An Embarrassing Situation...
So I've told you all before (and some of you know me personally) that that house I live in was my mom's childhood home. I'm not sure how much I have mentioned about my mom's previous in home care giver but he happens to live across the street. He was horrible at his job, he sucked at cleaning, he rarely cooked for her and when he did it was salt laden grossness that she wouldn't eat. He relied on my step dad to care for her and when my step dad died, she lost a bunch of weight and that took us a while to put back on her.
When we moved in, about a month later he had a hernia surgery (supposedly) and basically stopped doing any of the cleaning even though at that point we lived mostly upstairs and the baby was still small enough that he made very little mess anywhere. We didn't ask that he clean up after us at all, in fact we cleaned the house no problem, all we asked of him in return for the 93.3 hours a month he was being paid by Los Angeles county's In Home Support Services program was that he help her keep her room clean and that he transport her to all her doctors appointments and to the store when she asked him to. That equaled WELL under the 93.3 hours a month that he was being paid for, but she was terrified to fire him as he was the neighbor across the street and had told her on several occasions he had "gang connections" in the neighborhood. She was afraid it would make our living situation tense, and oh boy did it when the situation came to a head.
One day my husband asked him to give him a ride to the water company to make a payment so our water wouldn't get cut off. This was in December, after months of dealing with him being more and more rude and suspecting that he was skimming my mom's pain pills (which after he was gone miraculously she stopped running out) among other things he was helping himself to around the garage and the house. Anyway, we gave him $6 for gas and he flipped his shit on my husband and told him to handle his own damn business that that was chump change for the ride a mile up the road so that my husband didn't have to walk in the 40 degree weather. Um, part of his fucking JOB is to take my mom to pay her damn bills too, and he's flipping out telling us he needs at least $20 for the ride that we don't have to give him because literally ALL WE HAVE is the money for the water bill and that $6. My mom starts crying and tells him that she'll give him some money out of her next social security payment and my husband tells him to get the fuck out. On the way down the sidewalk, this man picks up a terra cotta planter and turns around to throw it at the house but fortunately he thought better of it when he realized my husband, mother and my teenage children were all standing there. About 5 minutes after we realize his time-sheet is on the mailbox and my mom doesn't want him to send it in and get paid since she just fired him and pulls it off the mailbox and comes in the house with it, calls her worker and leaves a message that she's fired him. This is on December 17, 2012.
This is where it gets really fun kids, so hold on to your hats. My mom, for reasons unknown, goes across the street (maybe to make peace, maybe to tell him he wasn't going to get paid, I don't know, she has no idea either). Now she's in this man's driveway with him. Keep in mind she's all of about 5 foot 4 and 145 pounds and has a colostomy bag and a bad back along with a failing mind so she's not the sturdiest of people , and this guy is not a tiny little man and is towering over her yelling at her. My daughter was in our driveway yelling at her to come the fuck home and she's just standing there. All I could think of to do was go get her. She's my mom, she was in danger so I went to her. I got out all of maybe 5 words before this mans girlfriend came rushing out of the house in her do-rag and housecoat and sucker-punched me as I was yelling what the fuck. I have a pacemaker. I went into a fetal position to cover it so I did not die. My husband had followed me out the door and handed our baby to my daughter and run across the street to pull the woman off of me but before he could the man grabbed him from behind and hit him in the forehead before my husband could get his footing in the mud and pin the asshole to the car this woman had given me a black eye, and scratches to my neck with her icky acrylic nails where she was trying to pull me out of the fetal position to beat my face some more. Keep in mind here this woman is a bit shorter than me but about 100 pounds heavier.
We did file a police report, but when the responding officer comes into your house and says verbatim "There's a winner and a loser to every fight ma'am, you're just the loser. Ask yourself this, if you were the winner would you still have called us?" Yes you asshole, I still would have called you. When we did FINALLY hear something back from the wonderful Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, we were informed that because it was filed as a mutual combat claim and we were on their property, should we choose to pursue any legal action, any action taken against them would also be taken against us. My health can be precarious, and I decided it wasn't worth it.
While he was working for my mother we had paid this jerk to put a new fuel pump in my van and it hasn't run since. I'm guessing he had something to do with that too.
IHSS is a pain in the ass to get paid from and I had worked for them from 2001 to 2006 when Max was born so we really thought nothing of it that it was taking months to get going with a paycheck, it really was no big deal at all that it was taking a few months. We had our home visit scheduled in March but my mom was in the hospital with a chest cold and we'd rescheduled for April. When the time came, the lady came to the house, my mom and my husband signed all the paperwork and we figured all was well. How do these tie into each other? Trust me, I'm getting there, it's been a long ride, but it's a great story. I've mentioned in a few posts that we barely get by, but we have made it with the help of some very generous friends and the kindness they have shown us. But we DO need this money. This is not a lot of money, but it is a paycheck that is needed for sure. When you do this job and you expect that it will take a while to get paid, but then you get a retroactive check and it's one lump sum that will help you pay off all the bills you've put off, or the people you've had to borrow from. Also, usually by the time you start getting paid, it's about the time you've worked long enough to qualify to be in the union so you've got union benefits after then too, which provides a healthcare package.
