helped with my aunt when it became clear she could no longer care for herself unassisted. Unfortunately, she waited before admitting to us she needed help and had a couple of nursing agencies send in people to help, one of whom stole we don't know how much from her (she had a lot of antiques, many of them small and portable). She also had a grifter calling herself a caregiver attach herself to her like a leech. We found checks that were clearly written by other people and signed by my aunt; on a check she did write she wrote the year as 1942, the bank cashed them all without so much as phone call. We don't know how much money she was scammed out of.
My aunt had the good sense to give my father power of attorney and signed her house over to him before she began suffering from dementia. When it became clear that the "caregiver" wasn't doing anything to earn her paycheck (and was in fact doing her best to keep us away) and was preparing to move into the basement apartment of my aunt's home with her husband, we were able to step in cut them off before they actually assumed residency. The husband tried to bully my dad, "You don't own this house!"
My dad, "Actually, I do!"
They were out in short order. Not that they didn't keep trying to worm their way back in. Which is longer than I want to write right now.
In the end, my aunt died peacefully.
Then all the out of state relatives came out of the woodwork.
"She promised me this necklace!"
"She promised me that piece of furniture!"
"Gimme Gimme Gimme!!!"
Not one of them wrote her so much as a get well card while she was ill, not one of them offered any kind of help at all.
Many of the things my relatives wanted simply weren't there. They had either already been stolen, liquidated by my aunt while she still had her faculties, or given to persons unknown.
My father sent things like savings bonds that were made out to specific individuals to their recipients, but mostly he ignored the greedy relatives. If it wasn't in writing he wasn't listening.
So I commiserate completely, but it could always be worse. Get your parents to put things in writing and get the legalities taken care of as unpleasant as it may seem (who gets what, who gets the title to the house, car, etc.). Siblings and relatives swooping in vulture- like on an undefended estate is a horrible thing.
All my best to you!
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