seems to produce too much trash, endless pepper seeds, boxes and plastic that held the rice noodles, and paper towels to clean up slop. The cost of cleaning supplies is also making things rough. Today I have to buy shampoo, some medical supplies, and more paper-towels. It never ends. Cooking takes up too much time. We are low on groceries this week, somehow that seems to make things harder. Dinner will be cooked chicken thighs, some baked carrots, and rice noodles with green onions. Lunch for him will be a sandwich, I'm out of gluten free bread but found a little bit of falafel mix, I will probably make with a little rice. The people on this video, you can tell from the trash, no one's cooking, it's take-out. That's expensive.
People give up. You can tell those two gave up. They probably sleep the day away. There are times I have felt like giving up cleaning. Sometimes I work at it, and there's still so much undone or it's gross. When you have no money, your stuff gets old. I leaned on a plastic bin full of papers and broke the lid, it's still over there broken.
My husband will go clean it if it gets too gross. Smells drive me nuts, a zucchini went off in the fridge, and I almost puked, if I walked in their house, I would be passed out on the ground. What happens for those who get too ill to get up and do anything? I have heard scary stories from friends. One friend with Lipedema could no longer do the stairs in and out of her house. She got stuck in there for at least a year. One lady who is facing would-be homelessness, was ready to pass out just boxing her stuff up. She lives out of state from me. She told me she could not find anyone to help even with bad disabilities. The social workers always say no. The churches all seem to be for rich people who can afford their own cleaners.
I plan to write on this article too where they did a study saying poor people are lonelier, I'll have more to say about that one. It's coming soon. The article did not surprise me. Sometimes I get frustrated seeing stories like this, normal people are angry, outraged and grossed out. I am grossed out too and mad at him for not doing more for his mother to a degree too but wonder if he really can't do it. At the very least, things are unhealthy on the mental end of things.
I am always living in fear of my own apartment imploding. This week I kept thinking I need to spray these damn walls and wipe them down rolling around on my walker. Maybe I will get to it today, I don't know. There's always too much crap in here too, but I throw things away and take stuff to thrift constantly. What happened to them could happen to me. Years ago I dropped hints, we can't clean that well, this place needs some heavy-duty intensive cleaning--stuff like scrubbing the floorboards and ledges. Some I asked directly for help. I wish I let this one lady over during Covid who offered me help for organization but I was still paranoid of "catching Covid" back then. I would ask her again but I left the UU church we were both in. We sometimes get to those during inspections. I did tell husband, I plan to clean out the freezer part of the refrigerator, there's stuff in there I never will eat, I got from food pantries, high sugar crap like frozen fruit, that never digested well and does bad things to diabetics. I may do that before I shower, it will make a heavy trash bag, he will have to lug out.
We need heavy duty cleaning but really everyone has their own lives, even the thin and healthy people are all overworked to hell and have too much to do. They can't take you on too and clean your place out. I told my husband another inspection could be coming in a few months, we have to scrub some parts of this place ahead of time. This week I have a list of all this crap I need to buy and bills to pay, some supplements have been put off too long. The black seed oil and one supplement need replaced, they did help me.
These folks maybe they already got help but went back to a mess but that looks like a long duration.. Some of them who are hoarders may anger people getting their places cleaned out and then returning to the same mess over and over. With some who really could use help, and want the place cleaner maybe they hit barrier after barriers. Maybe they would find out like me, you always make "too much" and they don't really do much for you. His mother is very disabled with a stroke and in a wheelchair. I have had discussions with my husband about how social services is dead and they don't give a crap. There are a few decent charities like our charity garage and my dental program but the reality is, America is on a tear to throw the poor and disabled in a giant trash can. Let's be realistic about things.
