CAREGIVING GONE WRONG

Mom’s Caretaker Went Insane — I Was Naive and I Admit It

Police were called, a SWAT unit arrived, and mom was inside watching The Price is Right

She was a lunatic and I didn’t know it.

I was at home. My mom’s neighbor called and told me her house was surrounded by a SWAT team and I should get over there ASAP.

Mom’s caretaker had called the cops and told them I was holding her and my mother hostage. And, that I had a gun.

I frantically called “Barbra,” the lady who was staying the evening with mom because I’d finally fired the caregiver who’d spent the last few weeks making my life a living hell.

How it all started

I’d hired “Gloria” based on my interview with her. She seemed intelligent, compassionate and spoke earnestly about her love for the elderly. How she enjoyed being around them, playing Scrabble, and offering companionship.

Her resume said she was a registered CNA, and she showed me a copy of her license. Although I called a few of her references, I could only get in touch with two of the four she listed. One of the numbers was disconnected, and the other never responded to my messages.

Two of her references verified her employment, but their comments were guarded. They used words like “pleasant,” “always on time,” and “friendly.”

I’m sure they were aware of various employment laws regarding reference checking, and that if broken, can open people up to lawsuits. For that reason, I wasn’t worried by the lack of bubbly or enthusiastic praise.

However, I noticed a few discrepancies.

Her last name was different from the one on her CNA registration. Gloria looked down, as if embarrassed, and said she’d taken back her maiden name after divorcing her abusive, alcoholic husband.

That information sparked some worry — did this man live here in Memphis? Would he try to track her down at my mother’s house?

Gloria would be living with my mom 24–7. I didn’t want left-over domestic complications disturbing my frail 88-year mom who was suffering from mild dementia.

She alerted on my concern. She raised her chin and said gently, “I probably shouldn’t say this — but George died in a car accident last year.”

I was torn between saying I’m sorry to hear that, but in reality, I was secretly glad. I wondered why she said: “I probably shouldn’t say this.”

I didn’t know at the time how expertly she could fabricate stories on the spot.

She quickly assumed a placid, gentle expression — radiating the strength of a woman who’s been through a lot but has persevered and is now in control of her life.

She then launched into a slightly disjointed story of how she’d cared for her own mother — who also had dementia. She also took care of her grandparents.

Then she added that she also cared for her elderly aunt and her uncle on her mother’s side. She took care of all of them while earning her CNA training.

This alone should have shot up red flags with neon signs, and arrows pointing at them. That’s a lot of caretaking!

But I was terribly naive. Gloria’s warmth, her humility, and genuineness had already won me over.

I asked why she’d never worked at a senior facility or a hospital. Not that it mattered at this point.

Oh, private care was all she ever wanted to do. She loved being able to care for a single patient — but sometimes a married couple — in their own homes.

She enjoyed the one-on-one relationships instead of floors of people who she’d never really get to know. She much preferred live-in work.

I totally bought her story. I was inexperienced in the ways of people who are professional liars, scammers, phonies — cunning people intent on creating havoc.

The unraveling

Gloria lasted three weeks.

I lived close to mom, running my small data research company from my home, just a ten-minute drive. I breathed a sigh of relief because I could finally get back to taking care of my clients, and mom would be in good hands.

I planned on dropping by every few days, with longer visits on weekends, giving Gloria free time to herself.

From the first day, I was not only having to run back to mom’s daily but sometimes twice, or even three times.

Incredibly, things began breaking down immediately. Figuratively and literally.

The dishwasher stopped working, the disposal became irretrievably clogged, and the washing machine broke down.

She was confounded by almost every appliance. She couldn’t figure out the cycles on the dryer, or how the thermostat worked. Was the hot water handle on the bathtub on the right or the left?

Mind you, we’d spent a half-day walking through all of this stuff, and Gloria poohed-poohed it all. “Well, Miss Camp, I’m sure I know how to use all these appliances — I didn’t grow up in a shack, you know!”

In between her constant texts, phone calls and my having to drive over to solve yet another problem, hospice workers were also in and out, as well as home health nurses.

It was a three-ring circus, and Gloria was the ringmaster.

We finally had to have a sit-down. I explained to her I couldn’t keep this up. That the whole point of having her live with mom was to free me up so I could work — to make a living, just like she was.

Gloria was being paid well in addition to her free room and board, meals, and transportation.

Increasingly her texts became whinier, and frankly, weirder. She’d not been happy when I’d gently reprimanded about the overflow of trash in the kitchen bin.

