{"id":691612,"date":"2026-06-08T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691612\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:22:08","slug":"our-neighbors-showed-us-something-disturbing-on-their-security-footage-my-wife-wants-to-ignore-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691612\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Neighbors Showed Us Something Disturbing on Their Security Footage. My Wife Wants to Ignore It."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here<\/a>. (It\u2019s anonymous!)<\/p>\n

Dear Pay Dirt,<\/p>\n

My wife and I are in our mid-50s, and we have two kids who are both now in college. Last week the neighbors asked to speak to my wife and me.\u00a0When we met with them, they showed us some shocking footage from their security cameras.<\/p>\n

The footage revealed my mother-in-law, \u201cGladys, \u201cpeering into their windows and trying the handle of their front door as well as her roaming through their backyard and trying to get in through their patio door. We were embarrassed as hell and apologized.<\/p>\n

Gladys is 80 and moved in with us a few months ago after she got priced out of her rental property.It\u2019s not working out to put it mildly.\u00a0Within a week of coming to live with us, Gladys decided that our neighbors\u2014the ones who eventually showed us the footage\u2014were spying on her and had bugged our phones to keep tabs on her.\u00a0The neighbors have never even met my mother-in-law. Plus, they are frequently absent, as they run their own business and travel to see clients. When we spoke to Gladys about what the neighbors showed us, she asserted that she was looking for \u201cevidence\u201d and accused us of being \u201con their side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that evening, I told my wife we needed to get her mother screened for dementia and to look into a care facility for her.\u00a0My wife thinks we just need to keep a closer eye on her and install some of those alarms that go off when a door inside a house is opened so we\u2019ll know if she tries to leave.\u00a0What can I do to convince her that her mother\u2019s issues are beyond our ability to deal with?<\/p>\n

\u2014Dementia Doesn\u2019t Get Better<\/p>\n

Dear Dementia Doesn\u2019t Get Better,<\/p>\n

You already sense what\u2019s happening here, and your instincts are likely correct. What you\u2019re describing\u2014paranoid delusions about neighbors spying, bugged phones, gathering \u201cevidence,\u201d accusing you of being complicit\u2014are classic symptoms of cognitive decline. This is not a behavior problem. This is a medical situation that needs immediate attention.<\/p>\n

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I do want to call out the possibility it may not be dementia. Sudden paranoid behavior in the elderly can also be caused by a urinary tract infection, medication side effects, vitamin deficiencies , delirium triggered by an underlying illness, or depression. The good news is that some of these causes are entirely reversible if caught early. That\u2019s all the more reason to get Gladys evaluated immediately rather than waiting\u2014early intervention could preserve cognitive function she still has, or even reverse what\u2019s happening entirely.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to your wife\u2019s solution: door alarms are not a solution. They\u2019re at best a bandaid, a way of managing symptoms of something that will only progress without proper diagnosis and care. Think about it: Within weeks of moving in Gladys was trespassing on your neighbors\u2019 property. That\u2019s not something a door chime fixes.<\/p>\n

I feel for your wife. Watching a parent decline is devastating, and denial is a natural response. But the kindest thing you can do for Gladys right now is get her in front of a geriatric psychiatrist or neurologist for a formal evaluation. Frame it to your wife not as giving up, but as getting her mother the right help so you can give her the best quality of life possible.
Start educating yourselves. Alzheimers.gov<\/a> has excellent resources for families, as does the Alzheimer\u2019s Foundation of America<\/a> and AARP\u2019s Dementia Resource Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One more thing worth saying gently: Your neighbors were remarkably understanding. That grace has a limit.<\/p>\n

\u2014Ilyce<\/p>\n

Classic Prudie<\/p>\n

My fianc\u00e9e and I are getting married this summer and have a wedding budget of $30,000 for 175 guests, which is below average for our state (and we live in the largest metropolitan area). My father is a stingy multimillionaire who has refused to provide more than $7,500 because he thinks, on principle, that each parent should pay for a quarter of the wedding.<\/a><\/p>\n

Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3005,97,147,3007,6843],"class_list":["post-691612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-advice","tag-health","tag-personal-finance","tag-relationships","tag-slate-plus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}