The animal thing pisses me off, how could you let gerbils just starve to death, or dogs poop up your house. I am allergic to animals but I would never own one, because of my own limitations of taking care of it. If I'm housebound in 100 degrees, Rover's not getting walked. Rover would have to be rehomed. Gerbils, though sheesh, all you had to do was fill the water bottle and throw them some pellets or maybe some left overs. You can go to prison for animal abuse and should. The lack of care there and letting animals suffer makes me angry. That does show immense mental illness and maybe personality disorders.
Something is going really wrong with society. Extended families used to help take care of this kind of stuff, there's too many disabled and elderly people ending up living in filth. You know I get scared of getting more disabled you know or ever being on my own. My abusive family never helped me with any cleaning even during times I was really sick. I couldn't get a ride from one of them except one time in 2005 I talked my mother into one to visit her relatives and that was a nightmare. You can't get caretakers. They don't let you. You are either rich and can pay the 25 dollars an hour for the private aide, and they require a set schedule and a certain number of hours or you are destitute poor--live in a subsidized housing because with the income-cut offs, you'd be homeless anyway to get any state help.
As everyone knows here I have written about how hard it is for me to clean. I suck at it. ADHD and my body makes it hard. I used to ask churches to help me that I was in, some would help us move or with time dependent projects, one church lady bleached down my bathroom but there was always so much work, it's like we got only little pieces of it done. Everything costs money to do like cleaning the carpets and buying things to make organization neater. I keep having to put off buying two plastic bins to store some art supplies. Cardboard boxes don't look so great. There are really no charities to help. I found out years ago; no charity organizations will help disabled people move. You either have friends or you don't get help. Thankfully we have some friends. Even if you are horribly disabled, there's no one to do deep cleaning of your apartment unless you have a few hundred bucks laying around and even if you do get a little bit of savings, you hold on to those for dear life, should the car break down or an emergency crops up.
My husband does the laundry, and dishes often. He will scrub up the floors from time to time too. I cook on a rollator, I can stand to do the eggs now a little bit on a good day, I try to pick up crap in here. Time races by always. I'm always watching the clock, "You got to get up", it spins like a speed dial, "your medicine is due", "you have to clean your CPAP", "its time to do your lungs". A lot of the regular world sees the disabled as "lazy" but they don't realize how much work it takes to stay alive. I write most of these articles over days, with chunks written here and there. I'm watching the clock now, knowing I have to get my lung medicine in and shower soon.
This seems to be happening more and more. People can't maintain their houses or clean or live properly anymore. What is happening? In my opinion this shows the absolute failure and decline of this society. Why didn't anyone ever help these people earlier? One can blame bad character or "laziness" but why is this happening so often? Why are there old people living in such squalid conditions? Why don't people help each other anymore? Why is everything so disconnected? Why are the social workers failing on such a cataclysmic scale? Is modern society making the disabled and elderly crack up easier and unable to function with all its demands and distractions?
Some say, "Ask for help!", there's really no help out there unless you got the cash for it. Sometimes I mull over asking a church for heavy duty cleaning help but I've been turned down before. I have told my husband, "No Calvary is coming, we have to suck it up and do what we can". Is that a weird way for me to view life? Is this life in a functional society? I have an old couch in here, I need to get out of here. Neither of us can lift it. It's either 100 bucks to get some hauling company to carry it out to the trash, or we have to figure out a way to disassemble it and take it out in pieces. I own a hatchet, I bought on some prepping frenzy saying if the power went out at least I could chop up some sticks and use the outside apartment grills for cooking. Maybe we could use that, but maybe the couch sucks so much we can succeed in pulling it apart. It broke down so easily.
I guess he's still sitting on it so not as enamored of getting rid of it yet though it's like sitting on a sinking lumpy ship. They don't allow people the proper money to function. What if your body is imploding and everything causes pain? What if you have to push yourself so much, you get headaches and cry about housework a lot, because your body and brain don't want to cooperate? I don't live anywhere near how those two do. They gave up maybe having worse to deal with or not, and I haven't, but I know there's really no help out there anymore. Why do we all have to be rich to afford cleaners? What madmen designed this system? This is only going to get worse.
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