The Fantasy vs The Nightmare

Here was the fantasy:

Sister in law Sonya (SIL) would care for Mom (my mother in law) over in California and DH would offer moral support back on the east coast. Mom was living in a care facility, her 3rd one since she and her 2nd husband (not SIL or DH's dad) sold the house where DH & SIL grew up. By this last care facility, her husband died and SIL was complaining the facility nickeled and dimed Mom and she could care for Mom better and cheaper.

We were in CA to see Mom and SIL had us as witnesses as she became the Power of Attorney and other things for Mom. We all thought the general idea was great, it would be an opportunity for for SIL and Mom to reconnect (2nd hubby made their relationship difficult, he'd threatened to shoot her) and maybe save some money. Because of the 2 minor grandkids SIL used Mom's money to rent a 3bdrm house in a nice neighborhood. SIL's plan was to take care of all of Mom's needs, raise the kids, and maybe set up a small business to help support Mom.

The fantasy lasted, oh six months. Then about 3 months later became a nightmare, and Mom despite mobility issues, ran away. No one knows how she managed that.

Between the fantasy and the nightmare:

Caring for old people is hard. Being in the middle of child care and senior care is harder. Throw on trying to start up a business and apparently not having a single brain cell for legit business is another thing altogether. Add to it self control issues on the part of the care taker and there is a disaster waiting to happen.
I'm going to try to be nice, but this is the view from the east coast. SIL did not have the personality, nor the head to care for Mom or her finances for any length of time. If SIL did manage to start a business I doubt it would have lasted very long before declaring bankruptcy. Her work life were a lot of side gigs and working for someone for a year or less. The medical marijuana probably didn't help, well it helped confirm my belief it is a drug for people who don't plan on accomplishing anything. Oh and then there was the new boyfriend who moved in. Yeah.
Oh and then there was the incident involving SIL and her son. Let's just say the home care aide for Mom ran away and never returned.

By December full nightmare was reached. SIL completely failed with her brick & mortar business idea. SIL has no job. SIL has a deadbeat live in boyfriend in the same house as Mom and maybe the kids. There is some child custody something or other going on between SIL and her ex. Mom has called DH to ask him to get her out of there. Probably knowing DH is not going to anything, Mom runs away, enter Adult Protective Services.  Oh, and SIL boyfriend punches her in the face.

In January DH starts getting calls from Adult Protective Services (APS), asking questions at first. Later they began making accusations against SIL, saying she was spending all of Mom's money and wasn't helping their mom. In the new year, there was still 3-4 months left on the lease on the house where SIL was to care for Mom. SIL was living in the house, Mom wasn't. By late March APS were calling DH every other day with accusations and demands that he do something. And thus began our nightmare of trying to care for Mom, on the other side of the country with little or no legal recognition or real assistance to do the things that need to be done.