Am I Wrong to Ditch Dad if His House Is Threatening My Health?

I recently moved into my father’s house to help him pay bills. He claimed that the pandemic affected his finances.

For about 15 years, our relationship was strained because of his second wife. I rarely visited until after she passed away and knew nothing about the state of the house, which looks fine at first glance. After moving myself and my children in, I found that my father did no maintenance to the house and it’s essentially a money pit at this point.

I am a disabled veteran and a single mom, and my income comes entirely from my benefits. I had to spend my savings on extremely necessary repairs to make the house livable. To top it off, my stepmother was a hoarder who stuffed every crack, crevice and crawl space with items that she was going to use to move back to her country after he died.

My father is extremely territorial and opposes any change I try to make to the house while insisting this is my home and my “legacy.” He refuses to discuss his finances with me and will act confused or just shut down when I try to figure out how to get him out of the hole he dug for himself. I suspect he thought once he got me here I would just take care of him, but this house and neighborhood is bad for my health and awful for children.

I want to leave, but I don’t want to leave him here to rot. He won’t even talk to me about moving to a smaller place. I can’t afford to pay for him to stay here if I move out. I can’t stay because the stress and poor living conditions are affecting my already poor health.

-Parent Problems