Dishes were piling up in the sink, and onto the counters. Food was left out in the open, attracting flies. I noticed bugs crawling on the counter, a problem we’d never had previously.

A housekeeper came in every other week to scrub the bathrooms, vacuum, and clean the floors, but my agreement with Gloria was that she would keep things as tidy as she could in between her visits.

You know, Gloria, just like you do in your own home, I’d told her.

Parting ways

Things deteriorated rapidly and I finally made the decision to let her go. In a way, I hated doing it because mom really like her. She said they spent their days playing games, watching TV, and conjuring up ideas about starting a business together.

I was glad to hear mom was being entertained, but it was Gloria’s state of mind that was worrying me.

I didn’t mind a little untidiness, but I wasn’t going to stand for the kind of filth that was building up daily, despite my reminders to please take care of simple things — like taking out the trash and cleaning the kitchen counters.

I wasn’t clear on why basic hygiene was so repugnant to her. Everything I was asking her to do had been discussed in great detail before I hired her. And she was being paid extra to perform simple household tasks.

When I came over to let Gloria go, I asked her to go ahead and pack her bags. I wrote her a check and gave her two extra weeks of pay. She immediately claimed her firing was illegal and that I actually owed her a month’s pay.

That was incorrect. We had a signed agreement, which I reminded her of. She informed me she would contact “her” attorney.

By this time I was pretty exasperated. Knock yourself out, I told her.

I called another caregiver, Barbra, who agreed to step in until I could hire someone new. Unfortunately, she was unable to be a full-time, live-in caretaker, but she was available for temporary assignments.

The day after she left, Gloria began sending me bizarre texts and threatening phone messages.

I knew she had no legal standing, and by that time I’d learned from mom Gloria had been quietly removing things from the house since the first week she’d arrived.

Knowing mom had dementia I was skeptical. But sure enough, the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom items she mentioned were all gone.

They weren’t expensive or valuable, just utilitarian things like blankets, sheets, towels, a mixer, some books, a small lamp from upstairs, and more.

“Mom, why didn’t you tell me Gloria was stealing stuff?”

She’d replied simply, “Honey, she told me you wanted her to have those things.”

It got even weirder

I was back to interviewing caregivers again.

Barbra called me three days after Gloria left and asked me to come take a look at something she’d found.

There was a spiral notebook in mom’s bedroom on the dresser next to a box of Kleenex. With all the confusion going on, I hadn’t noticed it. Barbra discovered the notebook while dusting.

On the front of the notebook, Gloria wrote: “Property of Deborah Camp — Without Permission of the Family. DO NOT TOUCH.”

There were pages of gibberish. It reminded me of The Shining, where Jack Nicholson’s supposed “novel” was discovered. There was no novel, just the word MURDER written over and over. Or, was it RED RUM?

In this case, there were scribbled pages describing her interactions with my mother. It was chilling to read how she’d quickly grown impatient with her. She wrote meticulously about mom’s medications — her pain meds — when she gave them, and what? When she withheld them.

I was getting sick to my stomach.

I put the notebook in my bag and did another quick inventory of things around the house. Was any of her jewelry missing? What about clothes?

I wanted to start building a case against her.

The stream-of-thought scribbles were clearly meant for me to see. I didn’t know how much of this stuff was real or how much was just intended to upset me.

I left for the evening and advised Barbra to not let Gloria in, for any reason, in case she decided to drop by. Don’t worry about that, Barbra told me. She sure wasn’t gonna let that nut-case in!

The SWOT team arrives

Saturday morning around 9:00 am Barbra called.

“Deborah, the police are here at the house. There’s six cop cars — it’s a SWOT team.” She was breathing heavy, and I could hear mom in the background talking to some man.

“There’s like a dozen cops. They’ve got guns!”

“What the hell is going on? I’m on my way…..”

When I pulled up I was met by a stern looking officer who demanded my identification. By now, a few neighbors wandered outside but stayed on their property.

“Where’s my mother? Is she OK?”

The officer escorted me to the porch where Barbra was leaning on the outside rail, and mom was peeking from the window. Barbra said she’d been drinking coffee and watching a re-run of The Price is Right.

Here was the story.

Gloria X had called 911 that morning at 8:30 am. She reported Deborah Camp was holding her hostage, along with my mother, at mom’s address on Thornbriar.

And, she told them I was armed.

When the police arrived Barbra answered the door and was shocked to learn of Gloria’s phone call. She explained that Gloria had been fired and that she was the new temporary caregiver.

