AITA if I continue to ignore this situation?
My sister (F54) has been living with my mom (F83) for about a decade now. During this time she has not had any income that I know of. In recent years she has apparently tried to get on disability but has been denied. She claims she has been diagnosed with MS, but has not sought treatment for it (she had a reputable doctor willing to treat her, but she missed so many appointments that the office dropped her as a client).
Basically my sister is completely financially dependent on my mom, she suffers from debilitating anxiety, but otherwise is not mentally impaired. My mom is no longer of sound mind and is experiencing typical aging symptoms, loss of memory and strength, otherwise she is healthy. She does need 24 hour supervision – which my sister supplies.
My concern is that my sister is financially abusing my mom, and has been for years. Her plan for the future is that when my mom does need a higher level of care, she will just sell the house and they will both move into assisted living. What she doesn’t acknowledge is that the house belongs to my mom, it is her money and I fear she would lose any possibility of government/state assistance if she just gives my sister a large sum of money to be in assisted living with her, because technically my sister is “able bodied”.
I recognize my sister being there is allowing my mom to continue living at home, however the amount of money my mom spends on her and has given to her, and the entitlement my sister has to my mom’s money is very concerning to me. I fear if I swoop in and try to do anything now, my sister would be homeless. I live in a different state and have only seen them once in roughly 10 years. It is unhealthy for me to be around them, but a concerned neighbor reached out and wanted me to see what was going on. I have been in phone contact with my mom consistently all of this time, but communication was difficult before her memory failed, and now it is nearly impossible.
I don’t think my sister wants to hurt her, but she is very unhealthy emotionally and physically herself – she has lost all of her teeth and hasn’t bathed in quite some time, why exactly I don’t know. I offered to help when I was there, but she refused. They do have a “house keeper” who is there once a week, but from what I could tell she wasn’t doing much cleaning, she was just emotionally supportive to my sister, yet my mom writes her a check each week – well over $1000/month. I have access to my mom’s checking account and can see how much money she spends and on what.
I have talked to my mom about all of this over the years, before her mind and memory started slipping, but it fell on deaf ears, she only defended my sister and their situation, she didn’t want to make any changes.
When I was there I asked them to get an attorney involved and they refused, and I offered to help my mom move, which she also refused. Would I be TAH if I called APS to dig into this? Or AITAH if I continue to ignore it?
