Re: Renting hell in New York City: how my hoarder landlady ruined my life
Posted: 24 May 2016 16:29
The day of my landlady’s 70th birthday, I got the phone call that would change my life (and which would have ended my landlady’s if I hadn’t answered).
It was from one of her few friends she hadn’t alienated. “Please go downstairs and check on her,” she begged me. “I think she is dying! And she won’t go to the emergency room!”
There was no answer when I knocked downstairs so I let myself in. Her apartment was worse than I had ever seen it before. Stepping over animal feces, I followed the sound of moaning to my landlady’s bedroom, where I found her sprawled on a pile of trash, with several mangy cats roaming over her body. She was grasping her abdomen, which was swollen and looked like it was going to burst. In the dim light from a spartan naked bulb, I could actually see roaches and spiders crawling over the mass.
My landlady was clearly in pain but didn’t want to go to the ER. She had not been to a doctor or taken any western medicine in 41 years. I suspected she was on the verge of dying and insisted she go. She refused. Our argument grew heated, and I called her friend and described what I was seeing. My landlady became terrified that I would call 911 and that paramedics might see inside her house; it was then that I realized I was one of very few people who had been in her home in a long time.
We compromised: a friend agreed to drive us to an urgent care facility. The car ride was traumatic – she moaned like a dying animal, screaming that she would never go to an ER. But when the urgent care physician quickly recognized that she was was within hours of dying, they threw her in an ambulance for the nearest hospital.
Having not been to a doctor in four decades, she had no insurance nor medical history to help the medical staff. The doctors quickly diagnosed her with a condition which, if not treated, can kill someone – and she’d already been having symptoms for a day and a half, hoping chanting and herbal tea would fix it.
I decided to postpone a surgery I was supposed to have myself to attend to her instead. She was hooked up to a ventilator and had a tube shoved down her throat. Unable to talk, she wrote on a pad that she wanted me to be her healthcare proxy and I accepted. What followed was a terrible meeting with her, a patient advocate, and the hospital attorney to go over her end-of-life and do-not-resuscitate directives.
Eventually I tracked down her estranged brother in the midwest, who had no interest in coming to help. So over the course of a week, her friend and I held ice to her forehead and dabbed moisture on her lips to try to keep her mouth from drying out. For days on end, fever racked her body, and infection threatened to kill her.
I worried constantly about her and, selfishly, also worried about what was going to happen to me. Long term, she’d left no will and had no heirs, so I could be out on the street. Short term, it was winter, the oil was almost out of the furnace, and I had to figure out how to pay for a new delivery.
The hospital’s social worker had begun to assess her case, too. My landlady was facing weeks in the hospital and months of recovery: did she have a caretaker and a safe environment? Her friend and I bluntly told the social worker that the house was a biological hazard. Between the animals, the feces and the bugs, the house would kill her.
•••
It was from one of her few friends she hadn’t alienated. “Please go downstairs and check on her,” she begged me. “I think she is dying! And she won’t go to the emergency room!”
There was no answer when I knocked downstairs so I let myself in. Her apartment was worse than I had ever seen it before. Stepping over animal feces, I followed the sound of moaning to my landlady’s bedroom, where I found her sprawled on a pile of trash, with several mangy cats roaming over her body. She was grasping her abdomen, which was swollen and looked like it was going to burst. In the dim light from a spartan naked bulb, I could actually see roaches and spiders crawling over the mass.
My landlady was clearly in pain but didn’t want to go to the ER. She had not been to a doctor or taken any western medicine in 41 years. I suspected she was on the verge of dying and insisted she go. She refused. Our argument grew heated, and I called her friend and described what I was seeing. My landlady became terrified that I would call 911 and that paramedics might see inside her house; it was then that I realized I was one of very few people who had been in her home in a long time.
We compromised: a friend agreed to drive us to an urgent care facility. The car ride was traumatic – she moaned like a dying animal, screaming that she would never go to an ER. But when the urgent care physician quickly recognized that she was was within hours of dying, they threw her in an ambulance for the nearest hospital.
Having not been to a doctor in four decades, she had no insurance nor medical history to help the medical staff. The doctors quickly diagnosed her with a condition which, if not treated, can kill someone – and she’d already been having symptoms for a day and a half, hoping chanting and herbal tea would fix it.
I decided to postpone a surgery I was supposed to have myself to attend to her instead. She was hooked up to a ventilator and had a tube shoved down her throat. Unable to talk, she wrote on a pad that she wanted me to be her healthcare proxy and I accepted. What followed was a terrible meeting with her, a patient advocate, and the hospital attorney to go over her end-of-life and do-not-resuscitate directives.
Eventually I tracked down her estranged brother in the midwest, who had no interest in coming to help. So over the course of a week, her friend and I held ice to her forehead and dabbed moisture on her lips to try to keep her mouth from drying out. For days on end, fever racked her body, and infection threatened to kill her.
I worried constantly about her and, selfishly, also worried about what was going to happen to me. Long term, she’d left no will and had no heirs, so I could be out on the street. Short term, it was winter, the oil was almost out of the furnace, and I had to figure out how to pay for a new delivery.
The hospital’s social worker had begun to assess her case, too. My landlady was facing weeks in the hospital and months of recovery: did she have a caretaker and a safe environment? Her friend and I bluntly told the social worker that the house was a biological hazard. Between the animals, the feces and the bugs, the house would kill her.
•••