Thanks Consuela—I may email you. My sister has been helping them and is trying to help mom get rid of a lot of stuff, but while she's not a hoarder she is a bit of "child of a depression era parent" and has a LOT of crap (they've lived in the house over 30 years) and has a hard time getting rid of it. Last Christmas we talked about moving (they've toured a bunch of places locally) and she was like "it just seems like so much effort!" And we were like "it will never be any LESS effort??" And lo and behold now Dad has been sick for 9 months and she's stressed. We think she's basically waiting for him to die and then move but that still won't really be easier...we also want her to get some help for dad and are working on that too. We are willing to do lots, but can't without agreement...
My sister said last week she was like "ok. Let's tackle one corner of the kitchen. You have 11 vests you use when walking the dogs, on the coat rack. Can we narrow that down to say 4?" And mom started crying about how stressful her year has been—and brought up my sister losing her foster daughter. Which I was like "way to make it all about you, mom—[sister] gets to be the inner circle of that "only complain out" ring, not you!!"