All right, it’s time to go back to Leanne’s. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, you can catch up with these links:
I know, it’s a lot, right? Believe me, I am aware. However, I do recommend you read them if you want to have any idea what I am talking about in this post. Also, those images are not of Leanne’s house, I don’t have any interest in violating her privacy.
Now, for everyone that is up-to-date, let’s do this.
This part of the timeline began when Jess went to visit her dear aunt a few months back. If you recall, when she and Amanda were there a year ago, Amanda found a company that could clean out here house. She’s a hoarder. However, after they left, she fired the company, because she’s a hoarder, and there was no one there to hold her to account for clearing out her house. Jess went down to visit her again for a couple of weeks, and she wouldn’t even let her in the house for the first week of her visit. Leanne, instead, would visit Jess at her Airbnb. Interestingly, while there, Jess saw signs that she was capable of, and willing to clean up after herself, when she wasn’t surrounded by a mountain of stuff. She would pick up dishes, and wash them. She also threw out trash, and wiped down the counter. All good signs.
When Jess was close to leaving, a letter arrived in the mail for Leanne. It was from the insurance company, and it was about the hoard. What was super interesting about the letter, it also spoke about the leak that caused the entire situation from the year prior to unfold. The insurance company was not involved in that situation. They had been contacted, but they stated that the leak was left for too long, and therefore not covered. They never once visited the house, nor did they have any idea that Leanne was a hoarder. So, how did they find out? We’ll get back to that in a little bit.
What was important, in regard to the letter, was the insurance company was informing Leanne, they were going to cancel her by a certain date. She had to provide them proof that the leak was fixed, (it was), that the mold was remediated, (it was), and the hoard was cleaned up, though they phrased it something like, an overaccumulation of personal belongings, or some such thing. It was a very kind way of saying, hoard. This lit a fire under Leanne, and she was ready to throw everything into overdrive. So, the company from last year was contacted, and they came in to begin the process. It was… a lot.
While all of this is going on, Jess recalls a certain conversation that she had with the across the street neighbor. That she, and other neighbors, had invited Leanne to a get-together over at one of their houses. Leanne went, she considered her neighbors friends, and recalled having a lovely, albeit strange time. What was so strange, you might wonder. Well, it was the fact that while there, all of her neighbors left her alone in the room, with a total stranger. He was “waiting for someone”, he claimed, and then began to ask her questions. Leanne is one of those people that thinks the best about everyone, so while she did think it a bit odd, she bought his story.
She shouldn’t have, and Jess found out why from this neighbor across the street. The guy wasn’t someone just waiting to be picked up, he was a social worker that her neighbors had brought in to get Leanne declared unfit to live on her own, and be put into a home. Granted, she is a hoarder, but the front or back of her house shows no signs of it. She had no rodent or insect problems that would have any effect on the neighborhood. She was still capable of paying her bills, driving, and could buy her own groceries. She could still do all three, and he informed them, there was nothing he could do. Leanne did not fit the criteria for removal.
The neighbor, who told Jess all of this, did so without a hint of thinking it was totally inappropriate for her to have done so. Jess had been handling many things for her Aunt, and was preparing to move in with her in a few months to be sure that she was well taken care of. The hoard being dealt with was the main reason that she had not done so yet. Now that it was being taken care of, plans were advancing quickly. The neighbor was well aware of this, and yet still tried to get Leanne removed from her home.
This was not the only issue that came up with this very same neighbor. Another was extremely strange, but we will get into that in a moment.
Now the house is cleaned up, and it is time for Jess and Amanda to return. This time they would be staying in the house with Leanne. It was an interesting experience for Jess to be staying in a home that, just over a month prior, Leanne wouldn’t even let her inside. The work done there was remarkable. The company went above and beyond in their efforts. They moved well over a thousand boxes, and many other items that couldn’t be packed into boxes moved into four massive storage lockers. It was a lot of work, and then that same company set about cleaning the house and bringing it back to life. The work was extremely well done, and their work was greatly appreciated, and yes, for those of you that remember, it was Stan’s company.
Jess and Amanda arrive, and strangely, the neighbors that were so concerned with Leanne’s wellbeing, supposedly, avoid them like the plague. Only one interacted with them, and that was out of politeness. When the house was being cleaned out, they were very interested in the goings-on, and were out and about frequently. That all changed when Jess and Amanda arrived, however. The entire block may as well have been abandoned for all the people they saw.
Leanne has been slipping into dementia for a bit now, and it has become more evident during this visit than it was with the last. She had trouble remembering things that had just happened, but as it often is the case with dementia, she had a good grasp on past events. She would tell the same story over and over, and she would also forget that she had houseguests. She was often surprised to find Jess in the kitchen, or Amanda coming out of the room they were staying in. It made the visit quite bittersweet for Jess, as she would hear stories of her beloved grandfather and Leanne’s memories of her as a child, while at the same time, Leanne struggled to remember the most basic of conversations.
As it is with dementia, these memory lapses are very stressful for Leanne when she has to confront her limitations. However, as it also is with dementia, it is something that she also easily forgets, so I suppose that is a small blessing. It sucks to forget, but forgetting that you forget at least takes away the stress, it seems.
The inexplicable things that happened with the neighbors.
