Because everyone’s opinion seems to be based on information that I didn’t provide. For instance, those who persist in calling it a “caregiver” situation. It’s not. Or people that feel that a 3 x 4 bathroom takes two hours to clean. It doesn’t. Opinions are fine, but please use the information offered rather than making up your own.
Have you ever lived with a person who suffers from depression and goes off her meds? That is definitely something that would affect a roommate, whether she’s “responsible” for her or not. If able-bodied roommates suddenly learned that one was off her meds, you can bet someone would be moving out. You can’t make a person get help, and if she chooses to go off her meds, there are going to be problems.
People are calling it a “caregiver” position because what you described in your OP sounds like a caregiver position and not a roommate situation due to the mental and physical status of your family member. It sounds as though you’ve never worked as a caregiver and that you likely haven’t lived with roommates for quite a long time, because you seem to be in denial about what seems obvious to everyone else.
I would guess that many of the posters in this thread have had experience with the situation you describe, and their responses come from that experience. But you don’t seem interested in that. You had already made up your mind that it was a “feasible scenario,” so I’m curious, too, why you started this thread.
At first, I was curious as to people’s opinions. But when people started making up nonexistent circumstances, I then had to concentrate on clarifying the details…over and over…
The fact that your “caregiver” situations were more work doesn’t make this “roommate” situation like yours. My MIL took care of my FIL for a couple years before he died. She turned him, changed him, bathed him, fed him, administered meds, cooked, arranged for doctor visits, paid bills, cleaned, etc. THAT’S a caregiver situation. Cleaning every week instead of every other week is not. Very simple. This person wouldn’t be expected to do physical care if the situation eventually required it. That’s a “different situation.” That would require a “caregiver”.
No one in this thread said that cleaning a tiny bathroom would take 2 hours.
I think everyone understands that the position doesn’t currently include bathing, feeding, adminstering meds, etc. They weren’t “making up nonexistent circumstances”; they are putting 2 and 2 together–based on your OP–and sharing their concerns with you. You have not been open to possible problems with your plan, even though most people in the thread have been gently trying to show you the trouble.
A million things could happen that would change the situation. But you can’t go by what might happen. You have to put a contract together based on the current situation. That’s all. Looking under the bed for trouble will make it impossible to have any forward motion. You need to deal with the situation as it currently stands.
The situation, as it currently stands, is that you have a woman with six cats who is depressed, immobile and needy and who needs a lot of help, probably more mental help than physical help at this point, but unless that current situation changes, further decline–both mentally and physicall–is inevitable. That is a LOT for a paid “roommate” to be saddled with.
You are only looking at “a few hours of housework” per week, but it’s clear to most of us that the situation is much MUCH bigger than that.
LM, you’re inventing things for the roommate to do that she’s not required to do. For starters, you don’t know how my SIL’s depression manifests itself. She doesn’t sit around crying. She doesn’t rant like a crazy person. She doesn’t do much of anything but sleep and watch tv and talk on the phone. Hardly an imposition. The roommate wouldn’t be saddled with anything more than housework. I don’t know what kind of needy people have insinuated themselves into your life without your permission, but a contract is a contract. She’s been like this for years, but only recently alone. She’s good humored for the most part. She’s intelligent. She needs someone to do housework and grocery store runs. There is no saddle involved.
I wish you all the best, Kalhoun. Your efforts to help are admirable.
Thanks…now if we can only get her to bite. Hoping to talk to her sister in the next couple days to see if we can’t push her a little.
For anyone who’s still following: I found a township bus service that will charge her $4 round trip to take her to the doctor. They have a lift to get the wheel chair into the van and they’ll help her down the steps and into the chair at her building. Sounds like a perfect set up! If she makes an excuse on this one…well…I can’t be held responsible for my actions.
In truth, the only way you’ll find out if this would work is by giving it a try. Take out an ad, put up some cards at local supermarkets, common rooms at local colleges, Senior citizen hangouts, whatever. See what interest there is. You can say you are looking in advance, that the situation won’t be available for a couple months yet. Everyone you interview will simply assume you chose someone else if you never make them an offer.
But I’m going to make one last attempt at showing you what most of us seem to see when we look at the ‘deal’ you are proposing.
Try to look at it from the roommate’s POV.
Good points: reduced rate on sharing an apartment. (Or townhouse? I think you’ve used both terms.) Anyway, apparently it’s a two-bedroom, one bathroom, one living/dining room setup, yes? A normal type rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the area is $800/mo, so normally a rooommate would pay $400, and you’re offering it to her at $200/mo.
