The tenant in my rental unit is housebound. She cannot leave, because the unit is on the third floor and she fell and damaged her knee, and can’t go down the stairs any more. Her husband does all the shopping, etc. They are good tenants but they don’t have a lot of money. We are thinking about selling the unit in a year or so, and they will have to move out. I don’t know how this will work out, because she physically can’t leave. When she fell, she was carried out on a stretcher, and then when she was discharged from the hospital, she was carried back in. There was some follow-up physiotherapy, but not enough for her to be able to manage three flights of stairs.
I just don’t really know what to do. What is likely to happen here? Do they hire someone to carry her out, or what? I feel really bad about the situation and I don’t know what I can do to help.
Those private ambulances you see, the ones that don’t have a city listed on them, but a business name (you might even see commercials for them). Moving housebound people is one of the services they provide. They typically do things like help get people to and from doctor’s appointments or get them to the hospital for non-life threatening problems or transfer people from one hospital to another on a non-emergency basis, but there’s no reason why they can’t move someone from one place to another.
One of those medical transport vans services could probably handle it also. I’d imagine, in their fleet of vehicles, they might have something that can handle a stretcher. Or, at the very least, can point her in the right direction.
Also, you just said she damaged her knee. I can understand her not wanting to go down stairs, but can she physically not make it down them? ISTM, before shelling out a few hundred dollars, she could find a way to hobble down them (even scooting down one at a time on her butt), just to make the one time trip out of the unit and into a car to get to the new place.
Being housebound on an upper floor is a problem in any case. If there’s a fire, she’s barbecue. If she were on the ground floor, there would be a better chance she could hobble out or get carried out. She could be less housebound too, if she could get in and out in a wheelchair, for emergencies at the very least. She will really be safer living somewhere else.
As a side note, the more notice you can give them that you’re putting the place on the market, the better. They’re going to have to make some difficult decisions about the best kind of housing and the availability might be difficult. Giving them a lot of time to find the right place would be very kind. If you really want some good karma points, if you’re able and willing, offer to let them break your lease without penalty if they find the perfect place before the lease expires.
Yes, fire is a huge concern. I’m not sure what your legal responsibility is in this kind of situation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your building insurance carrier would be quite concerned that a homebound person unable to descend stairs is stuck on the third floor.
What they need to do is move into a place which is more handicapped accessible. They should find a first floor apartment or one with an elevator. The woman should not be confined inside her apartment for both social and safety reasons.
When it’s time for them to move, there are services like Joey P described which will help her get down the stairs. Including carrying her down if necessary.
Are there services in your area that help people who have disabilities find appropriate housing?
It sounds like the tenant is a good candidate for that.
They are not elderly - they’re in their thirties. It hadn’t occurred to me to think of her as someone with a disability, but I guess maybe she might qualify for some kind of assistance. That could be good.
Plenty of people with a bum (or even missing) leg can get up and down stairs with crutches. Are there additional issues? There’s a lot of daylight between “too painful to go down and up three flights just for grocery shopping” and “couldn’t crawl downstairs even if the place was on fire”.
This occurred to me as well. Maybe I’m just tainted by my wife’s years of working as a home health nurse (by definition, 100% of her patients were housebound), but my first thought was, “Is she severely obese?” Otherwise, as noted here, even people who only have one leg can manage stairs.
Probably the biggest thing you can do to help is give them plenty of notice that they might have to move in the next year or so. That gives them plenty of time to figure out the logistics of getting her out; not your problem. Then I’d take that conversation as an opportunity to mention that you’re concerned about how she would get out in case of fire or other emergency; something they might not have considered.