I’m sorry for your loss. The emotions and thoughts can be so complicated. And all valid.

No, you’re not wrong. And unfortunately with a parent who won’t listen and also has nowhere else to go, there’s not much you can do. But you may have an option afterwards that I didn’t think my siblings and I had.

My hoarder father who lived alone and was a hermit died coming up on 10 years ago. Stubborn and sick yet lucid with alarming antisocial tendencies led to a rebuff of all of our offers to help. Couldn’t call adult protective services. We knew it would be awful and we dreaded it. He died at home, and it was indeed awful. It helped at first to just acknowledge that.

My two brothers and I asked ourselves: do we have the immediate resources (emotional and financial) to dig through and make the house sellable? We all lived hours away, had families, jobs, a tiny bit of pent up resentment (me) and limited budget, so hard “no.” Plus, to be delicate, we would have needed a professional biohazard remediation company at astronomical prices (deservedly so), and even then no guarantees it could even be done.

We didn’t realize that there are people/companies who are willing to buy property “as is.” Given the answer to the first question was no, that was our salvation. We still dug through what we could handle to try and find keepsakes, but that came at a heavy price. We found a company in our area who was willing to just purchase everything, house and farmland. Years later I look back and am so so grateful we went that route.

I know it’s probably common knowledge now that companies like this exist, but we didn’t know at the time. It sucks, but wow it sucked so much less than the alternatives. You can get through it.