So Roomie is saving $200 month. (Apologies if I have any of this wrong, I didn’t go back and reread the whole thread.) Adjust all numbers as necessary.
In return for the discount of $200/mo, you are asking that she do 3 3/4 hours/wk of housekeeping stuff. (I used the upper range of your time estimates.) So: 4.3 wks/mo X 3.75 hrs/wk = 16.1 hours a month. $200/16hrs = $12.40 an hour.
Not a bad rate for ‘unskilled’ labor. Especially as you normally pay rent with after tax dollars, meaning you’d probably have to paid at least $16/hr to net that.
But money isn’t everything. Let’s look at what Roomie’s living conditions will be.
She will have her own bedroom, fine. She will share the kitchen, fine.
She will have to share a bathroom – maybe fine, maybe not. Let’s say the other woman is clean and neat and doesn’t hog the bathroom shelves or time or anything like that, so the bathroom is fine.
But…what about the living room? I’m sure you said your SIL had to get rid of all her upholstered furniture (likely due to cat damage) and so the furniture in the ‘living room’ is a dining table & chairs, and maybe some cabinets or bookcases. Do you really think you’d want to live like that? No comfy chairs, no couch? No where to sit and relax after a day’s work? Sure, you could bring your own furniture in…and, what? Watch as the cats destroy it?
Worst of all, it means you have no place to entertain your friends. No getting together to watch tv and lounge and eat pizza. No just hanging out. Okay, maybe she can throw poker parties and everyone gather around the dining table.
And the living situation is worsened by your SIL being basically housebound. As in, always there. As in, the roommate will NEVER enjoy the simple pleasure of having her home to herself. No chance to turn the music up loud and dance around naked, or however she lives to blow off steam in private.
As someone who works with depressed people every day, let me say that they are generally perfectly nice and reasonable people. And none the less trying to hold conversations with them for any length of time is a downer. Someone who is always down, low energy, sad, pessimistic…oh, yeah, just the type of person you want to hang around with. They act as black holes, sucking in your energy and enthusiasm without returning any.
Then you add in six cats, competing for space to sit. And attention, inevitably. As soon as the cats grow accustomed to roommie they will compete to be the one close to her, being petted by her, sitting on her. Even if it’s ‘only’ the four normal ones…the roommate will be under virtual siege every moment she’s in the apartment.
Honestly, I see the poor roommate’s life under these conditions as hellish: she goes to her job (has to be earning money for the rent and other living expenses somewhere), returns to an apartment full of needy cats and a morose woman. She does an hour or so of housekeeping, having to pick her way over and around four cats rubbing at her ankles the entire time. Cooks and eats and cleans up, also dealing with cats constantly. And finally she escapes into her only refuge, the bedroom. And has to stick her fingers in her ears to escape the sound of those cats clawing and crying at her door…
Almost immediately the roommie is going to start doing some more math. “I’m saving $200 a month, but in exchange I have no life. Say I find a second, part-time job that pays nets just $7 hr. I’d have to work about 28 hours a month, or 7 hours a week to make up the money. But I’m already doing about 4 hours a week housekeeping here. Should I trade off another 3 hours a week in order to be able to pay full rental on better living conditions?”
To me, the answer would be a resounding HELL YES.
And, note, I made no assumptions about having any caregiving chores, or any self-imposed moral obligation to step in and help out if something, anything worsens for your SIL.
My advice: there must be some some of ‘Senior Services’ offered in your area. They will know the area and options better than any of us. Go and talk to them, see what they advise.
Good luck.
Yes, I see your point and it is well-taken. Not everyone will want this position but I know there were times in my life when I needed a place to live and couldn’t afford anything, so I think it is realistic to assume that someone else will have the same need.
It is an apartment that was converted to a condo. For these purposes, it’s an apartment. I believe there are 24 units in the building. She’s on the first floor, two steps up to her door.
Entertainment-wise, no…this probably isn’t the best place to do it. A young person wouldn’t have much fun, but an older person might welcome the situation. On the other hand, young people are rarely home anyway. Between school, work, boyfriends and general carousing, I recall being home as little as possible when I was young. Like I say…this isn’t for everyone, but it just may be ideal for the right person.
And I know these cats. They aren’t a pain in the ass. I rarely even see them when I’m over there. The two Evil Cats are unseen, but they currently live in the closet in the extra room. They need to go. They’re just not cool.
Update #2: Turns out she’s a block the wrong way of the township services. So I called the other township. Turns out they don’t have a van. Only a taxi, and it’s expensive, and they don’t help you in and out of your wheel chair or anything. That shoots that idea.