Despite Barbra’s account, mom’s house was flooded by the SWOT team. They searched every room and closet. They circulated through the fenced back yard, and into the tool shed.

Barbra said one officer stood under the massive oak tree in the back and stared up into the limbs, as if someone might have scrambled up there to hide.

I was laughing a little nervously by then. “Did they look under the bed and in the showers?”

“Probably.” Barbara too had begun to chuckle, just to break the tension.

“Well, I guess this is a new experience you can add to your resume. ‘Able to deal with SWOT teams during a fake kidnapping’.”

Once I was satisfied mom was alright, I picked up my keys to leave.

“Barbra, are you OK, too? I’m so sorry this happened.”

“No, I’m fine. I really am. My nephew’s a policeman — I’ve heard all kinds of stories. I can’t wait to tell him this one.”

I hoped the officer I spoke with was going to try to round up Gloria. Surely there are laws against this kind of thing.

I couldn’t wait to get home and make some coffee. Maybe I should make a drink instead.

The SWOT team arrives, part II

The next morning — Sunday — at 10:15 am, Barbra called.

“They’re here again!” she cried.

“What the ever loving fuck?”

This time there were just two cars and four officers.

Same drill. Different officer. I showed him my license, my handbag (no gun) and asked him if he knew about yesterday’s call.

He did know about it but they were hoping that Gloria would be here herself this time. I guess they were going to arrest her.

He walked to his vehicle and made a phone call. When he returned he told us they were leaving.

Wait a minute, I had questions.

“What are y’all going to do if she calls again tomorrow? This is absurd!”

“I guess we’ll have to come back out,” he replied. But I could see his heart wasn’t in it.

Hoping to build on that sentiment, I added, “This has been extremely stressful on my 88-year-old mother. I mean, just imagine. What if this happened to your mother? What would you do about it?”

He didn’t know, but he said that when he called a moment ago he learned the Memphis Police Department had issued a warrant for her arrest.

He advised us to take extreme caution, to watch our backs, and to not let her in mom’s home under any circumstances.

“Don’t worry about that,” I replied.

My brother-in-law runs a criminal background check

My sister and brother-in-law live in a different state, but by Sunday afternoon I was on the phone asking if Richie could pull up information on Gloria X. This was something I should have done in the first place.

Two hours later he called back. Yup — there was a lot of info on this character. A string of social security numbers associated with her name. Plenty of address changes, variations of her name, and criminal records on both of her adult sons.

On Gloria herself, charges of forgery, theft of property, and a few other misdemeanors.

Boy, I’d hit the trifecta with this one.

As far as I know, the police didn’t catch up with her. At least my brother-in-law couldn’t find any evidence of her being recently arrested.

Amazingly there were no attempted charges on her credit cards either. Stupidly, it took me a week to remember I needed to dig around for her old cards and cancel all of them.

We never heard from her again.

Barbra hung in there for another two weeks, and I finally found a wonderful woman — a God Send — who was fully vetted, and remained with mom for several months until it was determined she needed the critical care that only a good nursing home can provide.

And then . . .

And then one day, about six months later, I received in the mail communication from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, documenting Gloria’s attempt to collect money based on unfair termination, racial discrimination, and a host of other fanciful charges.

Her allegations were pages of mumbo jumbo stuff sounding much like the ramblings in that notebook.

At first glance, I was afraid I was going to have to defend some sort of crazy lawsuit filed by this woman.

But as I thumbed through it I read she’d been denied, denied, denied based on. . . Well, based on the fact she presented no proof whatsoever.

I imagined those poor folks at the EEOC were probably just as tired of her as I was. And oh yeah, I also got a few letters a week or two later from some unheard-of law office.

The letter was so amateurish I had to believe someone simply sat down with a Word Document and made up the whole thing.

How many attorneys do you know who don’t list a phone number, and only have a Post Office address? An address where I could have written and mailed a check for $7,528.25.

I know you’re laughing by now. I’m laughing again just thinking about it.

Final Takeaways

This part is serious.

Please don’t make the dumb and naive mistakes I made when it comes to hiring a caretaker for one of your loved ones.

Even though all this happened over twenty years ago, I should not have been so trusting. I should have done a background check through a reputable firm.

State laws differ on background checks, and some states have specific laws regarding CNAs and other home health care employees.

My advice is to never hire hastily, and no matter how good the person you’re interviewing looks on paper or in person, never offer them a contract of employment until they’re thoroughly vetted.

Your loved ones are too important to not ensure their care on every front.

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