My husband has jumped through every hoop they've asked him to, and gone to every length imaginable to get the paperwork done. We also had to pay a $56 fee for a criminal background investigation that he had done and registered on the fourth of June. Out of pocket, there is no reimbursement for that. All of this, thinking that the CBI was the very last step and that within 2 weeks of that he'd have his time sheets to get paid. This is what we were told over and over. He waited the 2 weeks and then began to follow the chain of command and called every day, leaving messages for the people that were supposed to call him back to give him the information he needed.
He finally spoke to someone yesterday, July first. That man told him the county had gotten the results of the CBI on the fifth of June, the day after he'd done the check. Amazingly, today, we got the letter confirming he'd passed it, in the mail today and it was dated yesterday. So all day long he got on the phone to find out why he hadn't gotten his time sheets so that he can get a damn paycheck for waiting on my mom hand and foot. Unlike her previous worker, he's actually doing his job here.
Here's where the two stories tie into each other okay? During one of the numerous phone calls today my husband finds out that the man across the street has been collecting his paycheck from my mother steadily this entire time. I mean, this WHOLE TIME he's been getting his time sheets, filling them out like he was still working here, forging her signature on them, getting his deposits and spending MY HUSBANDS PAYCHECK. Since December, and the county never figured it out? They never noticed the forged signatures? They never noticed my husband was calling and calling and calling about the same woman and we even had A HOME VISIT and both my mother and my husband signed all the paperwork. And not just them, THE WORKER SIGNED IT ALL TOO in April. That was after she'd come to the house in March because she didn't "get the message" that my mom was in the hospital and we needed to reschedule her original visit. I'm absolutely baffled and have no idea where to go from here. I don't know if I should hire a lawyer or what. Obviously I don't have much trust in the county to put things right, but I do know that I've had a lot of pain and distress living across the street from the person that put their hands on my for no reason and I do know for sure that a portion of my not wanting to leave my "safe zone" is due to this.
Since I posted those horrible pictures of myself, I'm going to also post my birthday selfie so I don't feel so ugly, lol so here that is too.
So that's my story for today folks, you can't even make this shit up it's so ridiculous. until next time...
J
When we moved in, about a month later he had a hernia surgery (supposedly) and basically stopped doing any of the cleaning even though at that point we lived mostly upstairs and the baby was still small enough that he made very little mess anywhere. We didn't ask that he clean up after us at all, in fact we cleaned the house no problem, all we asked of him in return for the 93.3 hours a month he was being paid by Los Angeles county's In Home Support Services program was that he help her keep her room clean and that he transport her to all her doctors appointments and to the store when she asked him to. That equaled WELL under the 93.3 hours a month that he was being paid for, but she was terrified to fire him as he was the neighbor across the street and had told her on several occasions he had "gang connections" in the neighborhood. She was afraid it would make our living situation tense, and oh boy did it when the situation came to a head.
One day my husband asked him to give him a ride to the water company to make a payment so our water wouldn't get cut off. This was in December, after months of dealing with him being more and more rude and suspecting that he was skimming my mom's pain pills (which after he was gone miraculously she stopped running out) among other things he was helping himself to around the garage and the house. Anyway, we gave him $6 for gas and he flipped his shit on my husband and told him to handle his own damn business that that was chump change for the ride a mile up the road so that my husband didn't have to walk in the 40 degree weather. Um, part of his fucking JOB is to take my mom to pay her damn bills too, and he's flipping out telling us he needs at least $20 for the ride that we don't have to give him because literally ALL WE HAVE is the money for the water bill and that $6. My mom starts crying and tells him that she'll give him some money out of her next social security payment and my husband tells him to get the fuck out. On the way down the sidewalk, this man picks up a terra cotta planter and turns around to throw it at the house but fortunately he thought better of it when he realized my husband, mother and my teenage children were all standing there. About 5 minutes after we realize his time-sheet is on the mailbox and my mom doesn't want him to send it in and get paid since she just fired him and pulls it off the mailbox and comes in the house with it, calls her worker and leaves a message that she's fired him. This is on December 17, 2012.
