My mother (over 70) has my youngest brother living with her in a retirement home community.
He has a undiagnosed mental disability (or just lazy) and has not worked steadily in his entire adult life- my parents have always been there to save him from financial distress.
When our father died -the day of his passing my brother went into our father's bedroom room, threw all of our father's things to the side, moved in, and never left.
He does not contribute to my mother's limited income for which she has had to go out and seek part time work to compensate (I put money in her account bi-monthly) but it isn't enough for the food, electricity, and fines she accumulates from the retirement community fines for having a under 55 person living with her.
My brother openly violates the homeowner organization's rules with numerous cars he accumulates parked in front of her house, and when she is fined, he says it's not his problem.
He sleeps all day and stays up all night making noise and working on cars in her garage- he basically runs the house and has accumulated his junk everywhere.
He constantly starts home repairs and has disabled the bathroom and will not allow her to call a plumber nor have it rebuilt because of the damage he caused- she presently has to go to a public place down the street to use the bathroom.
She pays for a large storage bay that has his household things from his previous marriage in which he treated his wife in the same manner as he now treats our mother.
He belittles her with derogatory comments that she's losing her mind, and other public comments I won't post.
Recently, one of his two (under 12 years old) sons has moved in with them.
She is now raising his son, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes for the both of them, taking his son to school every morning, attending PTA meetings and other school functions with her grandchild- which my brother exploits at every chance- with no end in sight.
When she attempts to coax him to get out and get a place he yells at her and slams things around and she immediately backs down-a tactic he uses constantly to keep her in line- he constantly shouts about her place being a "ghetto."
She tries to get him to get on public assistance but he never makes the appointments- and when she tries to talk to him about it he starts yelling until she backs down.
When I challenge him on this he wants to fight and my mother starts crying and I back down- she says she doesn't want us to fight. (I live in another state)
He is the youngest son, and she feels it is her duty to look after him, and I'm at a loss on what to do!
If I report him it will cause great anguish to my mother if he is hauled away- and his son will probably be remanded to a foster home or with his mother far away in another state.
My mother has a heart condition and needs a calm life.
She doesn't want people to visit because the house is always a mess, and my brother tries to dominate any visitor.
She has told me all this personally, but is afraid of what my brother would do if he found out she told me.
I don't know what to do- my best hope is someone outside the circle will report her abuse and a DSHS or local police will investigate and take him out of there.
The abuse is obvious, and she has been conditioned to accept it- I can not.
Any suggestions on my next action?