The Independent Living Facility

Joseph

I toured The Independent Living Facility and it seems like the rooms were very clean and you could get them either furnished or unfurnished. They come in and clean the floors, the countertops, and the bedding. I'm going to use their bed when I move because I can't get mine out of my basement. They keep it very well-decorated outside. It had lots of flowers and a porch out front. You can eat there as well during summer. They serve dinners and stuff out there. They're within a couple of hundred feet from car shows and stuff that happened on the town field, so you'll be able to see the fireworks from there instead of having to find a parking spot. Most of us can't drive. The one I met there was Becky. She runs it and I think she owns it too. They have a regular dining area, a normal room with a long table that sits probably 6 or 8, and she has the outside one too. She'll make whatever you want. She was making, I think it was spaghetti and chicken parmesan when I was there. They had a guy that has Alzheimer's or beginning stages of it, and he was in a separate room all by himself with his aide because he said it gets too noisy. The outside could use a little paint job, but other than that, the inside was nice and she got it well-kept. They had some activities too. They've got 2 computers that you can use with Wi-Fi. I don't know if they have movies, but I think they do have bingo. You're not that far from town either. Down the street, you've got a hardware store, and a pizza joint, and if you go down a different street, you can come out where the grocery market is. There's another pizza joint and you can get dental done right there too so everything's within walking distance.

Debbie

My mother has been in The Independent Living Facility. It's basically a boarding house with independent living. It's not senior assisted living or anything like that, and it really works for her. They're licensed to have up to six people and they currently have three. It's a wonderful place. They cook her meals every day and do her laundry and cleaning. They each have their own bedroom and bath, and they share the rest of the house together. My mother loves it there. She's thriving, and she's doing better there than she has in the assisted living because she has a little bit more independence. They have homemade food, and they care for her that way. They take her diabetes into consideration when they're cooking, but they're not designed to have specific food for different people. Because it's such a smaller community, it works for her. It's very affordable, too. It takes away that hardship that we were having with some of these places being just out of control expensive. It's run by an individual who has a couple of people that come in and cover for her. It's like an old farmhouse that was renovated into this facility. It's very cozy and homey, and the people are wonderful. They're very good cooks, and they're a good company for her. It's an older place, but it's very homey. It's not something somebody who's used to lavish lifestyle would like. It reminds me of the house my mother used to live in. It's got wallpaper on the walls, and the bathrooms are a little small, but it's very doable. Because it's independent living they don't necessarily have a staff that does activities, but certainly they try and accommodate the people that like certain things. There's a woman that really likes to make puzzles, so they have puzzles, but they don't have structured activities. Because of COVID, they don't have a lot going on. The owner has a relationship with the people in Pepperell at the Senior Center, and they would normally come and pick up people and bring them to the Senior Center. They could go walking, and they're not tied to the same schedules. It's not as institutionalized as a lot of these other places are. We're paying half of what we would've been paying at the other place, and we're certainly getting better service. There are a lot of activities in the area. It's walking distance to some shopping, but Mom is not capable of that. She would need someone to transport her and they would do that at the Senior Center. For somebody who didn't really need a whole lot of care, but needed to be in a situation like that, I would definitely give that information to people, because it's a wonderful value.