As I mentioned, this was not the only strange thing that happened with this neighbor. Mind you, this neighbor was one that Leanne thought of as a dear friend, but in reality is nothing of the sort. We are going to call her, Cora. Cora calls up Jess, out of the blue, and tells her to remind Leanne that she had a tax appointment coming up, and could Jess please tell Leanne to change the phone number that they have on file, because they called her to remind Leanne. If that sounds confusing, it was. They called Cora to remind Leanne of a tax appointment? Jess thought all of that was strange. She had already filed an extension for Leanne’s taxes, so there shouldn’t have been any appointment, and why were they calling Cora, not Leanne? So, Jess called the accountant’s office herself, and asked them about the appointment. When and why had Leanne made it, and why was Cora’s number in their records.
Leanne didn’t make the appointment, the receptionist told her. Cora did. She had phoned them, made an appointment for Leanne, and then apparently didn’t tell anyone until the day before the appointment was made. Who does that? Have you, ever in your life, thought, hey, Jim across the street is going to need to do his taxes? I’ll just phone up the tax office, and set that appointment up for him, but I’m not going to tell him until the day before, and also be mad that they have my number, and not his?No one ever has thought that, or done that. I am convinced that this is the one singular time in the world this series of events has played out. And for those of you thinking, well, they were friends. Okay, and? When was the last time, even for your best friend, you did something like this? Has it ever happened? No, right? It hasn’t because this behavior is weird.
While the house was being cleaned out, and all the boxes were being moved, Cora wandered over one day to speak to them. This was not an uncommon occurrence, and the workers felt as though she was constantly fishing for information. However, this time, she asked, how many boxes they had moved that day? The workers estimated around three hundred, and Coral proudly corrected them, stating, “No, it was three hundred and thirty…”
Why does she know this information? Because she sat at her front desk and counted every single box carried out. Granted, I know she is an older woman and may be bored, but this woman is spry. She has a fairly busy life, and instead of tending to that, she sat at that window, every single day, and counted boxes.Leanne had run out of checks, and had ordered them from the bank. Three times, and all three times, they never arrived. You would think, she has dementia, so maybe she forgot that they arrived and reordered them, and that is what everyone else thought as well. However, after ordering the three sets of checks, and none of them getting to her, and after being through the entire house and not finding them, it started to become a strange thing. Where were these damn checks?
Even after not finding them for the entire time being there, Jess still suspected that it was Leanne somehow losing them. That is, until after she and Amanda left. It was then that a neighbor told Leanne that they had seen the checks in the mailbox that morning, and that they should be there. However, when Leanne went to get them, they were gone. This is not a normal mailbox. This is a communal box that has a master key that unlocks the packages area of the box. That meant that anyone could take them if Leanne didn’t get to them first.Leanne had to have a new refrigerator delivered, because her old one broke. This was between when Jess first visited, and when she returned with Amanda. In between those two times, the goal was to keep Cora out of the house, because of the get-together that that her neighbors lured Leanne to. So far, that had been fairly successful. The company contracted for the clean out was very diligent about keeping Cora at arms length, as she was far too noisy and insistent on coming in to the house. The day the fridge was delivered, and after the crew went home, she literally pushed her way into the house, past Leanne, to, “see the progress”. Leanne did not invite her in, she simply answered the door, had it open about a foot, and Cora saw that as her opportunity.
After the clean out and before the trip, things kept going missing. It wasn’t a random thing, it was things that Leanne used all the time. She would leave the house, and then come back to find them missing, moved, or changed. Again, you might think dementia, but this was a constant annoyance, and one that she called Jess about regularly. Leanne was frustrated, and was getting a bit scared. She knew that she was struggling with memory issues, but this was so out of character.
It seemed to be unreasonable to Jess, and she said as much to Jess. Amanda suspected the neighbor, and Jess admitted she had considered the same thing, but really, again, who does that? Regardless, there was something happening, and unless the house was haunted, it had to either be Leanne, or the neighbor who happened to have a key. So, she decided that the first thing she was going to do was change the locks. She made sure to wait until she observed Cora leaving, and changed all the locks on the house. Go figure, after that, no more weird happenings around the house…
There is a difference between someone being forgetful, and someone intentionally sabotaging someone else. It seems to be pretty evident that there were some shenanigans going on there. At the end of the day, a very curious thing happened. When speaking with Leanne, Cora accidentally mentioned Joan in a way that made it clear that she was still speaking with her. Interestingly, last year, before Joan left Leanne’s house for the last time, she had headed across the street, and knocked on her door for about five minutes. It seems that they were simpatico about what should happen with Leanne, and it seemed that they were still talking. Once that information was made known, a lot of the extra problems that Leanne was dealing with seemed to become clear.
Leanne has her issues, and those issues will require her to have help be present with her all the time. She is very fortunate to have Jess in her life to be the help that she needs. There is a massive difference between helping someone, and discarding them because they are either considered a problem, or because someone hopes to benefit from their removal financially.
So, that’s the update. Leanne is doing as well as she can, and she is very grateful to her wonderful niece being there to protect her, help her, and love her. Despite living on her own for the vast majority of her life, Leanne is ready to have emotional connections to someone, and loves Jess dearly. While there have been some hiccups, things are progressing well.
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I for one am always skeptical of overly helpful neighbors. Seriously there are boundaries. Now I had a real mess my place but I decided that when enough was enough I'd get someone to help me clear out things and I actually have a large burn pit on the far corner of my lot now to deal with junk and garbage
Do you tend to rely on logic or intuition when you need to make quick decisions under pressure?