He’s a good guy. For his daughter I have no use.
I don’t see that big of a difference between calling them ultimatums, or setting boundaries/stating rules w/in your house - with potential repercussions. And yeah, it can be difficult to lay down rules once you have allowed a situation to exist for some time.
You don’t want a poorly behaved animal in your home? Then you tell someone seeking to move in that their pet is not welcome. I love dogs as much as just about anyone, and I’m willing to help out friends and family in need. But if someone is truly in need, then the concerns of their poorly behaved pet is WAY down on the hierarchy or what is important.
I think one aspect of the OP’s difficulty is that she has presented herself as somewhat assive, disliking confrontation, as well as being a somewhat indifferent housekeeper. Not criticizing her, just observing that her nature and habits set her up for inconsiderate people to take advantage of her. While it is easy for the rest of us to say she should do this, that, or the other thing, such suggestions go against her inner nature and ingrained habits. Heck, she quit therapy because she didn’t like what she was being told.
Even here, I suspect she is more interested in venting than in actually changing anything.
It should be, there are at least 5 incomes flowing into the household.
I wouldn’t say I’m an indifferent house keeper. I just say mop the floor, I don’t get on my knees and scrub it. Unless something happens I mop once or every two weeks. I do laundry once a week yadda yadda. I don’t clean like my mom did.
I do want advice, it may take me sometime to take it, though venting helps a lot. I quit therapy because his advice was not realistic or doable. Also, it was just one more thing I had to do.
On that note: I know some might take this as me refusing advice, but it would take something violent/illegal for me to kick them out. I would not send them to a shelter. Even if I was willing to do that to my kid and grandkids, there are no shelters near here except for domestic abuse.
There’s nothing wrong with refusing advice. It is merely advice, not some sort of command. In fact, if someone does act like thy have a right to control you, then I’d suggest that their advice isn’t worth listening to.
You are setting boundaries. There are certain actions you are not willing to take. And, well, they’re perfectly understandable boundaries. You see making your family homeless as a worse outcome than just putting up with the frustration.
Just because you have boundaries doesn’t mean that advice is unwelcome.
Are there any hotels that do long term rentals? One or two motel rooms for the five of them doesn’t sound much more crowded than sharing a room in your place. Plus, someone else will be washing their towels and sheets.
I also like the housekeeper idea. We are pretty clean people, but having ours come over on a regular basis forces some structure on our habits. She is not allowed to touch my desk because she does such unforgivable things as putting my pens in the pen cup, but knowing she will be over makes me put most of my pens in my pen cup because I don’t want her to think I’m messy.
Yeah, my sil makes ok money for around here. However, it’s ‘good money’ for working in a fiberglass plant. My husband and I are on Social Security. I make very little of that because all jobs I’ve had are low paying. My oldest son is the assistant kitchen manager and line cook in a small locally owned bar and grill. He gives me about half his check every other week. I work 4 hrs a week to make my car payment. We are getting over the hump of the kids having lost their last house (mobile home.) All very complicated and tmi. Anyway, we are working class/low income people. We cannot afford a housekeeper/cleaner.
Not that I’d be opposed.
I appreciate this very much. I’ve been other place online where people get frustrated if you can’t/won’t take their advice. I am trying to make things better, but much like my bathroom remodel it will take me more time than a professional would. A lot longer in case of my bathroom. 
I was thinking a housekeeper would be out of reach for you guys.
I still think there’s a way to talk to your daughter and get her on board. Of course, I don’t know her. But any reasonable adult should be able to understand.
Ask her if she’s depressed or why she’s not helpful. Make her police the kids to help out.
I don’t know, I always want to believe there’s a way. Somehow.
Maybe I’m just being over optimistic but I believe you can fix this.
Just try.
Apologies. I was unsure as to what exact word to choose, and thought “indifferent” pretty inoffensive based on my apparent misinterpretation of comments such as this:
Best of luck. You say:
But unless YOU change SOMETHING, I suspect it unlikely that hey will change. I took great responsibility for raising my kids. And I still will help them if needed. But I would not allow them to trash my home and make me as unhappy in my home as you sound.
Our housekeeper is $50 a visit.
I’m coming back to the advice some other posters have said of announcing you’re going to just pick everything up that’s not cleaned up by time X and throw it away, and then follow through; once they lose some of their possessions that way maybe they’ll realize there are real consequences and shape up a bit. Or maybe they won’t, but they’ll have less stuff to make a mess with!
I think it’s a bad idea to throw out people’s possessions, because:
- they’re already semi-homeless, and this is a low blow, psychologically
- they have unfettered access to YOUR possessions, and you have no way of securing them against revenge, whether active or passive or even subconscious.
Moving them to a designated location (say, their room) every time, though, is more reasonable.
I also second the idea of getting paid help. If you all contribute, two hours a month of someone’s time is manageable ($50 divided by three adults = < $20 a month), and it at least shows that the issue is SERIOUS.
How about if it all goes in a large bag/box, but not actually thrown away? Which is actually I think what the previous poster advocated, and which I agree is more compassionate than my version 
Back when my daughter was an infant/toddler, I bought a book called Not By Force, But By Love. Meaning that you train/discipline your children to do what you want because they love you, not because they fear you, the force, the consequences.
Can you say something like this to your daughter ‘I love you dearly. I know you love me and you love your Dad. You understand / or can see that your Dad has parkinson’s disease which causes extra work for me on top of cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. Having to clean up after your family is causing me a lot of stress and making me feel ______________ (possibly that you don’t love/respect me). I know that you allowed possessions to be strewn on the floor in your home but I need the floor to be clean so that neither Dad nor myself trip, fall and break bones. I really would appreciate if you would talk to your family and ask them to keep possessions off the floor and in the room that you sleep in (or wherever is appropriate). Are you willing to do this to help your Mom and Dad out? Would you please do this?’
Others are welcome to edit to make more diplomatic keeping in mind that the Mom’s love for her child and grandchildren comes across.
Still thinking about this…how’s it going, @Sylvanz?
Eh, it’s going. Not a lot of change, and still looking for housing that isn’t out there. I am working on their habits.
I keep wondering about you.
Keep on trying.
Good luck to you.
Well good luck!
I still keep an eye out for affordable places for my kids, although they are both currently housed and making it on their own [knock wood].
They qualify for income based housing, buuuttt there aren’t any available in the 40 mile radius we’ve searched. Not income based is scarce too and the prices and expectations are sort of ridiculous. When we moved 5 years ago, I checked the income based choices in town. Anyone in the household who smoked had to have been smoke free for at least a year. How one proves that, I don’t know. Also, the woman I spoke to regarding this housing told me that she had caught a resident on the public side walk smoking and they promptly evicted him. I hate smoking … a lot, but seriously that is a bit over the top.