This is where it gets really fun kids, so hold on to your hats. My mom, for reasons unknown, goes across the street (maybe to make peace, maybe to tell him he wasn't going to get paid, I don't know, she has no idea either). Now she's in this man's driveway with him. Keep in mind she's all of about 5 foot 4 and 145 pounds and has a colostomy bag and a bad back along with a failing mind so she's not the sturdiest of people , and this guy is not a tiny little man and is towering over her yelling at her. My daughter was in our driveway yelling at her to come the fuck home and she's just standing there. All I could think of to do was go get her. She's my mom, she was in danger so I went to her. I got out all of maybe 5 words before this mans girlfriend came rushing out of the house in her do-rag and housecoat and sucker-punched me as I was yelling what the fuck. I have a pacemaker. I went into a fetal position to cover it so I did not die. My husband had followed me out the door and handed our baby to my daughter and run across the street to pull the woman off of me but before he could the man grabbed him from behind and hit him in the forehead before my husband could get his footing in the mud and pin the asshole to the car this woman had given me a black eye, and scratches to my neck with her icky acrylic nails where she was trying to pull me out of the fetal position to beat my face some more. Keep in mind here this woman is a bit shorter than me but about 100 pounds heavier.
We did file a police report, but when the responding officer comes into your house and says verbatim "There's a winner and a loser to every fight ma'am, you're just the loser. Ask yourself this, if you were the winner would you still have called us?" Yes you asshole, I still would have called you. When we did FINALLY hear something back from the wonderful Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, we were informed that because it was filed as a mutual combat claim and we were on their property, should we choose to pursue any legal action, any action taken against them would also be taken against us. My health can be precarious, and I decided it wasn't worth it.
While he was working for my mother we had paid this jerk to put a new fuel pump in my van and it hasn't run since. I'm guessing he had something to do with that too.
IHSS is a pain in the ass to get paid from and I had worked for them from 2001 to 2006 when Max was born so we really thought nothing of it that it was taking months to get going with a paycheck, it really was no big deal at all that it was taking a few months. We had our home visit scheduled in March but my mom was in the hospital with a chest cold and we'd rescheduled for April. When the time came, the lady came to the house, my mom and my husband signed all the paperwork and we figured all was well. How do these tie into each other? Trust me, I'm getting there, it's been a long ride, but it's a great story. I've mentioned in a few posts that we barely get by, but we have made it with the help of some very generous friends and the kindness they have shown us. But we DO need this money. This is not a lot of money, but it is a paycheck that is needed for sure. When you do this job and you expect that it will take a while to get paid, but then you get a retroactive check and it's one lump sum that will help you pay off all the bills you've put off, or the people you've had to borrow from. Also, usually by the time you start getting paid, it's about the time you've worked long enough to qualify to be in the union so you've got union benefits after then too, which provides a healthcare package.
My husband has jumped through every hoop they've asked him to, and gone to every length imaginable to get the paperwork done. We also had to pay a $56 fee for a criminal background investigation that he had done and registered on the fourth of June. Out of pocket, there is no reimbursement for that. All of this, thinking that the CBI was the very last step and that within 2 weeks of that he'd have his time sheets to get paid. This is what we were told over and over. He waited the 2 weeks and then began to follow the chain of command and called every day, leaving messages for the people that were supposed to call him back to give him the information he needed.
He finally spoke to someone yesterday, July first. That man told him the county had gotten the results of the CBI on the fifth of June, the day after he'd done the check. Amazingly, today, we got the letter confirming he'd passed it, in the mail today and it was dated yesterday. So all day long he got on the phone to find out why he hadn't gotten his time sheets so that he can get a damn paycheck for waiting on my mom hand and foot. Unlike her previous worker, he's actually doing his job here.
Here's where the two stories tie into each other okay? During one of the numerous phone calls today my husband finds out that the man across the street has been collecting his paycheck from my mother steadily this entire time. I mean, this WHOLE TIME he's been getting his time sheets, filling them out like he was still working here, forging her signature on them, getting his deposits and spending MY HUSBANDS PAYCHECK. Since December, and the county never figured it out? They never noticed the forged signatures? They never noticed my husband was calling and calling and calling about the same woman and we even had A HOME VISIT and both my mother and my husband signed all the paperwork. And not just them, THE WORKER SIGNED IT ALL TOO in April. That was after she'd come to the house in March because she didn't "get the message" that my mom was in the hospital and we needed to reschedule her original visit. I'm absolutely baffled and have no idea where to go from here. I don't know if I should hire a lawyer or what. Obviously I don't have much trust in the county to put things right, but I do know that I've had a lot of pain and distress living across the street from the person that put their hands on my for no reason and I do know for sure that a portion of my not wanting to leave my "safe zone" is due to this.
Since I posted those horrible pictures of myself, I'm going to also post my birthday selfie so I don't feel so ugly, lol so here that is too.
So that's my story for today folks, you can't even make this shit up it's so ridiculous. until next time...
J
Comments